Big-spending football clubs accused of unfair play on football

Date: 13/03/1997

BELGIUM'S leading football clubs are set to call on the European Commission to look into alleged illegal financial support paid to a number of major French clubs.

The move comes as a growing number of clubs are being squeezed by the fall-out from the 1995 European Court of Justice ruling on the Bosman case, which outlawed transfer fees for players at the end of their contracts.

“A delegation from the professional league will approach Competition Commissioner Karel van Miert in the coming weeks. We do not want to make war with France, but there is a need to study the whole situation,” said Anderlecht's general manager Michel Verschueren.

“Over the last ten years, the French government has been giving subventions to clubs and now efforts are being made to stop this. Competition is becoming more of a problem. In Belgium, there is a delicate discussion after the Bosman case.”

Currently, the scales are weighted heavily in favour of the big-spending English, Spanish and Italian clubs. For clubs in the smaller and less wealthy footballing nations, a 'level playing-field' has become more important since Bosman.

Anderlecht claims to have lost seven key players this season to wealthier overseas teams offering huge salaries. Any suggestion that teams are receiving unfair government subsidies would add further to their woes.

Belgium's concerns have been echoed by Dutch champions Ajax, who put the blame for their lowly league position this year firmly at Bosman's door.

In an interview with European Voice, Ajax's general manager Maarten Oldenhof claimed Bosman was a “disaster” which would “totally change football”.

Most of Ajax's major stars have been lured away by Italian clubs. “In Italy, they get players for almost nothing because they do not have to pay a transfer fee. After one or two years, they just sell them on, so the whole operation is more for profit than anything to do with sport,” said Oldenhof.

He claimed many of the larger Spanish and Italian clubs were operating at an unfair advantage, able to offer irresistible terms to overseas stars despite running at a constant loss. In the Netherlands, clubs are stripped of their operating licences unless they can prove they are solvent.

“We should have an international licence system so that every club has to be run like a normal company,” he insisted.

But according to John Williams, of Leicester University's Sir Norman Chester Centre for football research, “it is hard to see what pressure the European Commission could bring to bear on national leagues. Such a system would be catastrophic in England and could wipe out half of our 92 professional clubs.”

Alasdair Bell, lawyer for the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), stressed his organisation had made no attempt to introduce European rules on balance sheets. “Solvency is a national matter,” he said, pointing out that if Ajax were to launch a legal challenge against the existing set-up, it would have to be aimed against the Dutch football association - a view echoed by a Commission spokesman, who urged Ajax “to file a complaint if they have a hard case”.

Bell also warned that if sport were treated like any other business and had to apply the full range of EU legislation, it could mark the end of national football leagues. “If you had a pan-European football market, you might end up with Ajax participating in the English league in the same way as a Dutch bank operates in London,” he suggested.