The governance structures of football, like in many other sports, have evolved overtime relatively independent of public authorities. The so-called pyramid of European football has been traditionally formed by the game’s world-wide governing body (FIFA) at the apex, the continental governing body (UEFA) in the middle and the national football associations, national football leagues and clubs at the bottom. This structure, however, has been challenged in the last two decades by a combination of massive commercialisation of the game, EU decisions aimed at liberalising football as a market-place, and the new demands of the stakeholders involved in the governance of professional football.
This paper will focus on the role of UEFA and its relations with the European institutions within the wider framework of football governance. It will critically assess the evolution of UEFA as a governing body since the Bosman ruling (1995) until current initiatives such as the Independent European Sport Review or the Commission’s White Paper on Sport. The paper will analyse how the main football-related decision of the EU in the last decade have affected UEFA as an organisation and its position in the governance structure of football. The paper argues that UEFA’s attitude towards the EU has changed completely. Whilst the EU was seen as a threat for UEFA in 1995, it is now considered a ‘long term strategic partner’. The paper will also consider the implications of UEFA’s position towards public authorities for the future of a possible partnership ‘for the good of the game’-
The paper argues that there are three reasons for UEFA’s evolution. First, a pragmatic necessity to adapt to the application of EU law to football. Second, a change of the organisation’s philosophy. UEFA has modified slightly its core beliefs and policy objectives, focusing more in its public duty of taking care of football as a whole, not just the professional competitions. Third, a strategic vision to preserve its own position within the governance structures of football. By engaging in a partnership with the EU, UEFA has managed to attract the support of public authorities, hence strengthening its position within the pyramid of European football in a moment where other stakeholders are contesting the organisation’s legitimacy.
European football's governing body (UEFA) strategy towards the EU has changed from confrontation after Bosman to co-operation recently. Behind this new philosophy there is a willingness to engage with public authorities to reassert its own position within the governance of football vis-à-vis other stakeholders and to maximise its independence within EU law, but there is also a genuine transformation in its self-perception as an open, democratic and transparent governing body for the good of the game.
This paper examines why some football leagues have more fixed matches than other leagues. It analyzes situations of corruption equilibrium, where corruption reaches such a high degree that the norm is corruption and the deviancy is to be honest. There is an argument that this level of corruption in sport is simply an expression of a wider societal corruption. I disagree, I argue that the data shows that there are three fundamental reasons that contribute to high levels of match corruption in football leagues: a wide network of illegal gambling, a high degree of relative exploitation of the players and an official complicity with corruption. The work is based on interviews with players, sports officials, referees and match corruptors: a text examination of a ‘confession databank’; and statistical analysis.
The synthesis of the existing academic and expert literature show that we can trace many different approaches to the phenomena of governance. Based on the political sciences and especially policy literature the governance concept is most frequently connected with the analysis of the relations between the actors or institutions of the state and society, while centre it on the EU perspective, the governance phenomena could also be understood as one of the leading theories for explaining the integration as well as policy implementation in EU. The use of governance concept is as well becoming increasingly popular when discussing about sports issues, especially when multi-level or global sport perspective comes to the fore (see for example The Council of Europe’s Rec(2005)8 of the Committee of Ministers to member states; or latest attempts by The European Commission planning to publish a White Paper on sport through the so-called ‘interactive policy making’ instrument of collecting information by an online public consultation). Therefore the aim of this contribution would be to confront the national perspectives, understandings as well as attempts to sports governance in relation to multi-level ones, specifically EU. Regarding this we would emphasise the extent and importance of the relations that key national policy actors have established towards themselves and especially supra-national (EU) actors in the processes of creating common EU sports policy directions. We can expect that the conclusions of the analysis could indicate some possible guidelines or directions for the future development of the EU sports policy.
In the English context, the FA claim that there are approximately just over 37,500 clubs (9,000 of which are youth), incorporating approximately 4,360,000 junior participants under the age of 16 at the grassroots level of football in England. Supporting this grassroots infrastructure are 431,000 volunteers (the largest number of volunteers in any sector), with approximately 30,000 qualified coaches (The FA 2003). Despite having such a large voluntary base, the grassroots of English football has escaped the attention of academic analysis, except perhaps, for the ameliorative function football is utilised for in contributing to wider social policy goals. Most academic analysis is pre-occupied with wide ranging issues traditionally concerning the elite of football. This is even more surprising given that English grassroots football has suffered a considerable amount of neglect at the hands of both government and those responsible for the organisation of the game over the not too distant past. This paper draws upon research commissioned by the Football Association which evaluated the FA Charter Standard Scheme over the period October 2003 - October 2006. One particular aspect of the research findings is commented upon here; the pressures faced by volunteers in English grassroots football within the current socio-political climate, particularly the modernisation agenda for NGBs such as the FA. In this respect, the recommendations of the Independent European Sports Review (IESR) on grassroots football are overviewed. The IESR is credited here with highlighting the importance of the grassroots game across Europe, emphasising the importance of the professional game’s connection to the grassroots. However, the paper concludes by asserting that the IESR has not provided suggestions as to the mechanisms required for this to take place, and in neglecting this, also failing to account for the pressures of the grassroots football environment in one EU country
“a profound shift has taken place in the way in which sport is managed in the national and international context … the old hierarchical model of the government of sport, the top-down system, has given way to a complex web of interrelationships between stakeholders in which different groups exert power in different ways and in different contexts by drawing on alliances with other stakeholders” (Ian Henry)
“The implications of this [shift] are that significant change can only be achieved through negotiation between stakeholders, and that governing bodies no longer control by dictating policy outcomes, but must shape and cajole in order to achieve desired objectives.” (Matthew Holt)
The above quotes illustrate just some of the latest thinking on governance in football/sport. They are also made against a backdrop of calls for better governance in sport in general which are, in turn, made against a backdrop of calls for better governance in both the public and private sectors (for example, in the UK, there have been no less than five different reports/codes of corporate governance – Cadbury, Greenbury, Hampel, Turnbull, Higgs – to try to improve the situation in the private sector over the past 15 years).
