Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Breakaway Leagues and Governance Issues in European Football

2015; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-94-6265-048-0_3

2215-003X

Katarina Pijetlović,

Sport and Mega-Event Impacts

The underlying theme of this chapter is rooted in the recognition of apparent conflict between, on the one hand, the EU policy goals to preserve the traditional European sporting structures, and on the other hand, the neo-realities regarding commercial aspects and governance of European football. Beneath the EU policy goals and sporting organisations' endeavours to maintain the structural status quo in Europe creeps the factor of incremental commercialisation with all its corollaries, which, in the view advanced by this book, renders the current organisational structure prone to breakaway challenges and power struggles resulting in compromises at the expense of other stakeholders. This chapter reveals the details of the 1998 Media Partners proposal which offered an attractive package of financial benefits to elite football clubs to form an alternative breakaway league outside the European pyramid structure. This proposal never reached an implementation stage, but the economic interest grouping known as the G14 was formed by some of the main proponents of the proposal who apparently discovered how to gain an upper hand in the power struggle. The chapter continues by considering the history of breakaway threats by elite clubs and the reactions to such threats by UEFA and FIFA. Notably, the FIFA rules on compulsory and uncompensated player release for international representative matches of national teams are considered in detail and it was submitted that compromise by FIFA on Oulmers case was not legally necessary. It is argued that notwithstanding the formal disbandment of the G14, the group and its allies continue to present a powerful lobby with special commercial interests not possessed by any other competitors in their league. At the conclusion of the January 2008 deal with FIFA that resulted in formal disbandment of the G14, their role has not ended de facto; it has just been deinstitutionalised, re-institutionalised and legitimised in the form of the European Club Association. Finally, it is stated that the legal and commercial environment for the sports industry is in the process of changing, doubling the market risks involved in any potential breakaway.