Archive for the ‘UEFA’ Category

The Story So Far — January 18th Against Modern Football

Posted by Richard Whittall under The Story So Far, UEFA on Jan 18, 2013

The Lead

Yesterday I spent quite a lot of time discussing the price of elite talent in football. While transfer fees tend to be wildly inefficient in relation to the skill of an individual player (insert obligatory Torres reference here), player wages do rather nicely. European footballers, for the most part, earn what they ‘deserve.’

Are there any other revealing price efficiencies in football? Why yes! UEFA for example regularly hands out fines to clubs for various levels of misconduct, from racially abusing players to pulling down your underpants to reveal an illegal sponsor. How exactly these fines are determined is a mysterious process, but there have been enough of them doled out that we can very roughly determine what matters to UEFA, and what does not.

Descending from most important to least important, in UEFA’s eyes, mostly sourced from the Telegraph’s list back in October 2012:

  • Use of fireworks and far right banners in stadiums, rioting against police and officials: Russia fined £96,000 for fan behaviour in Euro 2012.
  • Offending paid sponsors: £80,000 fine for Nicklas Bendtner for his infamous Paddy Power underpants reveal during Euro 2012.
  • Racist abuse: Serbian FA fined £67,000 for racially abusing the England U21s. This mind you for UEFA is on the very high end of the scale…recent racist abuse fines have ranged between £35,000 and as low as £16,000.
  • Sectarianism: Rangers fined £35,652 for singing sectarian songs in Europa League game against PSV.
  • Confronting a match referee: £33,000 to Arsenal for conduct in Champions League loss against AC Milan.
  • Coming out late for the second half: Manchester City received £24,740 for walking down the tunnel late in their match against Sporting Lisbon in the Europa League. This as the Telegraph notes was “…over £8,000 higher than Porto were subjected to for monkey noises at Mario Balotelli earlier in the campaign.”
  • Showing a banner that reads “Against Modern Football”, accompanied with a cartoon sheikh with a bag of money: £8,000 to Ajax for their behaviour at the Etihad, today.

Let’s try and break that down a little further. Generally speaking, on average, showing a banner that reads Against Modern Football is in UEFA’s eyes about 1/4 as bad as racially abusing players with monkey chants and the like (in Mario Balotelli’s case, it’s about half as bad). It’s just under 1/10th as bad as rioting against police, setting fireworks off in a stadium, and committing other assorted acts of violence.

“Against Modern Football.” The official line from UEFA is that the banner was “provocative and inappropriate.” Which means UEFA believes it is the arbiter of neutral, non-abusive, barely politically-specific fan slogans.

If this is modern football—the infantilism of football supporters, the arbitrary doling out of fines following a bizarro world moral code—well, I’m against it.
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The Story So Far -December 20th United lands Madrid in Champions League draw

Posted by Alima Hotakie under AC Milan, Arsenal, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Galatasaray, Jose Mourinho, Juventus, Manchester United, Paris Saint-Germain, porto, Schalke, Shakhtar Donetsk, Sir Alex Ferguson, UEFA, Uefa Champions League on Dec 20, 2012

The Champions League last 16 draw is complete and the results are official. Kudos to you if you actually woke up at 4 am this morning to catch it live (you’re a true soccer lover in our book).

Oddly enough, it was the exact same outcome as Wednesday’s rehearsal. Yes, we too are trying to figure out the math behind those probabilities, still working on it though.

Nonetheless, here are the results:

Real Madrid vs Manchester United
Arsenal vs Bayern Munich
Milan vs Barcelona
Borussia Dortmund vs Shakhtar Donetsk
Celtic vs Juventus
Porto vs Malaga
Valencia vs Paris Saint-Germain
Galatasaray vs Schalke

Arguably, the road only gets harder from here on. With the most talked about pairing this morning: Real Madrid vs. Manchester United. With both the English and the Spanish media calling it ‘mouth-watering’, but whether or not it’ll live up to its description only time will tell. On paper at least it does appear to have all the ingredients for a great showdown.

Not only because they’re both strong teams, but also because there’s a brief, yet exciting history behind the two clubs. Both teams haven’t gone head-to-head for the past nine years. The last time they did meet it was a feast for the eyes with Madrid triumphing 6-5 on aggregate.

As with this upcoming match, that one also featured a Ronaldo, the Brazilian who scored a hat-trick at Old Trafford. Only this time around it’ll be Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese international will return to his old playground since his move in 2009.

