By Daisy Ayliffe - 22nd May 2006
Europe's politicans and football authorities must act quickly to stop the game falling into the wrong hands, says an independent review of the beautiful game.
Tuesday’s report attempts to inject trust into an increasingly disaffected public ahead of next month’s World Cup finals.
"The result of the review has left me deeply concerned. Sports and football in particular are not in good health," said former Portuguese deputy prime minister Jose Luis Arnaut who led the inquiry.
The Arnaut review calls for high earning footballers to face salary caps and tough new rules to limit the power of football’s richest clubs.
The blueprint also calls for regulation to prevent inappropriate owners taking over clubs.
“There is perhaps a more pressing need than ever to address this particular issue, given the notorious increase in scandals (including match fixing and betting) that have been reported,” the sport review concludes.
But critics in the UK premier league fear the findings will enable the European commission to direct football in member states.
They worry it may be used to help Uefa implement “unworkable” curbs on foreign players by getting a special exemption from EU laws on the movement of labour.
At the moment big European clubs benefit from the 1990 ECJ Bosman ruling.
Following the Bosman case, professional footballers in the EU can move freely to another club at the end of their term of contract with their present team.
"If anything it is about curbing the powers of the EU,” UK sports ministers attempted to assure worried premier league officials.
“What we have had so far is that too much of football is based on case law, aided and abetted by the EU - like the Bosman ruling.”
Tuesday’s review came about under the UK presidency as a result of last year's failure to ratify the European constitution.
The constitutional treaty had a clause which would have given sports a special status and exemption from some of the anti-competitive provisions of the Treaty of Rome - the same ones that led to the Bosman ruling.
Uefa hopes the review will tighten its grip on Europe’s wealthiest clubs – the so called elite group of 14.
But the crack down will be seen as a blow for G14 clubs who are seeking more independence from the governing authorities.
EU ministers will discuss the findings at a meeting in Brussels next month.
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