UEFA, Governance, and the Control of Club Competition in ...

development of FIFA in the context of political and socio-economic change. They chart thedevelopment of the organisation in the context of a post-colonial world in which the coalition of keypolitical operators within FIFA and global business networks has led to divergences betweenFIFA’s democratic façade and the operational reality (Sugden and Tomlinson, 1998). The authorsdraw critical attention to increasingly complex governance networks and the growinginterdependence between governing bodies, and disproportionate influence of the various existingstakeholders. Sugden has developed this analysis focusing specifically on the concept of footballgovernance as a network (Sugden, 2002). Using Castells’s theory of ‘network society’ (Castells,1996, 1997, 1998), Sugden places the development of football governance in the context of acapitalist society in which the ‘nation state is being overridden by a network of internationalfinancial interests enmeshed through global communication networks’. He goes on to argue that‘empirical evidence gathered in and around FIFA’s corridors of power supports Castells’s thesisand strongly suggests that … big business networks are the overriding influence in the globaldevelopment and political control of world football’ (Sugden, 2002: 62-63). This analysis providesa salient starting point for investigation into the European football confederation. Theories of‘systemic governance’ and ‘networks’ provide an appropriate analytical device to assess thechanging nature of governance within both UEFA and European football more widely. Such ananalysis should enable an identification of the various centres of power and the interaction anddynamics impacting on the future governance of the European game.ii. For the good of the game? A normative approach to football governanceRelated to this analytical approach is a second usage of the governance concept – ‘goodgovernance’ as a normative and prescriptive device. Both popular and academic analysis hascritically focused on standards of governance of football in areas ranging from the governance ofclubs (FGRC, 2003 and 2004), to the regulation of agents (Bower, 2003) and the performance of thegoverning bodies themselves (Conn 1997 and 2004a). The concept of ‘good governance’ hasreferred to ethical standards underpinning relationships, methods and instruments betweenorganisations, which are founded on a number of common principles. The value of normativeapproaches to organisational behaviour has been widely discussed in debates about corporate socialresponsibility and business ethics (see for example Chryssides and Kaler, 1993). Detailed analysisof the various theoretical debates is beyond the scope of this research, but it is worth mentioning anumber of factors that determine the need for ‘good governance’ in sport. According to Katwala,‘sport is a public good and so the goal of sporting governance is to ensure that sport is runeffectively and in accordance with its values, while taking advantage of the ability to bring inadditional private resources and spread participation of resources’ (Katwala, 2000: 13). Katwalaalso argues:The triumph of capitalism has paradoxically increased the obligations and vulnerability ofprivate power. Multinational corporations are realising that trust relationships are their keyassets, and are increasingly aware of the need to protect their social license to operate. Hencethey are increasingly responding to public pressures, projecting themselves as corporatecitizens, seeking to demonstrate their social impact and social responsibility … multi-millionpound multinational sporting bodies, charged with delivering global and public goods andwhose leaders themselves speak proudly of “the Olympic family”, “the people’s game” and“the global family of football” can hardly expect to remain immune – to be protected frompressure by their status as independent associations … only opening up and exercising powerin a transparent and accountable way will enable sport to end the cycle of scandal andpromote their own interests in an age of accountability, scrutiny and scepticism – not just togovern in the interests of their sports, but to protect the golden egg which sport’s globaltransformation has laid (Katwala, 2000: 26).5