La Liga boss Javier Tebas has told FIFA president Gianni Infantino to “scrap” next summer’s Club World Cup, claiming the expanded tournament is not wanted by broadcasters, clubs, players or sponsors.
The final speaker at the European Professional Football Forum in Brussels on Tuesday, Tebas was in typically combative form as he criticised FIFA’s decision-making, claimed the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) “is dead” and attacked the European Club Association (ECA) for only representing the interests of the game’s richest clubs.
But it was the 61-year-old’s comments about the new, 32-team Club World Cup that hit hardest, as they came only a day after global players’ union FIFPro and European Leagues, the body that represents nearly 40 leagues across the continent, teamed up to file an official complaint at the European Commission about FIFA’s anti-competitive behaviour.
La Liga quit European Leagues last year because of Tebas’s frustration with the organisation, but the Spanish league joined the coalition of leagues and players’ unions in their complaint against FIFA. And, 24 hours later, he announced that La Liga was rejoining European Leagues as a result of its action against football’s world governing body.
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Like every other domestic league in Europe, Tebas accuses FIFA of not consulting them on the decision to stage a Club World Cup every fourth summer, just as the governing body did not consult them on moving the 2022 World Cup to the winter or expanding the men’s World Cup to 48 teams from 2026.
“Mr President (Infantino), you know you have not sold the broadcast rights for the Club World Cup, you know you have not sold any sponsorship rights,” said Tebas. “Scrap the Club World Cup. It is not needed by the players, the clubs or FIFA.
“If you use FIFA’s own money to pay for it, you are taking money away from the national associations. Please scrap it.”
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He then urged FIFA to properly negotiate with the leagues and players’ unions on the contentious topic of the international match calendar, the overarching plan that sets out when domestic and international fixtures can be played.
His speech was greeted with loud applause from an audience largely comprised of representatives from clubs, leagues and players’ unions across Europe. But the event, which was organised by Union of European Clubs (UEC), also attracted speakers from the European Commission.
The UEC is a relatively new organisation that was set up to give a voice to professional clubs across the continent that were not represented by the ECA.
The successor to the old G-14 group, which lobbied European football’s governing body UEFA on behalf of the game’s richest clubs, the ECA was originally created to represent the interests of clubs that regularly play in UEFA club competitions.
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But since the UEC appeared on the scene two years ago, the ECA has almost tripled in size, swelling to 700 members, although only a third of those have voting rights.
What the ECA does have, however, is a formal — and increasingly commercial — relationship with UEFA, which recognises the ECA as “the only representative body for clubs” in Europe. As a result, the ECA receives significant funding from the governing body that enables it to provide its members with various services.
The UEC, on the other hand, receives no financial support and has been dismissed by ECA officials as a “protest group”.
If that is true, it would appear that many in the game believe such an organisation is needed, as the UEC’s membership now includes 140 clubs, several of whom are also members of the ECA.
In an opening address to the conference, Alex Muzio, the president of Brussels-based Union Saint-Gilloise said: “Regulation across football was not designed for the current football industry, in which the UEC is needed.
“There is a siren call for better regulation across all football, as football is misusing the power it’s been given.”
(Maria Jose Lopez/Europa Press via Getty Images)
