Saturday March 18, 2006
The Guardian
When Jose Mourinho complained vociferously last week about Chelsea's inability to become a member of G14, it was interpreted as evidence of a widening gulf between the manager and his chief executive Peter Kenyon. It seems now, however, that Mourinho was racked with a deeper and more pressing fear: that of being disenfranchised from the top table of European football.
G14, comprising 18 of Europe's richest football powers, has launched an attempt to kill off the Champions League in its present form and seize ownership of the game's most prestigious club competition. The G14 group, whose members include Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal, has agreed an internal policy document, exclusively obtained by the Guardian, which outlines their intention to guarantee the dominance of their 18 clubs in European football.
The plan outlined in the document marks a dramatic change in their stance. In its G14 Vision Europe blueprint, the organisation acknowledges that in the past it has been little more than a pressure group, relying on the reputations of its members to influence the future direction of European football. However the policy document indicates a massive shift in strategy over the past six months.
It states: "From the beginning, G14's strategy was to act as a 'professional lobbying' organisation on behalf of Europe's top-level clubs ... It was felt in 2001 that, only in extreme cases and as an ultimate recourse, should G14 contest and fight openly on issues. . . it may be that we have now reached the point where we might wish to reconsider this latter approach."
This is more than idle introspection. Last September, G14 became a co-signatory to the case being brought by Royal Charleroi against Fifa, challenging the legality of the world governing body's regulations over the release of players for international duty. Charleroi's Morocco international Abdelmajid Oulmers had returned from a match against Burkina Faso with an ankle injury and his club were refused compensation. The case, in which G14 will argue that the rules are an illegal abuse of Fifa's dominant position as the game's regulator and commercial agent by organising international tournaments, goes to Belgium's Charleroi Commercial Court on Monday.
Also last September, G14's general assembly of member clubs commissioned its Vision Europe document, the first draft of which was drawn up by the management committee, whose general manager is Thomas Kurth.
The very presence of Kurth at G14 has always led to speculation about the organisation's motives for he joined just over five years ago after a decade spent working for Uefa as its head of competitions.
The multilingual Swiss had been the tournament coordinator for the 1992 and 1996 European Championships, as well as every finals tournament of the Champions League; with the latest revelations, it appears long-held concerns over G14's intentions for European club competitions have been well founded.
There are parallels between what the 18 traditional elite clubs intend for the European game and the "land grab" it is believed the professional game is attempting to engineer from the Football Association in this country.
Here it is widely assumed that, coinciding with the Burns report, Premiership clubs are seeking the division of governance and revenue generation. Unlike G14's Vision Europe, however, there has never been any explicit policy document to that effect. "The areas of authority and competence of the European football 'regulator' [ie the governing body] on the one hand, and the 'club body' in charge of the clubs' international competitions on the other, would be clearly and adequately defined," says G14's Vision Europe.
Uefa, whose position as tournament organiser for the Champions League would also be threatened by G14's legal challenge in Belgium, will vigorously defend itself. The European governing body had released its own strategy document, also entitled "Vision Europe", 11 months ago which stated: "This document unashamedly presents the G14's position in a similar way to that laid out by Uefa."
The competition as it currently exists was born of a previous challenge from Europe's richest clubs, in the early 1990s, when they argued that the pure knockout format of the tournament was too hazardous. Uefa responded to those complaints by setting up the Champions League, with its initial group stage. In the 13 years since, every victorious club has been part of that exclusive group. G14 Vision Europe would take this still further.
"It is apartheid: it would be the end of the European model of football," said Uefa's communications director William Gaillard. "They want to get rid of promotion and relegation and introduce the American model of a closed league. They might as well transform football into American professional wrestling where everything is predictable because it has all been mapped out before. It would also be the end of national teams."
Pressure has been building on Uefa's position ever since Media Partners, an Italy-based company, attempted to organise a club breakaway in 1998. That time, the European governing body headed off the challenge by expanding the Champions League from 16 to 32 clubs. How they respond to the latest threat appears set to define the landscape of European club football.
G14's 18 members
Ajax, Arsenal, Barcelona, Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Internazionale, Juventus, Liverpool, Lyon, Manchester Utd, Marseille, Milan, Paris St-Germain, Porto, PSV Eindhoven, Real Madrid, Valencia.
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Interesting article, and raises some serious questions about protecting the G14 in tournaments (Ive never warmed to the fact that the league format was created to prevent the big teams from getting knocked out early, and missing out on the gravy).
And another thing which occurred to me is that chelski aren't part of the G14, which must annoy mourinho no end. I'd love that, a Chelsea less European Super League.
I wouldn't see a replacement body taking over from UEFA for European club football as necessarily a bad thing, but only if it's to still include promotion and relegation.
You could sit here all day debating the pros and cons of the Premier League compared to how things used to be. 20 clubs make decisions on the future of the top flight as opposed to 92. From the perspective of a club in the top flight things are better, for the lower clubs it's been difficult.
Same thing goes for any new body in Europe - if we are in the elite then we'll be pretty happy, certainly a lot happier than we'd be if we were outside it. What if the Champions League got replaced by a new competition where clubs no longer had to qualify, but perhaps the worst 4 clubs were "relegated" each season? Another "division" underneath, the replacement for the UEFA Cup, allowed four clubs to be promoted. Entry into either league was by invitation, or even through another tournament. Countries where there is little money to be earned would be excluded no doubt, it would almost certainly be a Western European competition. Might even be more of a league than there is currently - especially if the participants decide to snub FIFA rules on friendlies and so allow more room for fixtures.
As it stands I think it would be better for the game. Or at least for the game from our perspective. I don't see it happening, but maybe like the last time it was threatened UEFA will act to create some kind of compromise.
As for Chelsea, they will probably need to start showing some manners if they want G14 to even allow them a trial run as members.
