Premier League and UEFA at odds

After British minister Richard Caborn's sports review, European football will become a political fight, pitting the clubs and leagues against UEFA and the national associations.

At a European sports ministers meeting in Brussels, it was decided that a European parliament white paper should be drafted in May 2007 outlining future European policy on sport.

Meanwhile, one MEP said the "most lobbied issue ever" will be football's power brokers trying to protect their future interests.

The independent European sport review, led by Jose Luis Arnaut and envisioned by Caborn, will be the main reference point for the politicians that are discussing sport's future.

The European Union and sport's stockholders will have further discussions starting in January 2007 and hope to have the draft completed in May, and finalised during July or August.

It is hoped the white paper will stop the gradual challenges to sport's rules that are becoming more common in the European courts.

The Arnaut review has come under fierce attack from the Premier League, who sees it as an attack by UEFA.

"EU institutions grant official recognition to UEFA as the governing body for European football and as the counterpart of the EU when dealing with football-related issues in Europe," reads the review.

The Premier League will resist the imposition of UEFA authority.

"UEFA is not a governing body of European football; it is a body that has responsibility for the European Championship and the Champions League," said a Premier League source. "But it feels squeezed by FIFA and the leagues and it is trying to carve itself out a role."

Caborn, sports minister since 2001, wants to enact wide-ranging new laws for European sports and his aides privately admit to a division between the ministry and the Premier League regarding the issue.

"Sports ministers, MEPs and UEFA are all very keen on it. UEFA is central to the process," said a spokesman for Caborn.

There will definitely be conflict over the proposal in Arnaut's review that players be released for international duty as a matter of law.

"Legal protection for the player-release rule, obliging clubs to release players for the national team without entitlement to compensation," states a review recommendation.

Although the review also calls for an insurance pool to cover clubs that have players that get injured while participating in international tournaments, the leagues will strongly oppose it.

Clubs Charleroi (Belgium) and Lyon (France), with the backing of the G14 group of clubs, are involved in litigation with UEFA and FIFA over injuries to players.

Emmanuel Maudo de Medeiros, head of the UEFA-recognised group of European professional football leagues, insisted that the leagues are football's principal income drivers and that it should have the greatest say in how legislation shapes governing football.

"There are some recommendations set by the review that we cannot under any circumstances endorse," said Medeiros. "It must be realised that 88% of the game's earnings originate from national leagues."

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.