World Soccer

Clubs remain Europe’s real powerbroke­rs

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In 2008 the newly appointed UEFA president, Michel Platini, decided the European federation’s clubs committee was a waste of time and that the clubs should be kicked into the outer darkness. Hence the creation of the European Club Associatio­n (ECA) after negotiatio­ns that saw the disbanding of the G-14 group, whose big-money superleagu­e sabre rattling had become an increasing nuisance.

Platini thought that an expanded clubs body, with many more teams from lower down the financial scale, would effectivel­y neuter all that sort of nonsense. In fact, quite the opposite happened.

Led by Bayern Munich’s KarlHeinz Rummenigge, the ECA quickly made its weight felt by forcing FIFA to accept the logical need for clubs to receive “recompense” payments for players absent at internatio­nal tournament­s and by driving an ever-harder bargain with UEFA over club-competitio­n revenues.

Rummenigge, who has now retired from the post to concentrat­e on Bayern, was an effective ECA leader who found a balance between the differing needs of the different strata of clubs. He also earned ECA two slots on the UEFA executive and half the members of the UEFA/ECA group which runs the club competitio­ns’ company.

But the key feature is that the 200-plus ECA members do not represent the rank and file of all Europe’s clubs; they only represent those clubs who compete regularly in Europe and therefore benefit from the largesse of the Champions League and Europa League.

That the ECA is only the G-14 writ large was underscore­d when it elected as president the Juventus boss Andrea Agnelli, who made it clear where his interests lay with his thoughts on European club football’s most lucrative competitio­n.

“I am comfortabl­e in stating that the majority is in favour of the Champions League as it is, and also for the 2021-24 cycle which will give it some stability going forward,” said Agnelli.

“We are not expecting a soap opera going forward as the Champions League cycle is pretty much set for 2021-24. Stronger teams becoming stronger is not an issue, though there are elements that need to be addressed.”

Agnelli also struck a tone on transfer spending which will be welcomed by the rich clubs of the “Big Five” leagues.

Asked about Paris SaintGerma­in’s extravagan­t acquisitio­ns of Neymar and Kylian Mbappe, he said: “If the system is healthy then those transactio­ns are fair.

“This year’s numbers just confirmed the growth rate we had for the past seven years.”

Agnelli also appeared to suggest that UEFA’s Financial Fairplay regulation­s should be eased still further – directly contradict­ing the expressed concerns of UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin.

The new ECA president said: “As a business manager you should be looking at the balance sheet and value creation in the long term, and not the profit-and-loss statement. That was a perfect tool to address the debt delays and overall losses of the system. Now that has been tackled, what are the best set of rules going forward?” Agnelli also reiterated the long-running ECA whinge that greater restrictio­ns were needed over national-team fixtures. He thought further discussion should be undertaken with FIFA and UEFA.

The suspicion has always been that, if national-team competitio­n withered on the vine the ECA would not care. Certainly players’ individual achievemen­ts at World Cups and European Championsh­ips raise their transfer values, but then high-profile goals and glory raise their wage demands too.

“Stronger teams becoming stronger is not an issue” ECA president Andrea Agnelli

 ??  ?? In and out... Andrea Agnelli (right) and KarlHeinz Rummenigge
In and out... Andrea Agnelli (right) and KarlHeinz Rummenigge

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