UEFA may loosen the rule that prevents clubs from the same owner in the same championship

UEFA may loosen the rule

This discussion began to be on the agenda, after the current president of UEFA, Aleksander Čeferin, openly commented in a chat with former player Gary Neville, for the program “The Overlap”, what he thinks about it, after having been questioned about a possible sale of Manchester United to the Qatari group, which owns PSG, or to the owner of Nice in France.

CBF President in an interview with Gary Neville (Reproduction/Youtube The Overlap)

In the answer, given from minute 16:09 to 19:35 of the interview, he quotes “There is more and more interest in this type of club multi-ownership and we shouldn’t just say no to investments. We have to see what kind of rules we apply in each case, because the rules need to be strict”.

It is worth remembering that this current UEFA rule emerged in the late 1990s, when the English National Investment Company group placed three of the six clubs it owned in the Europa League, with the teams reaching the quarterfinals, with almost 50 % of tournament stage.

At the time, in the draw that will decide the clashes, UEFA vetoed that the three teams could face each other at that time of the championship, but even so, the whole situation was enough for the entity to create a rule preventing that from happening again.

In addition, it also advised that the federations responsible for the national championships take the same measure. Rule 5.01 makes clear what UEFA wants to avoid.

However, with the non-updating of the rules, the owners are using tricks to get around these rules. For example, the owner of Milan and the owner of Atalanta in the Italian league are partners in the same company that owns Liverpool in English football. Or, for example, the owners of Molenbeek and SK Beveren in the Belgian second division, who are partners in Crystal Palace in England.

In Brazil, Botafogo has already been involved in a similar case, since its current owner, Textor, owner of the company Eagle, transferred the player Erison, from the Brazilian club, to Estoril, which is managed by Globalon. Eagle and Globalon are partners in Crystal Palace, but as they are not the same club owners, the transfer did not cause a conflict of interest.

According to UEFA itself, and according to data from “The European Club Footballing Landscape”, about 1/3 of the clubs in the main European leagues are included in this multi-club issue.

According to CIES Sport Intelligence, a Swiss research center that focuses on analyzing these investments in European football, says that 25 English, 23 Spanish, 20 Italian, 19 French and 14 Belgian clubs are linked to these types of investments. .

Some numbers do not match, but still have an interesting result at least.

UEFA’s total figures are, 180 clubs involved, with participation from 81 groups. For CIES, the numbers rise to 195 clubs and 101 groups. As for “Play the Game”, another institute that studies the subject portrayed, says that there are about 256 clubs involved, with the participation of 93 groups.

It is still not possible to say how UEFA will resolve this situation, if at all, but the fact is that the subject is increasingly explicit in the football scenario.

Featured Photo: PSG and Manchester United who may have the same owner facing each other for the Champions League in 2020 (Reproduction/Phil Noble – Reuters)