UEFA unimpressed with EU whitepaper on sport
19/06/2007 |
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UEFA is upset that years of lobbying the European Union on behalf of football – and sport in general – could all turn out to have been wasted effort.
The European federation has expressed clearly its concerns in response to a draft EU White Paper on Sport. UEFA, along with other federations including those representing basketball, handball, volleyball and ice hockey, had hoped to obtain semi-autonomy within their spheres of action along the lines of the Nice Declaration of the Specificity of Sport.
Discussions over the past year with senior European government sports ministers – notably Richard Caborn of the United Kingdom - had suggested sport might be freed from some of the diktats of European Union laws, particularly those relating to freedom of labour.
But UEFA considers the draft white paper offers no prospect of turning the clock back to the pre-Bosman era.
An unsigned statement issued by UEFA says: “The preparation of the White Paper had created a certain optimism that current problems and the related threats to the future of European sport had been well understood and that there was a clear will from the European Commission to propose concrete solutions.
“Such solutions would put an end to the current dangerous legal confusion and would lead to a regulatory framework that enhanced the further development of European sport at all levels.
“We have been able to read a draft of the White Paper and the principal reaction is one of deep disappointment. We have discovered a lengthy document that simply describes the current situation but unfortunately adopts a very timid and indecisive attitude towards the key issues.
“The draft addresses neither the autonomy of sport, nor implementing legal stability in sport, nor any cooperation in addressing criminal issues in society which may find expression through sport . . . The only text that has been approved by the European Heads of States or Governments is the Nice Declaration on the Specificity of Sport.
“This should serve as the guideline for the Commission, which should now work on ways to implement it - not on ways to review or circumvent it.”
(Source: Qatarolympics.org)
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