OffthePitch.com with an in front of the paywall special report
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Special Report: What do the ECA actually want?
30 March 2021 7:33 PM
- Hunt for settlement on Champions League reforms, previously promised by late March, goes on without resolution.
- Numerous sources across European game express concern about ECA, alleging that the body wants to ultimately take over the running of European club competition and is positioning itself to do so.
- Champions League reform talks broke down at the twelfth hour after clubs demanded majority control over commercial joint venture with UEFA.
- “They are set up as a lobby group, but you can see from the people they are hiring that their ambitions lie beyond that.”
JAMES CORBETT
corbett@offthepitch.com
Deadlines come and go in all walks of life, but three weeks after the European Club Association (ECA) President Andrea Agnelli said that a resolution over the future of European club competition was “a couple of weeks” away, a resolution seems no closer than ever.
A UEFA Executive Committee meeting on Wednesday set up to rubber stamp what Agnelli terms a “beautiful” new format, is now not going to deliver that decision, having already been postponed three times since the start of the month.
“Speculation has been going on for 20 years – let’s hope they are closed in a few weeks,” Agnelli said on 8 March.
But instead of a rush to get a deal over the line, there has been delay after delay with renewed scrutiny on the ECA and its role in European football.
First, a special assembly of the European Leagues, the representative body of 36 leagues across Europe, 48 hours after Agnelli’s comments, saw a furious backlash.
A bombshell
Leading clubs and league representatives lined up to warn of the “devastating effect” on football’s financial and competitive ecosystem if UEFA and the ECA proceeded with its current plans to overhaul its club competitions. Club representatives also spoke out at a lack consultation from UEFA and the ECA and accused the two organisations of “huge conflicts of interest.”
Next, a bombshell: the Financial Times reported that the ECA and UEFA were engaged in talks to create a joint venture to sell TV and commercial rights. Was this just another step to handing over the keys to European football’s engine to the richest clubs?
A week later on 26 March came a renewed attack from the European Leagues, at which its president Lars-Christer Olsson said that he received “guarantees that no clubs are taking over the club competitions from UEFA.”
UEFA, he said, “will always have the final say… That is not handed over to any other body for decision making.”
Then, just as agreement seemed likely, on 30 March UEFA postponed its decision by at least another three weeks. This time renegade clubs ambushed the final round of talks with increased demands. It is not clear whether they were acting of their own volition or at the request of the ECA.
Paranoia
Increasingly, the ECA is whispered about by those not represented at its top table, as a kind of bogey man, or conspiracy. Executives within the game are conspicuously aware of it – they mutter their fears and concerns – but its name is seldom uttered publicly.
But what is the ECA, and why does it cause so much paranoia?
It was formed in 2008 to replace the G-14, which comprised a small number of elite clubs that agitated for greater control over the Champions League – talk of a super league has been omnipresent for decades – and was unrecognised by UEFA. The ECA was created to be more widely representative of European football clubs and take the sting out of the idea that the agenda was pushed by a cartel of super clubs. Its mission statement is "to create a new, more democratic governance model that truly reflects the key role of the clubs".
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Javier Tebas La Liga chief angry fierce attack
“With the ECA there is no debate, there is a kitchen with the access limited to 12 or 13 diners, and when they’ve finished cooking and eating, they invite the rest for a coffee”
1 April 2019 10:41 AM
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At one level it does just that. Instead of representing 14 elite clubs, it has 109 ordinary members comprised from 55 leagues, as well as 123 associated members. But a peek beneath the bonnet shows that some clubs are more equal than others and that power still rests with the elite.
Full membership to Gibraltar club
Ordinary members are selected each cycle according to a country co-efficient and the club co-efficient within that ranking. Thus the top three UEFA members get five ECA members each, the next three get four members, rank 7-15 three members; 16-28 two; and the rest of UEFA’s members get one ordinary member each. Those members are then selected according to UEFA’s club co-efficients.
Yet because co-efficients give precedence to historical pedigree, it has a habit of ensuring elite clubs have full member status, even when they are doing less well. Of Europe’s ‘Big 5 Leagues’, five clubs currently in Champions League positions (Lille, Leicester, Atalanta, Leipzig and Eintracht Frankfurt) only have associate member status – essentially observer rank. This imbalance is heightened by the fact that the likes of Arsenal and AC Milan, which haven’t qualified for the Champions League for several years, not only have full membership, but board representation too.
The ECA will counter this by pointing out that as well as granting full membership to clubs like Gibraltar’s Lincoln Red Imps and La Fiorita of San Marino, but that its board also includes members from clubs like HJK, Malmo and Macabbi Haifa.
Scraps from the table
Yet the perception of such apparent inequalities cuts deep. “We all know that the ECA represents only a few. It is the alibi or the excuse that the big European clubs use to achieve their objectives,” said the ECA’s arch-critic, the La Liga President Javier Tebas in 2019.
“With the ECA there is no debate, there is a kitchen with the access limited to 12 or 13 diners, and when they’ve finished cooking and eating, they invite the rest for a coffee. In the eyes of the world, it seems like the banquet is a celebration for all. It’s a lie.”
