European clubs want financial change

European football is at a critical financial crossroads, but needs to guard against over-regulation as it strives to create a new era of financial fair play and co-operation, leading club executives said yesterday.

// //

Speaking at the Soccerex European Forum in Manchester yesterday, Jose Maria Cruz Andres, VP of the board of directors at Sevilla FC, said it was time for European clubs to take urgent, but measured action.

“Football is a strange business in which players and agents win everyday and the owners lose every time … with decisions not taken by the owners but by supporters and the media,” he said. “The problem is that we are spending more on players than we are earning. In the Spanish second division clubs are paying players 150 per cent of their revenues and this is not sustainable. But we don’t need overregulation. We are not a bank or an insurance company. The problem is to find the right measure of regulation on spending and revenue.”

Ernesto Paolilo, CEO and general manage of Inter Milan, added that forces resistant to structural change in Italian football continue to undermine efforts to restructure the league on the Premier League model: “We are part of the same industry and share the same interests but the smaller-sized clubs want money from the big clubs …We need new rules. A lot of clubs in Serie B are in a bad situation and that problem will affect all clubs. Sometimes you need a shock to change the structure.”

The most positive analysis of the current financial crisis however came from Arsenal CEO Ivan Gazidis who said that there was a “growing unanimity” among European clubs on the basic objectives on financial prudence.

Gazidis said that European football needed to build a spirit of partnership among club owners similar to that seen in Major League Soccer, where “owners are much more collaborative off the field”. The result of such collaboration, he said, would be that football could “attract sensible people [owners/investors] who, at the moment, are sitting on the sidelines.”

sportbusiness.com