Premiership to clash with FIFA following 18-team ruling

The Barclays Premiership are poised for a showdown with FIFA after football’s governing body today voted in principle for all leagues across the world to have no more than 18 clubs per elite division.

FIFA have acted to counter the growing issue over rest periods and players being released for international duty.

The Premier League will oppose any attempt to throw two clubs out of the most watched league in the world.

But FIFA president Sepp Blatter believes an 18-club ceiling will free up more dates for national games and reduce fixture congestion and he is convinced the move would be popular with teams.

He is hoping the format – which would also hit leagues in France, Spain and Italy – to be implemented by the start of the 2007-08 season.

Blatter explained: “We now have the green light for 18 teams.

“Instead of playing 38 matches in the league, the clubs would only play 34. I can’t imagine they would not be pleased.”

Blatter, who at the end of the two-day congress announced he would be standing next year for a third term of office – by which time he will be 71 – approved a raft of new proposals in a bid to clean up the game.

Premier League spokesman Dan Johnson claimed FIFA did not have the power to push through such changes.

Johnson told PA Sport: “Sepp Blatter cannot enforce this. There’s only one group of people who decide the make-up of the Premier League and that’s the 20 clubs.

“There is no appetite for them as a collective to reduce the size and FIFA cannot force it on us.

“We reduced the size of the league from 22 clubs to 20 in 1995-96, and since then UEFA have expanded the Champions League, FIFA have expanded the World Cup and brought in the Confederations Cup and World Club Championship so it’s a bit rich for anyone to talk about reducing the number of matches.

“We are the only people who have done so.”

In a rallying call to his 207 member federations, Swiss-born chief BLatter told the annual congress the time had come for “action rather than words” before overseeing the approval of a series of motions designed to provide more transparency and accountability.

Top of the list was the approval of a much-vaunted ethics committee - described by Blatter as “an important step forward” – to investigate scandals of corruption and match-fixing and create better governance of the game.

The committee’s personnel are expected to be nominated later this year with a mandate to try to stave off the kind of crisis which has enveloped the Italian game, where Juventus are at the heart of match-fixing allegations.

Blatter said: “We have already identified the problems, now it is time to send a message to the world that we will find solutions.”

Although the new panel was approved almost unanimously, just before the vote, the Football Association raised questions about its fairness and legality.

Simon Johnson, head of FA corporate affairs at Soho Square, suggested that giving the committee carte blanche to make decisions without the right of appeal was “not necessarily in accordance with natural justice” but dropped his complaint when it was pointed out this was covered by the statutes.

Another key motion approved was an agreement by FIFA to adopt the WADA anti-doping code while maintaining their own position to treat every case on its merits.

In what was widely regarded as a compromise between the two bodies, football will ban drug offenders for the statutory two years for a first offence but, crucially, reserve the right to cut that by half – or even turn it into a mere caution – if the player concerned proves he was not at fault or significantly negligent.

In return, WADA will be able to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport if they feel FIFA have been too lenient with any bans.

FIFA executive committee David Will, who helped draw up the amendment to the FIFA statutes, said: “In principle there will in future be a two-year suspension for a first offence, then a life ban in case of repetition.

“However, and it’s a very big however, if it can be proved that a substance was not intended to enhance sporting performance or if the offender can prove he was not significantly involved in the offence – in other words if the drug was administered without the player having any idea it was happening – the sanction can be reduced.”

A detailed report by a three-pronged task force set up last year to monitor political, financial and competitive aspects of the global game – notably multiple club ownership and where the money goes in dubious transfers – was also passed.

The Congress agreed that within two years, a new system will be established allowing each Continental confederation to obtain detailed information about transfers, with clubs obliged to disclose which agents and banks they have used in any particular deal.