MEPs call for European-wide football regulations

Euro MPs today called for European-wide rules governing professional football - from stadium security and television rights to financial management and the training of young talent.

A report approved in Brussels called on the European Commission to draw up an “action plan” for European football – even though the EU has no legal power to regulate sport.

Drawn up by Belgian centre-right MEP Ivo Belet, the report acknowledges the lack of law-making authority, but says the EU treaties contain “a wide array of instruments to serve such a plan”.

The social and economic challenges facing the game are too great for football’s governing bodies to tackle alone, warns the report.

A majority of MEPs said European standards would help to combat football violence and hooliganism and promote the sport’s campaign against racism and xenophobia.

But Conservative MEP and professional football referee Chris Heaton-Harris warned Eurocrats to keep away: “Football is not another industry for politicians to regulate. It is about time that politicians agreed that the best people to govern sports are the sports federations themselves.”

Liberal Democrat MEP Sharon Bowles rejected claims the move amounted to a plan for the EU to take over running the game.

“This report is not about the EU taking over football. There is no appetite in the Commission or the Council (EU governments) for any football legislation. Europe’s institutions must stay well clear of the political bodies already in place. National associations, leagues and clubs are best placed to make the right decisions.

“Football in Europe is well run, professional and a model of self-regulation.”

But the report’s call for social measures to safeguard the interests of junior players, monitor employment laws and enforce anti-discrimination rules, should be welcomed she said.

The report says European governing body UEFA should be supported in efforts to improve self-regulation, but urges the Commission to clarify the “legal status” of an increasingly commercial sport complicated by a combination of European and national laws and the rules of its own governing bodies.

The report goes on: “Football rules and procedures need to be guided by good governance principles such as transparency, representativeness and accountability.”

The report warns the widening gap between top-end and other clubs is increasingly concentrating sporting success amongst a small number of clubs, a development which now threatens to erode “the competitive balance and uncertainty of results which is the essence of an exciting sport”.

MEPs want UEFA to boost its club licensing system, designed to ensure a level playing field for clubs and contribute to their financial stability. The system should be improved to guarantee financial transparency and proper management, said the report.

It also urges UEFA and world body FIFA to work together with European clubs and leagues to agree a collective insurance plan so clubs are not penalised if a player is injured during a national team match.

MEPs backed the collective selling of TV rights, so fair distribution of revenues from television coverage ensures solidarity between professional and amateur games.

Labour MEP Richard Corbett commented: “The collective sale of television rights is not only vital for all professional clubs but the money generated by the likes of the Premier League is filtered down to grassroots football, ensuring a bright future for the game.”

The report supports UEFA’s “home-grown players” rule, which sets a minimum number of locally-educated and trained players per team – four in the 2006-2007 season and six in 2007-2008.

But where clubs are giving contracts to young foreign talent under 16, there should be safeguards to ensure immigration laws against child trafficking are respected.

One controversial amendment from an Austrian socialist MEP was dropped before today’s vote – a call for the flying of the EU flag and the singing of the EU anthem to be made compulsory in European football championships.

UK Independence Party MEP Godfrey Bloom, speaking before the idea was axed, commented: “For pity’s sake, let’s keep EU nationalism out of football”.

He pointed out that Switzerland – a non-EU country – was one of the Euro 2008 host countries. And he added: “In this year’s Champions League we had a Russian side playing a Turkish side, neither of which are in the EU. And how would the Norwegians feel if they were forced to run out under a flag that has nothing to do with them?

“This grandstanding is just the latest attempt to create a single European nation in the sporting field.”