Notes from a sporting week – 21/01/08

Goodbye to G14:

With the entire hullabaloo emanating from northeast England this week one football story was given very little airtime. The G14 group of 18 European clubs, which features the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal, Real Madrid and AC Milan, this week agreed to disband following talks with FIFA and UEFA bosses, Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini. Instead the clubs will form part of a European Club Association that will include one club from each of UEFA’s 53 member associations and have 100 members overall.

Both sides will argue that they have won the battle and both have points where they can feel that they have ended up with the better of the agreement. From the clubs point of view it is the fact that both FIFA and UEFA have agreed to their demands for player compensation when their players are on international duty. It was hard not to sympathise with the clubs even when they were at their most selfish about the whole issue. After all it is their players who are used for free in internationals, even forced in some cases by FIFA. This was the case recently when they ordered Everton’s South African midfielder Stephen Pienaar to stop dallying and get himself over to Ghana to link up with his team-mates, even if it meant missing the Toffees’ Carling cup semi-final second leg with Chelsea.

This very issue was at the heart of the groups’ existence and the fact that Germany’s association (DFB) paid the clubs when they used their players and that England paid Newcastle United compensation when Michael Owen was injured on international duty, showed that FIFA and UEFA were being thoroughly stubborn about the whole matter. All the more so considering the rich west European associations are more than capable of paying the clubs, whilst the poorer South American and African nations will in all likelihood see the money taken out of their championship appearance fees. The football clubs also had reason to have their noses out of joint just by looking at other sports, such as cricket and rugby union, who are duty bound to pay clubs for international call-ups.

At the heart of the argument was the potential embarrassment that FIFA and UEFA faced if they lost the Abdelmajid Oulmers case. Belgian club Charleroi were planning on taking FIFA to the European Court of Justice after Oulmers was injured in a friendly for Morocco that FIFA had ordered the Belgian club to release him for. The G14 clubs lined up firmly behind Charleroi, paid for legal advice, as they knew they were on for a winner should the judge rule in their favour. The new agreement means that the case has now been dropped.

Of the two associations UEFA had more to worry about from the G14’s existence than FIFA, who were at the heart of the compensation argument as the European clubs have players from each of FIFA’s confederations. For UEFA the threat of the breakaway super league has now totally dissipated and following their earlier agreement to alter the format of the Champions League qualification process to make the competition more inclusive of the whole continent, Platini can feel pleased that his plans to make UEFA more inclusive of the smaller nations are moving ahead.

Whilst the G14 was limited to clubs in the bigger western European nations, the new Club Association will include a team spokesperson from each country. So whilst G14 was the big clubs worrying over their slice of the pie, now there will be teams from places such as Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan pointing out that even a tiny piece of the pie would serve them well.

Overall then UEFA can probably come out the talks happiest. FIFA and the bigger associations will lose little sleep over dipping into their sizeable funds to cover costs when players are with their country and the clubs, whilst the big clubs will be looking forward to pouring that extra money into youth development (yeah, right). However, all FIFA and G14 were arguing over was money, what UEFA stood for in the discussions was a view of the sport, that it shouldn’t be about just a rich few west of Vienna, that the strength of the continent’s sport was in the smaller clubs having their rights recognised. In a small period of time Michel Platini has worked wonders embracing, yet altering the big clubs and associations’ viewpoints. He has a few more years till the next UEFA presidential election and so will make interesting viewing to see where he attacks next.

Bladerunner’s hopes dashed:

Not the best week for Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius, who was told by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) that he would not be allowed to run in this year’s Olympic Games in Beijing. The reason given was that after a number of tests on his blades, it turns out that they do give him an advantage over able-bodied runners, allowing him to use 25% less energy to run at the same speed as his full able-bodied counterparts. The use of the blades also contravenes the IAAF’s rules on using technical aids.

The 21 year-old South African, whose legs were amputated below the knee at 11 months of age, is now planning to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland. In 2007 he ran in the ‘b’ race at Rome’s Golden Gala, finishing second with 46.90 and two days later was disqualified for running out of his lane at the Sheffield Grand Prix. This year he was planning on running a number of races ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing.

There has been a lot of whaling and gnashing of teeth in the press, talking about how a brave young man has been deprived a fair and just chance of following his dream. However, to do so is wrong. By proving that the blades do give him an advantage there could be no more argument over him competing with able-bodied athletes, as there would be for any other athlete.

The judgement against him also needs to be seen from a future perspective. If Pistorius was allowed to use the blades now, imagine what technological developments will have taken place in one, two or four years when all eyes will be on the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics? If the precedent had been set that he could use blades that give him a 25% advantage over the rest of the field, why not something that gives him a 50, 75 or 100% advantage?

What the IAAF’s ruling has indicated is that if Pistorius wants to run, then it needs to be on a completely level playing field. Ultimately, that is probably all he wants.
JI 21/01/08