Yet some of if its work has had a discernible benefits for all clubs. Soon after its inception it negotiated agreements with UEFA and FIFA for clubs to be compensated for the use of their players in the European Championships and World Cup. These payments now equate to hundreds of millions every cycle. Its work instigated FIFA Club Protection Programme (CPP), an insurance policy covering the injury risk of national team players – which had traditionally been the responsibility of clubs. It works closely with the European Union on the specificity of sport, which ensures the game’s eco-system is preserved.
It has representation on the UEFA Exco committee and is recognised by FIFA. An anomaly of football’s world governing body is that clubs have never had a voice until the past five years. This voice has been felt again and again. At previous negotiations on European club competition it gained a rake of separate payments to clubs based on their UEFA co-efficient. The rich got a bit richer.
Authentic disaster
Tebas has persistently warned against the encroachment of the ECA and says that its pressure on UEFA is ultimately to create a version of the Champions League that cements the hegemony of Europe’s current elite.
UEFA and the ECA are building a competition, he alleged in 2019, “which in the medium to long term will be an authentic disaster and goes straight to the heart of the national competitions because – let’s be clear about this – aside from just a few, this is a coalition dividing rich and poor in which only 32 of them [clubs] will have a VIP pass.”
Yet some critics believe that its ambitions lie even further. One official at a major European league speaks of how its end game is to wrest outright control of club competition from UEFA.
“They think they can do a better job, for less money than UEFA currently levies to organise the Champions League,” says the source. “But ultimately it’s about ensuring the competition’s riches end up in the hands of a small elite of clubs. It would be a super league by default.”
Asked to go on the record, the official says the majority of its league members are concerned about this, but that their league can’t speak out because several members are among that very elite vying for power. “This is a problem a number of leagues face,” the source concedes.
Off The Pitch reached out to a number of club owners, league officials as well as the ECA itself, but no one would speak openly.
Wresting control
Another figure in European football with direct experience of negotiating with the ECA claims “this is not a conspiracy.”
“They are set up as a lobby group, but you can see from the people they are hiring that their ambitions lie beyond that. The appointment of Charlie Marshall – who has a strong sports marketing background – as CEO is one example. He seems to have assumed many of the responsibilities of Michele Centenaro [ECA’s long-serving secretary-general], whose career – by contrast – is more heavily wedded to sports administration.”
The source also pointed to the 2017 creation of a company called UCC SA that was set up to allow the ECA to advise UEFA on selling broadcast and commercial rights, albeit that UEFA retains final say on any such decisions.
“I think long term they see themselves taking over the responsibilities of Team SA [the full service international marketing agency that has been UEFA’s exclusive partner since the early-1990s] and controlling rights. But there are good reasons why they shouldn’t have that power. Serie A’s recent struggles to sell its own rights is a good example; if you have too many powerful interests at an operational level nothing gets achieved.
“But ultimately you’ve got to understand this is about power and control, and it’s not just the ECA that are at it. Sometimes the big clubs go off on their own.
“Threats are made in the media – such as over the super league – and the debate jumps forward. There’s a howl of outrage and they’ll inch back, but the marginal gains remain.
“There’s a constant creep towards their strategic goal, which is more power and more money for the big clubs.”
Creep creep
On Friday 19 March, a report in the Financial Times claimed that UEFA and the ECA were in “advanced talks” over the creation of what it termed was “a joint venture that would control all media and sponsorship rights for contests such as the Champions League and the lesser Europa League.”
According to the report the talks envisaged either an expanded role for UCC SA or an entirely new company, but that either way ECA would have an “equal say” on the terms of future commercial contracts. It would give clubs bigger influence over key commercial decisions, such as display of stadium ads. UEFA would retain control over “all sporting questions”, including, intriguingly “the rules and format of competitions.”
UEFA is understood to have offered 50/50 ownership with the ECA on the venture, but the clubs demanded majority control. It is not clear whether they were acting of their own volition or at the request of the ECA, whose board are understood to have met 24 hours earlier
Is this then, the price that UEFA is willing to pay in order for the biggest clubs to take their tanks off the lawn? Or is it merely part of the “creep creep” towards their “strategic goal”?
We asked both the ECA and UEFA for comment on the FT story, but neither would do so on the record.
Red lines
If these are the red lines, UEFA has at least stuck by them – for now.
When UEFA’s Club Committee convened on Tuesday it had been expected to discuss final sticking points on Champions League reform, including entry criteria for the four additional teams plus how the calendar will accommodate four additional match weeks.
However, the meeting broke down abruptly after club representatives from three teams made demands about who controlled the new commercial and broadcast joint venture.
And so a stasis has again taken hold of talks that have gone on for some 30 months.
Deeply troubling
A league representative who spoke on condition of anonymity said that they found reports about the joint UEFA-ECA venture “deeply troubling from both a financial and governance perspective” and that it was “a much more significant story than anyone had given credit for.”
“You’re essentially handing over control of the crown jewels of European football to a body unaccountable to anyone but a small number of already very wealthy clubs. Why would any organisation do that?
“UEFA need to remember its mission statement and who they actually represent. And European football needs to wake up to what’s actually happening.”
Nb. UEFA’s mission statement opens: UEFA’s core mission is to promote, protect and develop European football at every level of the game, to promote the principles of unity and solidarity, and to deal with all questions relating to European football.