TIME EUROPE
November 13, 2000, Vol. 156 No. 20
Football's Crewe Cut
Seeking an end to transfer fees, the European Commission tackles soccer's governing bodies
By JENNIE JAMES London
For those who follow the glamour sides of European football, Crewe Alexandra is not a household name. But clubs like Crewe, now sitting 15th in England's second-tier division, are major players in a battle between soccer authorities and the European Commission over football's transfer system — a fight that affects every club in Europe. For the past half-decade, according to accountants Deloitte and Touche, Crewe has offset operating losses with income from player transfer fees.
The Commission has for years been pressuring football authorities to stop clubs demanding fees when their players move to rival sides, saying such payments are in breach of European Union laws that require freedom of movement for workers. Mindful of a series of European Court of Justice cases brought by players challenging the transfer system, the Commission has threatened to abolish what Competition Commissioner Mario Monti calls "arbitrarily calculated fees that bear no relation to training costs" if a compromise cannot be reached. Last week football authorities, responding to a Commission deadline of Oct. 31, submitted their alternative proposals.
The game's governing bodies claim that to abolish transfer fees would mean the death of small clubs like Crewe, that rely on player sales to subsidize operations. They say it would also damage youth development programs because no club would bother to develop a player it could not later sell. "Smaller clubs perform a function in talent spotting and talent growing," says Darren Venn, a consultant at leisure group ENIC, which runs clubs like Italy's Vicenza. "They have to be rewarded."
Football authorities are not united on the issue. As their document was being prepared, rumors abounded of squabbles between fifa, international football's governing body, and its European counterpart, uefa, over who should take the lead. Just days before the proposals were sent to Brussels, fifa president Sepp Blatter had an altercation with Gordon Taylor, a representative of the players' organization fifpro, after Taylor's request for changes to some of fifa's proposals was ignored. Concerned that the end of the current system might result in huge instability for both clubs and players, football authorities had suggested contracts that required a minimum three-year commitment from players; fifpro wanted the time period reduced to one year. Satisfying the interests of clubs, national associations and players was never going to be easy. "All year long you'd have to circle your flock like a sheepdog to keep it together," says Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder, president-designate of the German Football Association.
Some of the blueprint's proposals — such as ending international transfers for players under 18 — seem unlikely to raise the Commission's ire. But the plan's central premise, keeping a form of transfer fee within a more regulated framework, may yet run afoul of the Treaty of Rome's free movement principles. And although clubs would receive some compensation when players move on under the new proposals, the amounts seem unlikely to reach the levels of last July, which saw a total of about $90 million change hands when stars like Luis Figo and Nicolas Anelka changed clubs. Michael Tscherny, a European Commission spokesman, says it wants to see how the proposals provide for, among other things, the support of young players. A response is likely by year's end.
Whatever its intentions may be, the Commission has provoked a torrent of wrath. "The Commission knows nothing about football," says Mayer-Vorfelder. Guy Roux, former coach of French club Auxerre, asks, "Who gave [the Commissioners] the right to force fifa and uefa to set rules that will affect players from Bulgaria or Russia or Romania the same way they do those from England and Spain?"
With further negotiations pending, football's governing bodies have lobbied sports ministers and governments in advance of a European Council meeting next month, when they plan to propose that football be exempted from the commercial rules applicable to other industries. Meanwhile, little clubs like Crewe will be hoping that the fee game goes into extra time.
With reporting by Bruce Crumley/Paris, Joe Kirwin/Brussels and Ursula Sautter/Bonn
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November 13, 2000
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New World, Old Faces
Established firms team up with online specialists to venture into the terra incognita of the Internet
SPORT
Football's Crewe Cut
Seeking an end to transfer fees, the European Commission tackles soccer's governing bodies
THE ARTS
The Best of Both Worlds
Is it possible to be upwardly mobile yet keep hold of your principles? The new élite thinks it is
DEPARTMENTS
On Your Own Time
Copenhagen
World Watch
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
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