| Author (Person) | Taylor, Simon |
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| Series Title | European Voice |
| Series Details | Vol.12, No.23, 15.6.06 |
| Publication Date | 15/06/2006 |
| Content Type | News |
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Date: 15/06/06 The game of football has seen an enormous economic transformation in the last twenty years. The top clubs in Europe each earn anything up to EUR 200 million annually in ticket and merchandising sales and fees for broad-casting rights. The single biggest legal ruling to transform the European football landscape was undoubtedly the European Court of Justice judgment in favour of Belgian second division player Jean-Marc Bosman in 1995. The court found that clubs could not prevent players moving to other clubs when their contract expired (see right). Ten years later a ruling which was meant to give players more freedom from clubs has, some believe, contributed to the escalation of clubs' wages bills and the proliferation of agents skimming off fortunes in the transfer markets. The application of EU laws designed to foster competition and create a single market has led to calls for special exemptions for football from some key parts of European Union legislation. In May, UEFA, the European Football Associations' Union, presented the European Commission and national governments with a review of football and other sports. The review, which was chaired by former Portuguese minister Jos�uis Arnaut, was prompted in part by a wave of scandals which have hit the game recently, including match-fixing and bribing of referees. Some blame the huge sums of money which have entered the game, sending players' wages rocketing and leaving even seemingly wealthy clubs fearing bankruptcy if they drop a league and cannot cover their wage bills. At the same time, the report said, there had been a "constant series of legal changes to fundamental sports rules and practices" which had "undermined confidence in the system". The report's authors called for UEFA to be recognised by the EU as the official interlocutor on all matters relating to European football. There was a lot of media focus on the review's recommendation to cap players' salaries. But UEFA's representative in Brussels Jonathan Hill points out that this could "never happen in a top-down way from the EU". He argues that the attention on this issue took away from other proposals the review was making. But he accepts that granting football special exemptions from parts of EU law like competition policy or internal market rules could be achieved only through changes to the treaties, which is unlikely to happen. There have been efforts in the past to stress sport's special status in the EU. There is a declaration on sport attached to the Treaty of Nice, stressing its "social and cultural dimension" but it is not legally binding. The EU constitution also contained a reference to sport in a section on education, calling for "fairness and openness in sporting competitions" and protecting the integrity of sportsmen and women. But even if the constitution had been ratified, the language would have offered little or no protection from the EU's rulebook. The Commission has not given an extensive reaction to the Arnaut report. It is planning to present its own White Paper on sport in the first half of next year and Education and Culture Commissioner Jan Figel' is reported to be sympathetic to some of the review's recommendations, although there is some unease over whether the Commission has the competence to put forward a White Paper at all. UEFA's Hill says that the aim of the review was to offer football a chance to "clean up its act" in the light of all the scandals which have recently struck the game in return for "competitive balance", for example, making sure that clubs take responsibility for training young players. From next season, UEFA members will operate a rule by which clubs must field a minimum number of players trained by the club or a club in the same league. Hill explains: "We're looking for a policy framework from the Commission and the court which could give us a bit of leeway." The stakes are high if UEFA is to stand a chance of preventing commercial pressures dividing the football scene irrevocably between a super-rich elite and penniless backwater teams. Author takes a look at the enormous economic transformation the game of football has seen in the last twenty years in Europe. |
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| Source Link | http://www.european-voice.com/ |
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| Subject Categories | Culture, Education and Research |
| Countries / Regions | Europe |
