Football governance: Is the current governance model stable and sustainable?

Résumé du document

"Organized football" had started as an amateur and European sport. But for fifteen years, football has become a "big business" throughout the world. During the nineties, TV channels have understood the growing popularity of football and have turned this sport from something that happens once a week, "with few games shown live, to something that happens at two different times on Wednesday, three on Saturday and two on Sunday" . TV Rights have been the major driver of teams' spectacular revenue growth. Football became a very attractive business for entrepreneurs who invested in this sport and took the control of clubs in England, Spain, France, Italy and Germany. They brought with them the ultra-liberal ideology and the "just-for-profit" strategy which run the traditional sectors of the economy.

However, after fifteen years of deregulation and ultra-liberal governance, an observation can be made: European football is in an alarming situation and each year the situation gets worse. Violence and racism are now common in stadiums. The fierce globalization has deeply damaged the major components of the football culture: the game itself, the traditional fans and clubs' identities. Casualization in this industry is now a subject of great concern. Thus, smaller players increasingly face job insecurity. Even worse, we also assist to a human traffic of young African players. But the one problem that really threatens European football is economical: Soccer's financial bubble "is about to burst" , according to an increasing number of experts. Soaring wage costs are hitting margins harder than ever. Moreover, an increasing number of reports highlight "increasingly clear warning signs" about the huge debts of European football.

Extraits

[...] Now, Liverpool plays football as the majority of the European teams. The best Brazilian, Serbian, Dutch or even French players have left their respective championships and so the local specificities disappear. The Bosman ruling, by deregulating the transfer system, and the globalization have rubbed out the diversity in terms of tactics and way of playing football. Concerning the national teams, the observation is the same. We can take the example of Brazil. Nowadays, the large majority of the top Brazilian footballers play in Spanish, Italian and English clubs. [...]

[...] Récupéré sur guardian.co.uk: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/jan/06/newsstory.sport4 Milanovic, B. ( 15). The World at Play: Soccer Takes on Globalization . Récupéré sur yaleglobal.yale.edu: http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/world-play-soccer-takes-globalization Milner, C. ( 14). Clubs should not spend more than they earn, warns Platini. Récupéré sur insideworldfootball.biz: http://www.insideworldfootball.biz/worldfootball/europe/7972 Owen, P. ( 26). Fifa's 6+5 rule does not conflict with EU law, claims report. Récupéré sur guardian.co.uk/: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/feb/26/fifa-6-5-eu-law-independent- report-bosman-ruling-sepp-blatter Pearson, G. ( 16). [...]

[...] With the Bosman ruling, transfer system is much easier and deregulated. Nowadays, those are the richer clubs which are advantaged because they can buy the top foreign players without any restriction. Since 1995, teams such as Arsenal (London) or Inter (Milan) often play with a team composed by 100% of (top) foreign players. Many countries (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Serbia, Netherlands, Portugal ) where the clubs didn't have the economic power to retain their top players and were no more protected by the quotas have seen those footballers go to the richer championships (England, Spain, Italy and Germany). [...]

[...] It is worth to precise that not all the championships are concerned by this unsustainable economic management. French and German leagues have a reasonable debt: respectively 0.1 billion and 0.6 billion[50]. The reason is very simple: in those leagues, there are clear restrictions which prevent economic drifts: In France there is an organization named DNCG (Direction Nationale du Contrôle de Gestion) which is responsible for monitoring and overseeing the accounts of professional soccer teams. French teams don't have the right to spend more than they earn. [...]

[...] This example enables to understand how the “financial fair play” will stop excessive spending and inflated transfer fees and player salaries that have endangered football in recent years”[72] Until 2011, many clubs financed the purchase of players and their wage bills thanks to the debt. I think that most of the clubs will seek to decrease their spending in order to fit with the break-even agreement. They will be less likely to buy expensive players and pay exponential wages. So, indirectly, they will be less likely to get into debt. That's why I think the FFP is a very interesting tool to fight against the unsustainable debt of the football industry. [...]