UEFA Nuclear Option

[Adolf Hĭtler]

Surely this is in the wrong forum.

[johnydep]

Football unites people - so let's unite against FIFA's overlords
Opinion
By Jeff Sparrow
Posted Fri at 2:00pm

Football fans have far more in common with the World Cup construction workers in Qatar than they do with Sepp Blatter and his ilk. That's a pretty good foundation for inspiring political change, writes Jeff Sparrow.

Sport and money have been entwined for centuries. Think of the early days of that most gentlemanly game, cricket. In its formative years, what happened on the oval mattered less than what went down in the bookmaker's tent, with many of the matches organised as much to provide something on which to bet as to offer a genuine athletic contest in the way we'd understand that today. Hence the proliferation of novelty games, such as the famous 1848 battle between a team of one-legged men and a team of one-armed men.

The bookies and touts of the mid-nineteenth century could not, however, have imagined sport as a vehicle for fortunes on the scale being collected by FIFA's current overlords.

Most obviously, the huge sums being gouged out of international football reflect the globalisation of the game - a shift from clashes won or lost on the local village green to contests that (wherever they might actually be located) play out in the digital realm of pure information.

But we're also confronting the consequences of the neoliberal turn and the new consensus that free markets should operate without impediment every aspect of human society. Rather than saying sport is a business, these days it's more accurate to say that business is a sport, with the financial news a roll call of winners and losers in which corporations, the real champions of the twenty-first century, battle for supremacy.

Symptomatically, while FIFA president Sepp Blatter (a man blessed, rather delightfully, with the name of a Dickensian villain) seemed quite willing to tough out calls to resign from the British PM David Cameron, the subsequent revolt by corporate titans like Visa, Adidas and Coca Cola poses far more of a threat to his regime, simply because without their patronage there's less of a trough in which the association can stick its collective snout.

Of course, because of the scale of FIFA's empire, its activities don't simply affect outcomes on the pitch. One widely-shared article notes the consequences of the association's decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, a country with an appalling record of human rights abuses

How did the beautiful game end up fostering ugliness? More importantly, what can we do about it?...................

[God is an Englishman]

Surely this is in the wrong forum.

Surely you don't expect admin to follow his own rules

[SalleH78]

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/fifa ... hek0x.html

I note UEFA is having an emergency UEFA exco meeting. This follows a number of high ranking FIFA officials resigning.
With respect to clubs being able to register to play, Individual European courts apply in their own jurisdiction unless they are in the EU. The court's role is to interpret statute law. Common law is another issue. Once you pass a law, courts cant change that, its called the separation of powers

Try getting a sporting VISA in Australia for a overseas player who has not got an ALeague contract. You cant do it. Same would apply in Europe as non European players currently need VISAs to play in Europe. Deny the VISA and you deny access. All it would take is a slight change in the law. Once you chnage the law, courts cant do a thing.

[God is an Englishman]

So you need the FA, the governments and the EU to all come together on your masterplan. And still the clubs would challenge the new law in the High Courts. Yea, they can challenge that.

[gone]

I'm sure a compromise could be reached. You're a reasonable guy.
What about:
ExCo = all past winners + one from each Confed
Rotation = Europe - Africa - CONCACAF - Europe - Sth America - Asia/Oceania
(ie Europe 1 in 3, all others 1 in 6)

That sounds like a fair compromise. I assume you won't agree to my solution that England gave the game to the world so we should run it.

At first I thought you wrote "so we should ruin it". And you are correct in your assumption.

[SalleH78]

So you need the FA, the governments and the EU to all come together on your masterplan. And still the clubs would challenge the new law in the High Courts. Yea, they can challenge that.

As in Australia, appeals to High Courts are on a matter of law, not fact. If the law is settled (and governments fund legal cases against their own law to find settled law), then you can't challenge. In any case, you can't appeal to the High Court before cases are heard and decided in the lower courts first. And as far as Iunderstand, you request leave to the High Court to appeal and its up the the High Court to grant you leave.
Whether you can then go to Constitutional Courts is another matter.

An African national, has no rights as an EU citizen other than the rights the EU bestow by way of VISA.

If UEFA, makes a decision to ban Afican, South American and Asian players from playing in UEFA competitions, then the clubs must take on UEFA itself. A player, may, under EU law win a case (as a foreign national) but then the club will be directed officially or unofficially to not sign the player.
I doubt, EU nationals (who would be the main benficiaries of such a rule) would champion the cause of a foreign players.

[God is an Englishman]

The clubs will clearly take it to the highest court possible whether that's the arbitration for sport or the High Court and they will easily win a case against a clear racist law.

That's the obvious outcome after you get all the countries, FA's, EU & UEFA to agree.

[Baresi]

but wtf is this doing in the aleague forum!

[Moritaka Chisato]

but wtf is this doing in the aleague forum!

Maybe we are missing something here.

[gone]

but wtf is this doing in the aleague forum!

Maybe we are missing something here.

Well ... it's not actually the A-league forum though is it. This is a Local SA Football matter, because any such law would stop one of our world class NPL players from making the move to Real Madrid.

[Nice One Cyril]

but wtf is this doing in the aleague forum!

Maybe we are missing something here.

Well ... it's not actually the A-league forum though is it. This is a Local SA Football matter, because any such law would stop one of our world class NPL players from making the move to Real Madrid.

Glad that someone is paying attention

[Baresi]

but wtf is this doing in the aleague forum!

Maybe we are missing something here.

Well ... it's not actually the A-league forum though is it. This is a Local SA Football matter, because any such law would stop one of our world class NPL players from making the move to Real Madrid.

well it should be!

[God is an Englishman]

but wtf is this doing in the aleague forum!

Maybe we are missing something here.

Well ... it's not actually the A-league forum though is it. This is a Local SA Football matter, because any such law would stop one of our world class NPL players from making the move to Real Madrid.

Surely, Australia would be listed as one of the "friendly nations" under waaahbaster's ridiculously proposal. So wrong forum.

Also, the thread is about UEFA breaking away, which has no relevance to local football. So again, wrong forum.