The new threat. A new threat for European sport and for football in particular? It is necessary to complete the reflections outlined yesterday, in this section, following the warning issued by the Feira Summit to the European Commission and Council over the taking into consideration of the specific nature of sport. The European Commission's competition services immediately asked the European football authorities to revise the rules governing the transfer of players, or have the existing rules banned. According to the available indications, the guidelines of these services would consist of requiring footballers, under contract, to be able to free themselves by paying a fee corresponding to the salary owed until the end of their contract (or until the end of the season, according to another interpretation), either way, a fee significantly below that which can be demanded today.
The Bosman ruling banned fees at the end of a contract, the Commission services believe that it is necessary to radically reduce them as well as those foreseen during the contracts freely negotiated by player agents in their name. The original idea has, on a general level, a justification: to avoid that a contract becomes a link that is practically impossible to break and that the conditions to regain freedom are not costly. Though he who moves in this direction in the case that concerns us once more proves his ignorance of the functioning for sport and especially football. To start with, we must not imagine that the fees are paid by the player, they are paid by the club who wants his services. Obviously it concerns a billionaire club ready to invest any amount to free the footballer that it wants: why reduce the bill? The result of such a reduction would simply be that the richer clubs and the more powerful clubs are able to one day dispossess a less fortunate adversary, but more worthy in the make up, of his team. Is this the result desired in the name of some abstract principals?
Mr. Lenz was an honest person, but...A football team not built by luck, but by gathering together some exceptional player. It is the result of a long training process, it sometime manages to represent the arrogance of a whole town, and after decades certain clubs manage to create traditions and sometime legends. If the guidelines outlined are confirmed, all this patrimony could be destroyed in a few hours by a new billionaire possibly with political aspirations, or by an owner of television channels for whom sport is a way of creating an audience. According to the present rules, the transfer fees are aimed at rebuilding the team, which suffers the loss of vital players and to train youths. The traditions and merits of the great efforts made by the clubs who play a true social role have already received a very severe blow from the Bosman ruling, when the Court of Justice did not have the courage to say (it was a little early, today it would dare) that the transfer fees are illegal, even if they may be part of, at first glance, a barrier to the free movement of persons, because they are justified by the meaning of sport and by the interests of youth. We are not ignorant that the "conclusions" of the Advocate General, Carl Otto Lenz,, near exclusive source on the Bosman ruling, had taken into consideration the aspect of training youths. One of the reasons of the negative influence of these conclusions resides paradoxically in Mr. Lenz's effort to take into account the different elements of the dossier.
Explanation: Mr. Lenz was a honest person and of good faith he tried to take into consideration the meaning of football, going as far as to speak of its importance for the "collective imagination." Though his ignorance of the sporting realities brings him to conclusions that are in radical contradiction with the premises in which he recognises the importance… for the aspect of training youths here is what he wrote: "only could only seriously maintain that a player who changes club for a 1 million Ecu transfer fee is meant to have incurred such huge training costs," and he concluded, read carefully: the size of transfer fees "should be effectively limited to the amount the former club spent training the youth."
He wrote: "The" player, in the singular, as if a football champion could be trained in isolation, in the garden of the Advocate General of the Court of Justice may be? To hatch a champion, it is necessary to teach thousand of boys to play, buy equipment for all of them, maintain the pitch (fifty odd, in certain clubs) and the installations, pay the trainers and doctors. And especially, even the hardcore lawyers should see the social and political significance of the enterprise: create the traditions of a team, create the dream and pride of children to be part of it, teach the laws of sport (loyalty and selflessness and also glory of course), integrate immigrants into the national community of the host country.
Dream of all good bureaucrats. It is true that the Commission favours a system of repartition of television broadcasting rights so as to dedicate part of it to the training of youths. No doubt it is a useful initiative (that furthermore part of the sports federations already practice and other are studying without having waited for the guidance of Brussels). Though behind this we see the dream of all good bureaucrats: create a mechanism, a "carrozzone" (the Italians would say as master of the domain) that centralises the contributions and allocation in exchange for a sufficient number of correctly filled forms, with allocations to whoever organises a "youth training" course, without regard for their results or merits. Football having given itself the system of transfer fees, no doubt imperfect and thus perfectible. Instead of calling for one or other modification and to submit it to monitoring, Europe has half destroyed (with the Bosman ruling), and is now considering sabotaging the remaining half, to replace it with bureaucratic and centralised mechanisms. What a result!
Call to Mrs. Reding and Mr. Monti. There is not, in these remarks, an initial criticism of the lawyers and civil servants. They play their part and are right. Though the Commissioners must not renounce their political responsibilities. If Mrs. Reding arrived in Brussels with the political intuition that the Bosman ruling has negative repercussions and that work is needed to remedy them, she should not let herself be bogged down by one or other member of her cabinet in reasoning, badly adapted to the "specific nature of sport" and yet recognised by the Heads of government. That she maintain her freedom of opinion.!
Mr. Monti is in the process of managing, with the authority, firmness and intelligence that are his own, a large number of delicate dossiers, of incalculable political and economic scope. This responsibility occupies him and it is understandable. Despite this he should forge a personal opinion on the "sport" section of Community activities, at fist sight frivolous though essential for the Europe of citizens, for public opinion. Obviously we have no advice to give, or rather only one piece: intervene as little as possible. Rigorous over the economic aspects of sporting activities (for example, for all that relates to the televise broadcasting), the Commission should have a light touch, very light, in its interventions concerning the organisation of sporting events. If for example the Court of Justice says that each professional club has the right to take under contract as many professional players who are EU citizens that it wants, the Commission could, without touching this principal, allow a corollary to be added; that the number of those who may be aligned in a chosen game depends upon the decision of the sport authorities and the nature of the event and tournament. Nearly none of the standards that govern sporting events pass the test of a purely legal assessment, starting with - since it is the time - those from the tennis Davis Cup. The autonomy of the sports federations and their exclusive role in organising competitions, must, for the main be preserved, thus this is how most Member State see it. Why "the specific nature of sport" does not enable to limit in this field, the right for large clubs and for television to organise competing events? More so that the large clubs already have direct and very powerful influence, "from the inside" on the sports federations.
Two brave women. At a political level, it is necessary to avoid the creation of a systematic and unjustified contrast between the Commission and most Member States. The warning from the Feira Summit must be taken seriously, as well as the sentence from Jacques Chirac before the European Parliament that pleases us to print one more time: "when Euro 200 football has just ended, which has given such pleasure and emotion to Europeans, we must ensure that the EU better take into consideration the specific nature of sport and it social function. Here is a problem which must be studied and solved. Despite opposition from London and Copenhagen, the Ministers for Sport are actively working towards this solution, in particular two brave women, Mrs. Bugffet and Mrs. Melandri, who have taken the case to heart. Mrs. Buffet, Council President, wants to see the monopoly of the sports federations over the organisation of competitions and over the defining of rules reasserted, so as to "limit the grip of commercial appetites." It would be sad that before public opinion, the European Commission plays a role of institution, which does not understand the true stake and ignores the specific nature of sport, in the face of the hopes of most the Member States.
Ferdinando Riccardi