Platini wants reform of the Champions League, but the problem is huge financial losses

UEFA President Michel Platini has called on the leaders of major EU countries Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Angela Merkel to get directly involved in football affairs. The reason for his call is that, according to Platini, profit has become the only measure of sporting success.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was the first to respond, rejecting any possibility of British government interference in professional football. He also dismissed Platini’s assessment that profit is a malignant tissue in professional football. Although French leader Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have not publicly stated their positions regarding Michel Platini’s initiative, it is known that both want to give more freedom to the economy with less government intervention. Therefore, it is hard to believe that Platini’s initiative will be well received in the French and German governments. Direct government interference in professional football sounds quite anachronistic. 

At a time when Cuba is slowly but surely leaving total state control over the economy, Platini’s call sounds like a slogan from the last century. In his campaign for the presidency of UEFA, Platini gathered votes from poorer football nations by promising them places, and thus shares of the profits, in the Champions League, the most successful and profitable football competition on the planet.

However, it is clear to everyone, including Platini, that diluting the Champions League by including third-rate, mostly Eastern European clubs would be a path to the downfall of the Champions League. Platini’s appeal for state intervention is actually a call for developed countries to cover the financial losses that Platini’s reform would bring to the Champions League. The value of the Champions League is made up of the strongest clubs in the world whose brand attracts sponsors and enables global television coverage of the Champions League.  (Jasmin Krpan)