EU and football

[B_i_N]

Of course you don't know what to believe if it's in the Sun, but an interesting story even so. Who knows how football would develop if this is true.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2002390000-2006520278,00.html

EUROPE’S major clubs will get the green light to form breakaway leagues if radical plans being discussed by the EU become law.

Franchising would also be given the thumbs-up, Celtic and Rangers would be free to join the Premiership and the Champions League could collapse.

All this could be the outcome of a legal shake-up which threatens to rip apart professional football.

A furious debate is raging in the European parliament over a working document, to be voted on early next year, which has been put forward by Dutch MEP Toine Manders and has sent shockwaves through the game.

Manders’ document is one of four submitted by different EU departments concerning the future of the game, and is by far the most revolutionary.

It argues that under European legislation clubs, just like players, should be allowed complete freedom of movement.

That means Celtic and Rangers would be able to join the Premiership and there is nothing UEFA could do to prevent it.

The document says clubs are the same as companies and that, under the 1957 Treaty of Rome, they are entitled to trade where they wish.

Clubs could also establish competitions across Europe with any clubs they wanted without fear of sanction from UEFA or FIFA — a move that would herald the end of the Champions League.

Franchising could become commonplace because owners would be able to move a club to another country without retribution from the football authorities. Manders last night told SunSport that football had to get its head out of the sand and realise what could happen.

He said: “Although UEFA say clubs must stay within their rules and compete in their particular domestic leagues and European competitions, I am sure that if a club went to the European Courts of Justice arguing for free movement they would win.

“Football people are behaving like ostriches.”

English MEP Chris Heaton-Harris has been fighting the proposals.

Heaton-Harris, a qualified referee, warned: “I’m not sure people in the game realise how much influence European law could have here.

“This is going to go to the vote which could be very close and it needs to be opposed.

“If it succeeds it will lead to the collapse of the European football structure, the end of promotion and relegation and open the game up to franchising.

“It is a big concern for the future of football.”

[Jantje]

It sounds like a recipe for anarchy if you ask me , the rich clubs will find their own closed market & exclude anyone who doesn't fit the criteria & the rest will be left to sink. What if someone rich in Kazakhstan decided his club should play at a higher level & wanted to join the Premiership, it would be farcical.

[Spoonhead]

Any club that wants to breakaway would have to leave their own countrys FA I would imagine. Could go a bit like the Kerry Packer World Series of Cricket. Good for the big clubs in the short term but not good for football in the long term. Fuck 'em I say. If they want to breakaway let them. Then tell them to piss off when they come crawling back after realising the fans won't turn up for a nothing game when the league is all but decided.

[eurobantam]

The crucial phrase in the artilce is "Manders’ document is one of four submitted by different EU departments concerning the future of the game, and is by far the most revolutionary."

Another submission is the one by the EU Presidency, which came out of the Independent European Sport Review (http://www.independentfootballreview.com/index.html), which has a far greater chance of being adopted.

The essence of the Review's findings are that Football and Sport need to have a special legal status within EU law that recognises sport's social value. Football clubs should therefore not be treated as companies but as social institutions. Also governing bodies, such as UEFA, should be allowed to impose rules that could be percieved as a restraint of trade if clubs were companies. Obviously this is the opposite of what Manders is arguing for.

Anyway, much of what Manders says is hypothetical and highly unlikely in practice. A breakaway european superleague would be driven by the economics of the media, as it was in 1998, but that landscape has change a lot in the last 8 years, as have the finances of domestic and the Champions Leagues. The Champions League is now so lucrative for the top clubs that it would not be worth the aggro to try and breakaway. Celtic and Rangers are not the Premier League because English clubs don't want them, not because EU, the FA or UEFA say they cannot join, a situation that is unlikely to change.

[Superfatbantam]

Thank god someone has some sense, Simon! Football Clubs are not companies or businesses outright - whilst they may operate as companies a la Man U merchandising etc their roots as with their name are firmly embedded in the community they serve. MK Dons ironically know this hence their swift move to get a name change - they would not have attracted new "customers" (sic) if they had continued to hold out with the (fake) Wimbledon name.

Re the first guy's paper, if they are companies why can't they act like companies - keep their headquarters in the place where they were founded but branch out in terms of merchandising etc just like Man U have - they sell shirts etc all over the world - they didn't have to uproot and shift to do it.