By Daisy Ayliffe - 22nd May 2006
High earning footballers should face salary caps, a review of European football is set to declare.
Tough new rules limiting the power of football’s richest clubs and the number of foreign players they can pick will also be included in the review of the beautiful game.
"Strict rules" on the ownership of clubs and an EU-wide "good governance" structure will also be proposed.
EU sports ministers, headed by Portugese politician Jose Luis Arnaut present their findings to the European commission on Tuesday.
The new blueprint looks certain to tighten the grip of the sport’s official bodies, Fifa and Uefa, still reeling from attacks on their authority by Europe’s weathiest clubs, the so called Elite group of 14.
“We at Uefa hope it ushers in a new era of close cooperation between politicians and football's governing bodies,” Lars-Christer Olsson, Uefa chief executive wrote ahead of the publication of the findings.
“A few clubs in Europe's big markets - England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France - earn much more money than their rivals, which reduces competition. Many use it to buy the world's best players, which again widens the inequality, although often they have so many top stars that they leave some on the bench.”
The review, initiated under the UK EU presidency, came about partly as a result of last year's failure to ratify the European constitution.
This had a clause which would have given sports a special status and exemption from anti-competitive provisions.
Uefa hope the Arnault review will allow the EU to give sport a special exemption.
“We have been assured of support for the independence and autonomy of sports governing bodies,” Olsson said on Monday.
“If this comes out of the report as we think, we will be very supportive and are prepared to work really hard together with the politicians across Europe."
But the crack down will be seen as a blow for G14 clubs who are seeking more independence from the governing authorities.
UK premier league sides are said to object to the "basic premise" of Arnaut's review.
They fear it would enable the European commission to direct football in member states.
Football chiefs claim that the game would be subject to more restrictive rules than any other sector of the economy and they are also said to oppose plans for a salary cap, which would normally be a set percentage of club turnover.
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