By J Hutcherson - WASHINGTON, DC (Aug 30, 2011) US Soccer Players -- Last week, UEFA president Michel Platini spoke to journalists in advance of the UEFA Super Cup. Using words more closely associated with British soccer pundits, he said: "I fear for the future of football. It's going pear shaped." Platini also referred to "red lights flashing." specifically the situation that led to Spanish league players striking after Spanish clubs opted against paying them according to their contracts and the current issue in Serie A.
The Spanish situation can be summarized quickly. Clubs made offers, players accepted, clubs didn't pay. This wasn't something that just happened. Some of these clubs had been operating without actually bothering to live up to their contractual obligations for years. The collective response of the powers that be when the players union voted to strike was along the lines of 'why now?"
As these things go, if you're a UEFA politician that sort of response and the associated arrogance would be ample cause for concern. That's true even if the situation was righted after a couple of weeks.
Then there's Italy, where the Serie A season didn't start as scheduled over a proposed clause that would allow teams to move players in the final year of their contract without the player's consent as long as the players got the same money. To put that in US terms, it would take away any no trade clause and allow teams to move players before their contracts end. That only benefits the clubs.
Into this steps Platini, who while stressing he wasn't speaking for UEFA also happens to still be that organization's president. That puts different weight on the words that leave his mouth in front of journalists.
As always with Platini, the real specter of financial impropriety is the clubs spending more than they make. Financial fair-play still looms over Europe, with Platini determined to see it imposed across leagues and their clubs. Add to that a proposal to require half a club's squad to be homegrown, and clubs face a very interesting present while looking to Platini's future.
What should clubs be doing now to prepare, and how much weight should UEFA's future plans have on their current decisions?
Arsenal are currently balanced at the edge of crisis for trying to implement economical soccer while staying in contention in the Premier League. Other clubs appear to be ignoring the UEFA version of the future altogether and spending at increasingly high levels. The public seems to support the 'spend if you can get it' version of soccer, and that's a huge obstacle in UEFA imposing their regulations.
For UEFA, financial fair-play means everyone has a realistic shot while operating within strict guidelines. The reality of modern soccer is risk/reward played out by spending large amounts of money. For those of us watching from this side of the Atlantic, it's interesting that no one in Europe seems at all intrigued by adopting the trade system in place of the transfer system.
When you consider how much money passes between clubs in Europe buying the rights to sign a player, one would think the trade system would do two things the day after it was implemented. First off, it would take away those large amounts of money passing between the same clubs. Second, it would shift the economics from the cost to sign a player to the cost of employing that player. Both of those should mean a reduction in real costs since teams would no longer be paying a transfer fee along with a new version of player movement in Europe. Teams would need to trade like for like along the lines of the North American model rather than cash for contracts.
That's a fairly obvious move. There are others that have been shown to work by the North American leagues. Revenue sharing, hard salary caps, and the distribution of television money just to name some of the big ticket items that promote the kind of parity Platini seems to want across Europe.
Instead, the UEFA regulations are imposing rather than revolutionary. They keep soccer business as usual, just with tighter regulations controlling what a club can do. Should their squad rules pass for European competitions and get picked up by the domestic leagues, the constraints increase.
Assuming all of this ends up on the rule books, there's still the problem of teams with money and teams without. Manchester United's training shirt sponsorship likely sent more of a shock through the offices of their fellow Premier League clubs than beating Arsenal 8-2, and for good reason. Under the UEFA system, sponsorship revenue can be spent in a way that benefactor money can't. The ability to sell a training shirt sponsorship is a literal competitive advantage, and reserved only for a select number of clubs.
Considering what Platini and UEFA envision, that's a significant 'red lights flashing' moment. It speaks of a future where the elite will find ways to remain elite. What lesser teams should be asking in this moment of European change is what's really in it for them. The elite are certainly asking that question. In real terms, what Platini and UEFA are proposing is simply a new way to define success, and in all likelihood with the same answer. Elite teams, doing what they do to maintain their advantage.
Comments, questions, solutions to problems that have yet to present themselves. Please, tell me all about it.
