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

Chapter 4.The contemporary issues in European footballi. Rationalisation, regulation, and redistributionThe processes of socio-economic, technological and political change have all impacted significantlyon the governance of the football industry in Europe. Driven by developments in broadcastingtechnology, and aided by a growing free-market ideology of Western Europe, entrenched within theEuropean Union, and in conjunction with wider processes of globalisation, power balances in globalnetwork of football governance have unquestionably shifted serving to challenge the historicalmodel of the organisation of sport in Europe. The growing commercialisation of the elite game, andthe application of free-market ideology to the football industry have created what might be termed‘super-brands’ in European football. Divisions in revenue have been exacerbated as clubs haveincreasingly sought to drive revenues by readjusting the various redistributive mechanisms. Theprospect of relegation, or non-qualification for the Champions League, has also become anincreasing source of fear for competing clubs, as the economic consequences of success and failurehave intensified. The financial differentials between leagues have widened to the point thatproposals to restrict the movement of clubs between leagues, have been advanced as a means tocontrol the levels of risk involved (Hoehn and Szymanksi, 1999; Szymanski, 2002). UEFA has ofcourse been implicit in these changes through the creation and expansion of the Champions League.The competition has expanded the financial rewards available to the elite clubs, simultaneouslyintensifying the dependence on European football and exacerbating divisions within domesticleagues.The spiralling wealth of professional football, and the changing economic base of Europeanfootball as identified by Andreff and Staudohar (2000), has thus placed the existing governancemodel under sustained pressure in the last decade. The national model of competition andgovernance looks increasingly vulnerable. The dominant economic drivers, the elite clubs seek newforms of interaction in a transnational environment. Redistribution, in terms of vertical solidaritybetween the different levels of the game, and horizontal solidarity between clubs at the same levelof the game, is under ever-increasing threat as commercially aggressive clubs, under new corporateownership structures, and with diversified corporate objectives, seek to maximise the availablerevenues and redirect the financial cake. In this transformed context, the institutions of governancehave come under pressure to reflect more greatly the financial contribution of the elite professionalgame within the decision-making structures. The feared consequence of the diminishingcompetitiveness of national league structures is the breakdown of the national organisation of sportper se. If clubs were to operate in pan-European leagues – either cross-border leagues, or a singleEuropean league system – that would necessarily entail an emasculation of the nationalassociations, and, it is argued potentially threaten the future of national team football (PeterGilliéron, general secretary, Swiss Football Association, personal interview, 2 nd March 2005).That there are pressures on the established governing bodies of sport in Europe, in anincreasingly transnational environment is clear. However, despite agreement about the processesevident in the football industry and the challenges they pose, there are considerable divergencesabout what can and should be done. Responses to the transformations have tended to focus aroundtwo specific approaches. On the one hand it is seen that the development of structures will continueto reflect the application of free-market imperatives to football in Europe (King, 2003; Szymanskiand Kuypers, 2000). It is argued that a natural rationalisation, a ‘self-propelling process ofconcentration’ (King, 2003), is taking place, ultimately and inevitably leading to a greater degree ofcompetition between economic equals. Szymanski, in particular has been fulsome in his enthusiasmfor, and confident in his prediction of, the ‘inevitable’ outcome of a European league structure. Byway of contrast, regulatory approaches have focused on the need for proactive intervention by thegoverning bodies, notably in the form of greater distribution of income, and also through externalpolitical intervention in the processes of football governance, in order to arrest the transformationsoccurring in European football, and to reinforce the existing structures of governance and39