Karl-Heinz Rummenigge's ECA may be the lesser of two bad choices when it comes to football's future. Photograph: Christof Stache/AFP/Getty ImagesWhat is it to be, a punch in the face or a knee in the groin? The politicking, money?grubbing opportunists who run Fifa, or the politicking, money?grubbing opportunists who run the richest clubs in Europe? Sepp Blatter or Karl-Heinz Rummenigge?
The most obvious answer is C (none of the above), but after a footballing week that has seen more sabre rattling than the director's cut of Braveheart, it appears we have to choose sides. There will be no Switzerland, alas, in the coming battle over who controls football, only more of the same from Blatter, Switzerland's very own Mr Magoo.
Fifa's president was at his myopic worst on the eve of the 2014 World Cup preliminary draw in Rio de Janeiro as he laid out a timetable for "reforming" football's world governing body. "We are going step by step ... We are not going to make decisions without contacting the different parts we need to," he said. "There is a lot of work that is already on the table, we have had contact with organisations working in transparency, personalities who work on anti?corruption systems, we are talking to the United Nations, who have this sort of committee."
Thank heavens Fifa have not spent the past year mired in corruption scandals so pervasive that this weekend's festivities were reduced to the status of "welcome diversion", otherwise Blatter might be accused of buying time in the hope people forget the scandals and move on.
Fat chance. Which brings us back to Rummenigge, who in his role as the chairman of the European Club Association has been cast as the lead pallbearer for football's old order. Revolution is afoot, according to comrade Karl-Heinz.
"Sepp Blatter is saying [that he's cleaning up the shop], but the fact no one believes him tells you everything you need to know," he said. "They believe the system is working perfectly as it is. It's a money machine, World Cup after World Cup. And for them, that's more important than serious and clean governance. I don't accept any longer that we [should be] guided by people who are not serious and clean."
Rummenigge has found the ideal candidates to replace Blatter and his allies as rulers of the football world: himself and his friends at the ECA. "I'm ready for a revolution if that's the only way to come to a solution," he said.
The solution is for the ECA – or at least their richest and most powerful clubs – to break away from football's established structures, free themselves and their players from the obligations of international competition and set up what has come to be known through the years as a European Super League.
We have been here many times before, only for the clubs and governing bodies to reach an agreement to maintain the status quo, albeit with a few minor adjustments around the periphery. The most recent entente cordiale was signed in 2008 and will run out in 2014, when there is every reason to believe the urge to break away will be even stronger.
For one thing, Blatter will still be in charge, with all that implies for the prospects of real reform at Fifa. More pertinently, the financial attractions of a ECA-run super league will be even more apparent by then. A few days ago in the United States the five?month dispute between NFL owners and players over money was resolved. The stand-off had been expected to last a year, but that was before the realisation dawned that life in the NFL was simply too lucrative for all involved.
The coming season's revenues are expected to exceed $9bn (?5.5bn) – most of which will come from television. That figure will increase dramatically over the next few years as the TV deals (worth a combined $20bn) run out and are renegotiated. Upwards.
Don't think these negotiations will go unnoticed by Rummenigge and don't think his ECA friends will fail to understand that while the NFL's appeal is vast, it is geographically limited to the US. Football knows no boundaries and nor, one suspects, will the financial expectations of ECA negotiators should they ever find themselves selling the rights to a European super league. Twenty billion dollars may be just about right – as a starting point.
These are obscene amounts of money and it would require an unimaginable degree of selfishness for Europe's leading clubs to pursue their own interests at such cost to their national associations. What would English football be without Manchester United and Chelsea? And Spanish football without Barcelona and Real Madrid?
"It is just going to be a closed [competition] that stays closed forever. How boring is that?," said Malcolm Clarke of the Football Supporters' Federation, dismissing the notion of a breakaway.
Boring? Try telling that to the millions of Americans who cannot live without their weekly dose of the closed league that is the NFL. And try telling that to those who have become thoroughly disillusioned with Fifa and the damage caused by their disreputable antics. Ask these people to take sides and they will go with Rummenigge. He is far from perfect. But he is not Blatter.
The temptation to feel sympathy for a professional athlete is never stronger than when he or she lands in trouble for saying exactly what is on their mind.
Don't we want honesty in our sporting world? Of course we do. It is just that we have a strange way of showing our appreciation on those rare occasions when the unvarnished truth will out, as Rory McIlroy found out when he responded to criticism of his caddie, JP Fitzgerald, from the American commentator Jay Townsend with the tweet heard round the world: "Shut up. You're a commentator and a failed golfer, your opinion means nothing."
For what its worth, Townsend may have had a point about Fitzgerald, and he and McIlroy may have exceeded the speed limit on racy personal insults. But so what? All involved had their say, no one got injured, and the rest of us were made aware that golf isn't quite the cosy little world it sometimes appears to be. I'd call that a good day for the sport.
No comments:
Post a Comment