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Posts tagged ‘UEFA’

May 13

Bakuthenet

“Back of the net” one might shout, if either a Chelsea or Arsenal supporter, with delight on securing an Europa League Final ticket. Well, there’s little surprise that this is no mean feat.
The wisdom of UEFA sending our fans ‘off the beaten track’ to Baku shows once again the interests of loyal supporters are right at the back of the queue. Each of these English Clubs get a mere 6,000 allocation.
Well atleast due diligence must have been done on the suitability of Azerbaijan to host such a flagship event? Think again! The BBC website announces: “The most direct route to drive from London to the Baku Olympic Stadium passes through a closed border crossing and an area of eastern Ukraine in which Russian-backed rebels are confronting Ukrainian troops along a mainly static frontline. To avoid those issues, one option is to travel via Istanbul, as with this route, a journey estimated to take 59 hours of driving time”. Appealing, eh?
There is a 68,700 capacity in the Olympic Stadium in Baku. Surely the excessive UEFA/FIFA entourage could have taken less to allow the hard pressed fans of each team to follow their respective clubs. 6,000 each is pitiful – especiaslly having gone through war trodden zones in the name of loyal support.
To top.it all: “Arsenal and Chelsea fans face an arduous 2,500 mile journey to watch the two London teams battle it out for the Europa League title in Baku.” Estimated costs per person for a two-day trip are £1,400.
Whoever said the fans come first?

Oct 11

Cim Bom Call

Not a five-year, nor ten-year plan – the time is NOW for a Euro League exclaims the Chief of Galatasaray Football Club, know affectionately as “Cim Bom”.

Unal Aysal, President of the Turkish Giant hopes for a 20 strong League in 2018, to replace the current Champions League format.  He goes on to say: “It’s the future of football. It has to be created, and not in 10 years, but as soon as possible.  Football is a great industry, a growing industry. A European super league would bring a lot of support and energize football in general. I think it would be 20 big teams, with three to five teams changing every year. It can be fixed in a way to be useful to European football and bring new horizons by football. It can be controlled by UEFA or the clubs, preferably by the clubs.”

The European Club Association and UEFA naturally resisted any attempt to give the Turk’s lone voice any credence – giving the party line that a Euro League is already in place, “the Champions League”. Purely rhetoric, or a PR stunt, who knows? Aysal says that financial backers and sponsors are queuing up but anybody can say that. Show me the money or commitment from the other clubs to this proposition.

Who makes the cut off will be interesting. Naturally, Cim Bom expects to be there. Celtic is one such club that would be anxious to continue to gain a share of the European purse having banked circa £22M last year. Real Madrid, Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain are allegedly plotting.

The proposed timeline synchronises with the expiry of the memorandum of understanding between UEFA and the European Clubs Association, a framework for European club and international football, which runs to the end of May 2018.

Feb 18

Spanish football

Reign in Spain 2

The ‘game’ of financial roulette as reported before in this blog needed urgent action in Spain.  The Spanish Football League has now announced new rules designed to prevent clubs from overspending.

These regulations include powers to limit the total cost of any clubs’ playing squad – also players registration can be prevented if perceived to be above an acceptable budget – though I don’t yet understand how this is calculated.  The Turkish connection portrayed, namely: Deportivo La Coruna is the latest Club to seek assistance to avoiding going bump and has filed for bankruptcy protection. 

This move appears another step in the right direction after the earlier agreed protocol to comply with UEFA’s financial fair play (FFP) regulations in the Country. Notably. from 2014 clubs must set up a ‘fund’ totalling 35% of their revenue from media rights to act as a guarantee against any tax liabilities.  I’m sure our HMRC would favour such. Furthermore, there is now an obligation for clubs to provide detailed budgets for the following season(s) including information on sales and expenditure, profit and loss and investments or any sales of assets.

Will I need to write about Reign in Spain 3?

Oct 17

Smoke without fire

The phrase has meaning “no smoke without fire”.  AKA David Jones’ story in his autobiography.

I use the phrase here after learning that UEFA has charged the Serbia and England Football Associations following the argy bargy at the end of the Under-21’s football match between the countries.

Whilst, not there, from the comfort of my armchair, I would plead provocation in the sense of clear racism from the Serbian supporters, mischievous behaviour by the same (akin to that we used to see regularly in British football before our act was cleaned up somewhat) and a dubious reaction to affairs on the pitch post-final whistle, from the home team’s players and management.

In that sense, the cause or both smoke and fire appeared to be from Serbia.  But England has ‘previous’ and in a final fracas UEFA appears to have taken the easy – not necessary correct action – and penalised both.

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