Beautiful game has turned ugly and it’s all Bosman’s fault, says UEFA boss

Date: 04/12/03

UEFA chief Gerhard Aigner and Thomas Kurth of G14, the breakaway group of top European football clubs, pull no punches. Peter Chapman reports

GERHARD Aigner, the chief executive of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), has a stark message to the millions of fans frustrated at the way the money men have disfigured the game they love: go and watch rugby union.

Aigner, who leaves UEFA at the end of the month after 35 years, says the contrast between football and the "other" game, enjoying a surge in popularity after November's captivating World Cup in Australia, is now a sobering, and depressing one.

"As long as we have our hands tied against commercial excesses then we are sitting watching our game going down the drain," the German candidly admits.

"The advice I would give to rugby is "stay as you are - you are in a much healthier state"," he said. "It has strict rules, it has discipline, it has got order and the commercial side has not taken over. I hope it can stay protected from that."

So what is wrong with football? The catalyst for the game's decline, in Aigner's eyes, was the 1995 landmark Bosman ruling, named after Belgian footballer Jean-Marc Bosman, who appealed to the European Court of Justice when his club, FC Liège, refused to release him from his contract to play for French side Dunkirk.

"The Bosman ruling was the worst thing that ever happened to football," laments Aigner. "He was not one of the top players. In many clubs, players like him are now fighting for their survival. These are his colleagues - they have no security any more."

True, the Court agreed that clubs could not restrain players' rights to ply their trade. But the ruling had a vicious downside for all but the top international stars and the elite clubs they play for.

The freedom of movement means top players can move at will, with little respect for newly signed contracts.

Hordes of lesser local players, even internationals, find themselves left on the scrap-heap. Teams in once-proud footballing nations, such as Sweden, also feel the pinch, as ever younger stars are poached by the rich English, Spanish or Italian giants.

That makes football less competitive in other countries, and reduces the incentive for clubs to develop players.

And top teams, such as Chelsea, can fill their ranks with international stars plucked from across the continent and beyond at the stroke of a pen.

Crucially, says Aigner, the rapid movement of players - and the abject lack of respect for contracts - breaks the vital link between players and their fans that ultimately feeds the game.

"You can buy in players and have instant success. Chelsea is an example. But this is not what the football fans believe in. You have players signing a contract and then six weeks later they renegotiate because someone else will pay more. Where is the relationship between club, players and fans?"

The UEFA chief says the Bosman ruling also led to the formation of the G14 group of top clubs - which he believes epitomizes the parlous state of the game. He says the G14 is vehemently opposed to UEFA's aims of spreading football's money between clubs to help preserve the competition and upsets that thrill supporters, and helping the game's grass roots.

"They want to use their financial power for themselves - anything going in the direction of levelling out is not in their interests. It is a cynical thing that the strongest clubs need to join up to combine their interests against everyone else who is much weaker.

"It is a club in a club. No one knows where their joint interest stops - and in sport that can be fatal. You need to be sure there is neutrality and objectivity and that there is a controlling body that is in the interests of everybody."

So, does that mean G14 is a cartel - or one in the making?

"That would be difficult, but what is sure, they monopolize the best players to monopolize success. And within the G14 you have the larger clubs depriving other members of G14 of their best players."

Another risk factor driving the game's decline is the erosion of the powers of leagues and bodies such as UEFA to redistribute cash from TV rights.

Collective selling deals have now become a target of competition authorities, such as the European Commission.

Thus is led in part by a desire for competition between the different platforms and broadcasters - witness the Commission's ongoing concerns that Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB bagged all the live rights for English Premier League matches.

Competition authorities also want to grant the biggest teams at least some freedom to exploit their brands by striking their own individual rights deals.

Aigner refuses to attack the Commission for forcing some changes to the way UEFA hived-off TV rights for the Champions' League. Just as it took football a few years to appreciate the impact of Bosman, he says it is too early to judge the impact of that decision.

But he sees a downside to the liberalization drive.

"When TV decreases its offer to football, as now, it doesn't lower its offer to the best teams. It does it to those who need the money the most. That is when the crisis starts."

Ongoing discussions on a new constitution for the EU offer the best chance for football's governing bodies to stem the tide.

Aigner says this is not by giving them carte blanche to ignore competition rules, but by insisting that there is at least a mention of the "specificity of sport" in the constitutional treaty. These words, in the current text, would at least give sports bodies a legal prop against the challenges they now face.

Meanwhile, he accuses G14 of trying to derail the treaty bid by a "shortsighted denial of the sui-generis nature of sport".

Thomas Kurth, general-manager of the G14, which represents the elite clubs in Europe, laughs off Aigner's comments, dismissing UEFA as "an organization no longer up to date with reality".

In an equally blunt interview, he unashamedly agrees that money has taken over the top levels of the game.

"The clubs are run like businesses," says Kurth, who worked for UEFA "before seeing the light".

He rejected the notion that the mission of governing bodies, such as UEFA, is to intervene to make sure every club, big and small, has a chance to win the top cups.

"If you think that football should make it possible for a team from Iceland to win the Champions' League, and that everything is made possible for this to happen, then we would have difficulties. You have to be realistic it is ever more difficult for modest teams to come top."

Swiss-born Kurth insists it is only proper that football's wealth-creators should have a fairer deal from bureaucrats whom he claims are free riders, milking the game without risking their own money.

"The clubs want to know what the rules are - and they want to know that the rules by which they are governed are the ordinary laws known to everybody in business.

"In football, that is not the case - as there is a governing body that decides without proper consultation. The governing bodies are running the game without being in line with the law," he adds.

EU foreign ministers debated the new treaty at Naples over the weekend, and both UEFA and G14 say they can live with the latest text, likely to be decided at the Brussels summit on 12-13 December.

But Kurth warns against any last-minute changes that hand the likes of UEFA more powers in the treaty which he says could lead to even worse abuses.

For example the football bodies would "love" to turn back the clock to impose restrictions on the numbers of foreign players that teams can play.

He insists that "no exemptions should be granted to them [UEFA et al] in a way that goes beyond the purely sporting framework, such as the laws of the game".

A case in point is G14's ongoing battle with football's world governing body FIFA and national associations to make sure that clubs get a fair return for their players' participation in international games. Right now the onus is on negotiation. But Kurth says clubs will not hesitate to take matters to Competition Commissioner Mario Monti if the talks fail to yield results.

Long before G14, the legendary Liverpool coach Bill Shankly said: "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death...I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."

Religious leaders in the city (which boasts two cathedrals as well as football teams) were outraged by Shankly's flippancy.

If, in the early 21st century, money is indeed all that matters in the beautiful game, Shankly's words sound even more shallow.

Gerhard Aigner, Chief Executive of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) believes the so-called Bosman ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) was the worst thing that ever happened to football. Jean-Marc Bosman appealed to the ECJ when his club refused to release him from his contract to play for another side. Freedom of movement means top players can change clubs, regardless of contractual obligations.