Reding promotes sports to EU policy premier league

Date: 25/11/1999

By Peter Chapman

CULTURE Commissioner Viviane Reding will unveil plans next week to bring European sport out of the EU policy backwaters.

In a wide-ranging report to be presented to Union leaders at their summit in Helsinki next month, she will highlight a growing list of sports issues ranging from the impact of the European Court of Justice's landmark ruling on football in the Bosman case to television rights and doping. She will also call for EU funds to be provided for sports projects.

"What the report will be asking for is a political signal from member states about what the position on sports should be," said a Commission source.

Reding's report will address the issues raised by the ECJ's 1995 ruling in the Bosman case that players can move freely from club to club when their contracts expire, which has prompted complaints that the sport's long-term future could be put in jeopardy because clubs cannot get an adequate return on their investment in potential star players of the future.

But officials say the paper will focus mainly on the positive effects of participation in grass-roots level sport and demonstrate how sports projects can improve existing EU-funded programmes aimed at promoting European citizens' health and mobility. "For us it is not just about the top level. That is closer to show business," said one.

The paper, however, will stop short of calling for a new article to be added to the EU treaty giving the Commission a firmer legal basis to intervene in sports issues, even though officials admit it would make their job easier.

"It is not in our mandate to argue the case - that is for member states to say," insisted one, who said EU leaders could instead issue a declaration calling on the Commission to take sport into account when formulating policies.

Reding's report will also disappoint sports associations and television companies which are calling for the collective sale of broadcasting rights for sport events to be exempted from normal EU competition rules.

Insiders say the debate "has not moved on" since former Competition Commissioner Karel van Miert and former Audio-visual Commissioner Marcelino Oreja declared that television deals lasting more than one year would be subjected to rigorous scrutiny by competition officials.

Reding's report, which will be discussed by the full Commission next Wednesday (1 December), comes in the wake of Commission President Romano Prodi's pledge to make sports policy a priority during his stint at the helm of the institution.

Since Prodi has been in office, the Commission has stepped up its efforts to fight drug abuse in sport and has announced that it intends to participate in a global doping watchdog being established by the International Olympic Committee.

Culture Commissioner Viviane Reding is to unveil plans to bring European sport out of the EU policy backwaters. In a wide-ranging report to be presented to Union leaders at their summit in Helsinki, December 1999, she will highlight a growing list of sports issues ranging from the impact of the ECJ's landmark ruling on football in the Bosman case to television rights and doping. She will also call for EU funds to be provided for sports projects.