Revised review launched at European Sports Ministers meeting in Moscow
UEFA has today fully endorsed, and repeated its commitment to, the finalised Independent European Sport Review (Independent Review) at its launch today at a meeting of 49 European Sports Ministers in Moscow.
This final report has taken into account feedback received from key stakeholders, following the original launch of the Independent Review at the end of May of 2006, and is a significant step forward in the European dialogue on the future of sport.
Speaking in Moscow UEFA President, Lennart Johansson, said:
“The work of the Independent Review is to be welcomed and will help football face the challenges ahead. The final report represents a significant step forward in the European dialogue on the future of sport and offers a real opportunity to gain proper recognition for the specificity of sport.”
Sport, and football in particular, faces turbulent times. In football, wealth is steadily being concentrated in the hands of a minority, there is a lack of financial transparency within parts of the game, clubs and individuals are increasingly challenging sporting rules and governing bodies in the law courts and sporting values as a whole are under threat.
Sports governing bodies therefore need legal certainty to address these key issues. If they are unable to set the rules of the game, sport will become a free-for-all where the richest can buy success.
To counter this trend UEFA is convinced that as the governing body of European football it must seek to work hand-in-hand with the appropriate political bodies. For European problems we need European solutions, which is why UEFA is seeking a partnership with the EU to assist in tackling these issues.
Sport is not above the law and its governing bodies must respect the law of the land, but our governments and regulators should recognise sport’s specificity. Sport is unlike any other economic activity and does not operate to ‘normal’ commercial rules. In football the very basis of the leagues and competitions could not exist without other teams taking part: competing teams need each other, and they all have an interest in the unpredictable nature of the sport. This explains the autonomy of European sport. It is a massive social movement that has organised itself from the very beginning.
However, to earn this autonomy sports bodies must provide good governance, work for the good of all stakeholders and adopt measures to promote competition on the field of play. In football these include a licensing system to ensure financial transparency, central marketing of media rights, redistribution of revenues down to the grassroots, relegation and promotion between leagues and rules to encourage training of young players. UEFA has adopted all of these policies in recent years.
The European sports model, a pyramid where the money from the elite at the top trickles down to feed the grassroots at the bottom, is at stake here. UEFA fully believes that the Independent Review offers a way forward on all these issues and can contribute to the future well-being of European sport and football in particular.