France to propose EU sports finance rules
LEIGH PHILLIPS
26.11.2008 @ 09:27 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - European Union sports ministers are set to consider French proposals for EU regulation of professional sports club financing later this week.
The French EU presidency is to unveil at a meeting of the ministers in Biarritz on Thursday (27 November) and Friday its plans to reform European sporting governance in a move that UK Tories are criticising as approaching a sports "super-regulator."
France is not looking for an EU sporting super-regulator, the presidency insists (Photo: FIFA)
Paris would like to see implemented at the European level a body modelled on France's national pro-sports regulator, the Direction Nationale du Controle de Gestion (DNCG), which oversees professional football in the country.
British Conservative MEPs say the proposals are the "culmination of a campaign by President Sarkozy" to govern the sector, noting the French leader had first announced similar plans in the European Parliament at the beginning of the French EU presidency.
UK Tory MEP Chris Heaton-Harris, the chair of the European Parliament's sports "intergroup," said an "EU sports super-regulator would devastate British sport."
"If you give the European Union any kind of power over sport, it will be very difficult to get it back. UEFA are playing a dangerous game if they think they can curb the success of Premier League clubs by appealing to the EU."
The euro-deputy worries that the French want to moderate the dominance of England's Premier League.
"We should celebrate the success of English football clubs, not apologise for it."
However, the French presidency says Mr Heaton-Harris is blowing things out of proportion.
Speaking to EUobserver, Michele-Ann Okolotowicz, the culture counsellor with the French EU presidency, insisted that no one is proposing a football super-regulator, although France would like to see some sort of EU-level oversight of football club financial accounts.
"The UK Conservatives seem to have entirely got the wrong end of the stick. It wouldn't be a carbon copy of how it works in France. It's just not as dramatic as it sounds."
"We're just hoping to launch some thinking, a reflection amongst sports ministers about how to control club bank accounts, club financing so that they are always in the black and not in the red."
"It's just an idea about how to manage financing," she said.
Ms Okolotowicz explained that under the French system, clubs in the first division of the French league that are having financial difficulties are relegated to its second division until they clean up their act.
However, the French presidency proposal "will be nothing like this," she underlined.
"We had originally thought of something along these lines at the European level, but not all member states were on side, so it's just an opening, an initial suggestion."
"You know how these British conservatives are - they always exaggerate."
