EUROPEAN SOCCER FINANCIAL CRISIS:UEFA ARE mulling over plans to ask European leagues to limit clubs to a squad size of 25 players in an attempt to curb soccer's massive wage bills.
William Gaillard, special adviser to Uefa president Michel Platini, said yesterday reducing the number of professional contracts across Europe had “become more favourable” than Platini’s proposal to cap wages and transfer fees to help the game deal with the worst financial crisis in nearly 80 years.
“There’s no quick or easy solution to protect clubs from the global crisis . . . but one proposal which seems to be gaining a consensus is limiting professional contracts like we have already in the Champions League,” said Gaillard.
“But, of course, we would need to get the backing of the major clubs, but more importantly the leagues and associations running their domestic competitions.”
Clubs are currently limited to squads of 25 players for the Champions League and Uefa Cup.
Uefa is in talks with the European Club Association – representing 137 clubs, including Manchester United and Real Madrid – Europe’s top leagues and the players union FIFpro on ways to shield the game from the economic downturn.
Gaillard said Platini’s plans to limit clubs to spending around 50 to 60 per cent on wages and buying players “was still on the table, but has become more difficult. Salary caps is still there, but what form will it take? Europe is a complex place for soccer.
“We have promotion, relegation, European competitions. It is very difficult to find a one size fits all solution.”
The ECA and England’s lucrative Premier League said they oppose salary caps.
Gaillard said a move to curb squads would help reduce massive wage bills at clubs and provide “a more level playing field. It would stop the hoarding of players by the richer and more powerful clubs. Players would be signed to play rather than to possibly prevent opponents from signing the player.”
Uefa said some of Europe’s top clubs are paying some of the game’s top professionals up to €200,000 a week.
Uefa are to appoint a watchdog to scrutinise the financial accounts of clubs involved in European competition. The club financial control panel, made up of eight financial and legal experts, will be in charge of ensuring clubs are complying with Uefa’s club licensing system. The system obliges all clubs to file up-to-date accounts and display financial integrity, and the panel will have the power to carry out spot checks.
Meanwhile, efforts to force star players to inform drug-testers of their daily whereabouts are in disarray after Uefa yesterday joined Fifa in opposing the rule.
Under the World Anti-Doping Agency’s code, soccer must join other sports such as athletics in providing players’ location for an hour each day, including summer holidays. Fifa’s executive committee last week opposed the rule, and that decision was echoed by Uefa’s executive committee meeting yesterday in Copenhagen.
