UEFA to get Commission red card over TV rights

Date: 02/07/1998

By Chris Johnstone

EUROPEAN football's governing body UEFA is set to receive the equivalent of a red card from competition officials over its monopoly on broadcasting rights for European club matches.

Competition Commissioner Karel van Miert's officials have drawn up a statement of objections attacking UEFA's sole authority over negotiating lucrative television rights.

A victory for the Commission would open the way for individual clubs to negotiate deals with broadcasters - a move likely to favour high-earning clubs such as Manchester United, Juventus and Ajax of Amsterdam.

A similar challenge was mounted by the German competition office to its football association's power to negotiate broadcasting rights for individual club games, but was torpedoed by a change in national law excluding sporting events from the scope of competition legislation. This new law is also likely to be challenged by Van Miert.

Meanwhile, pressure is mounting on the Commission to tackle football's international governing body over its refusal to give non-EU players the same rights as their Union counterparts.

The issue has been raised again by Italian club Perugia's challenge to FIFA demands that it pay a fee to top-flight Swiss club Grasshoppers of Zurich for the transfer of Italo-Swiss player Massimo Lombardo in June 1997. Perugia originally paid nothing for signing Lombardo, but FIFA says that the club should hand over around 3 million ecu since the Bosman ruling allowing free movement for players once their contract has ended does not apply to non-EU footballers.

The Commission has been pressing FIFA to change its rules and take on board the Bosman ruling for all transfers. Officials argue that they have a right to act against the FIFA rules because they have an impact on EU trade.

"The Perugia case shows that FIFA is persisting with its non-compliance with the Bosman ruling," said Jean-Louis Dupont, the lawyer who helped Belgian footballer Jean-Marc Bosman successfully to challenge football's establishment.

Similar issues were raised by the high-profile transfer of Brazilian World Cup star Ronaldo from Barcelona to Inter Milan.

FIFA intervened in the dispute between the two over compensation, calling on Inter to top up its original payment of around 25 billion ecu to free Ronaldo from his contract with an additional 1.6 million ecu.

Van Miert is also being urged to investigate UEFA's new rules banning football clubs with the same owner from playing against each other in European competitions.

The rules would hit companies such as the English National Investment Company (ENIC), which has stakes in Italian club Vicenza, Czech side Slavia Prague, AEK Athens and Glasgow Rangers. ENIC says the UEFA rules break EU laws.

Past comments suggest, however, that Van Miert's officials are unlikely to take up ENIC's invitation to intervene.

They have been calling from the sidelines for UEFA to act to ensure that matches between clubs which share the same owner are not rigged.