However, the previously mentioned calls for “better governance” in football are actually, when examined more closely, often little more than calls for “more power” for one or other specific interest group. Of course, this fact does not lessen the need for high standards of governance in football. It does, however, raise the question, as do the two quotes above, of how relevant formal governance structures are in European football – and how de facto power is arguably far more relevant than formal power and formal governance structures (as, arguably, the reform of the UEFA Champions League in 1999 might illustrate). And, if so, who is going to implement a better balance within the de facto power structures in European football?
In parallel to these discussions about governance, within the EU various European court decisions – most notably Bosman – have been followed by the Nice Declaration, the Independent European Sport Review, the Belet Report and now the European Commission’s White Paper on Sport.
All of these declarations and reports refer to governance and to a European Sports Model which is highly complex – as one would expect from an activity involving 70 million participants, 10 million volunteers and 700,000 clubs in the EU alone; an activity spanning the public, private and civil society realms. Within that complexity, UEFA tries to fulfil its objectives which include, amongst other things, to: “ensure that the needs of the different stakeholders in European football (leagues, clubs, players, supporters) are properly taken into account … ensure that sporting interests always prevail over commercial ones … to act as a representative voice for the European football family as a whole” (source: “Objectives”, Art. 2, UEFA Statutes)
These objectives, and the attempts to fulfil them, help to shape the governance structure in European football.
In light of all of the above, and when looking at (improving) governance in European football – i.e. who should do what – it is necessary to gain a better understanding of who does what. Hence, the necessity to clearly understand the principals, and the purposes and actions of the institutions and groupings that they have set up.
Some authors argue that there is not such a thing as a sporting exemption on EC law. However, an in depth analysis of the case law reveals that thirty years ago the ECJ created such an exemption based on the specificity of sport. The judgment of the ECJ in the Walrave case established the basis for the exemption stating that European Law “does not affect the composition of sport teams, in particular national teams, the formation of which is a question of purely sporting interest and as such has nothing to do with economic activity” (case 36/74, §8). The exemption was confirmed and extended in Donà case, were the Court affirmed that the Treaties “do not prevent the adoption of rules or of a practice excluding foreign players from participation in certain matches for reasons which are not of an economic nature, which relate to the particular nature and context of such matches and are thus of sporting interest only, such as, for example, matches between national teams from different countries” (case 13/76, §14).
Both judgements created what should be named as a sporting exemption. The reference made to “economic activity” and “economic nature” should be ignored. In fact, by those days already the sporting sector involved an increasing economic activity. The sportsmen received compensations for their performance and the practice of sport was an incipient business. Advocate General Lenz considered in Bosman that cases Walrave and Donà had established “a sort of limited exception as to scope” (AG Lenz Opinion, case 36/74, § 139).
Since those two judgements, the European Court of Justice has not applied the sporting exemption, despite recognising its existence (Bosman, case 415/93, §73, Deliège, case 51/96, §43 and Lehtonen, case 176/96, §34). However the ECJ has not given a clear justification of why should the exemption not apply. His only words had been that the “restriction on the scope of the [Treaty] must remain limited to its proper objective and cannot be relied upon to exclude the whole of a sporting activity” (i.e. Deliège, case 51/96, §43).
The principles followed by the ECJ are not clear enough. This practice has created confusion on the way EC law should be applied to sport associations. This has leaded the European Commission to introduce the sporting exemption in its analysis concerning EC competition law. In a case concerning the "at home and away from home" rule of UEFA, the Commission considered that UEFA had “exercised its legitimate right of self-regulation as a sports organisation in a manner which cannot be challenged by the Treaty's competition rules”. (Limits to application of Treaty competition rules to sport: Commission gives clear signal, IP/99/965, 09.12.1999). According with the Commission it was a sports rule that did not fall within the scope of the Treaty's competition rules. Further in Meca Medina the Commission analysed the antidoping rules of the International Swimming Federation. It affirmed that the rules do not fall foul of the prohibition under Article 81 EC. In principle, this finding was based in the Wouters case law. However, during the procedure before the European Court of First Instance, the Commission stated that its decision was based on Walrave and Donà, and therefore on the purely sporting nature of the anti-doping rules at issue (case T-313/02, Meca Medina v Commission, §62).
The confusion was clearly visible in the judgement of the CFI in Meca Medina. The Court stated that the question was whether the rules are purely sporting in nature or whether they cover the economic aspect of sporting activity. However it held at the same time that “the prohibition of doping is based on purely sporting considerations and therefore has nothing to do with any economic consideration” (§47) and that even were it was “proved, quod non, that the IOC acted exclusively on the basis of its purely economic interests, there [was] every reason to believe that it fixed the limit at the level best supported by the scientific evidence” (§58). It is clear that one cannot say at the same time that something is purely sporting if it has been proved that it has been conceived on the basis of purely economic interests. It is either purely sporting or not.
Therefore there is a need to either clarify the scope of the exemption or withdraw it. The Judgement of the ECJ on the Meca Medina case (519/04) could be seen as an answer in line with the second option. It could be said that the ECJ has withdrawn the sporting exemption. However the wording of the judgement is not clear enough to clarify the situation. There are still some questions to be answered: Has the sporting exemption been completely rejected? If not, is there a different standard on the application of the sporting exemption to the Treaty rules on free movement and competition? The case law should address these issues rejecting plainly the existence of a sporting exemption. The test to ascertain which sport practices are compatible with the Treaty articles on free movement and competition law should be the rule of reason.