Not to be left out of the equation, is the face-off between old rivals Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho, two of the best coaches in the game. Both are strategic and excellent tacticians with either one able to outsmart the other.

Of course, this Madrid team isn’t the same team as that of 2003, which included the likes of Zidane, Figo, Ronaldo, Carlos, Makelele. In fact, some might argue this isn’t even the same team as last year. Madrid has been struggling domestically this season and are 13 points behind La Liga leaders Barcelona. Still, with its ability to play a very high-paced and attacking game, the Los Blancos will be a handful for United.

As for the Red Devils, the outcome of this phase will likely put to rest some of the criticism it’s been receiving about its strength on the European stage. This will test if United is still a powerhouse in Europe or only in the Premier League.

But with all the hype surrounding this match, let’s not forget about the seven other incredible matches in the competition.

As viewers it’s natural to gravitate to the teams we support or to the coupling of two (yet not the only) big names. Except that the most talked about coupling may or may not turn out to be the more entertaining soccer.

It seems like viewers of this sport are creatures of habit. Did we already forget about the group of death? Experts and pundits initially branded it not only as the toughest group (rightly so), but also as the one that would probably offer the most enjoyable soccer. Enjoyable? Meh! It was decent soccer, which never really lived up to expectations.

There were certainly individual teams in that group, which played exciting football such as Borussia Dortmund. But was it the best soccer in the Champions League group stage with respect to battles? You be the judge of that.

As for the Bayern and Arsenal match-up, while the former are clear favourites, one shouldn’t rule out the latter. After all, the Bavarians were upstaged at home in last year’s final by none other than Chelsea, who were the weaker team with all odds against them, but luck.

Then there’s Barcelona against AC Milan, a rivalry rich in history and championships that may prove to be a tighter race than expected. But the biggest surprise of the tournament were Celtic, which is why Antonio Conte just revealed today that he won’t underestimate them, especially after they managed to pull off a win against Barcelona.

I personally think Borussia Dortmund and Shakhtar Donetsk will provide viewers with some unbelievable soccer. But this is the beauty of the game as well as the Champions League. Not only is it unpredictable in nature, as last year validated, but it’s also offers something for an array of tastes.

England

Liverpool will face Zenit in the next round of Europa League.

Wenger squashes rumour, says he has the full support of the board.

Italy

Juve will not underestimate Celtic.

La Liga

Barcelona confirm Vilanova underwent surgery.

Germany

Thomas Tuchel taking Mainz 05 to new heights.

A great review of German soccer both internationally and domestically.

Bit and Bobs

Michael Cox discusses Champions League tactics.

Zidane goal in charity match.

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Euro 2020: A magical, non-threatening, pan-European soccer thing

Posted by Richard Whittall under Euro 2020, UEFA on Dec 06, 2012

The vote is in:

Immediate condemnation was evident in all the “It’s all about the money, man” Tweets (and jokes about non-European cities hosting Euro matches) which followed and continue to do so. Which I get. It’s pretty expensive to travel, so having to follow your national team through several European nations to watch the football, even in the age of Ryan Air and irresponsibly cheap air flights, is a major hit to recession-affected fans.

Yet it seems to me to be not that drastically different than upping sticks to fly from Ukraine to Poland, or even from Warsaw to Gdańsk.

There are also several ways UEFA would obviously mitigate this. First, by limiting group stage play to single nations, allowing fans to watch the opening matches without having to leave the country.

Second, by ensuring some relatively geographic uniformity among the host nations. A semifinal in Paris followed by a final in Kiev would be really stupid. Perhaps even stupid enough for UEFA, but come on.

Far, far worse and more damaging was UEFA’s decision to expand the tournament to 24 teams in 2016. If the competition sucks from here on out (which it will), that will be the reason, not having to go from Holland to Germany to watch England lose.

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English FA calls into questions future matches in Serbia following allegations of racial abuse toward Danny Rose

Posted by Richard Whittall under England, UEFA on Oct 17, 2012

While bashing the Football Association is pretty much a cottage industry among bloggers and pundits (as with most national associations), their response to events yesterday during England’s U21 match against Serbia, when Danny Rose was shown a red card after reacting to alleged racial abuse from the stands (later confirmed by England coach Stuart Pearce and compelling video evidence) has to be commended. Particularly after the Serbian FA denied the accusations outright (with no supporting evidence), claiming that Rose’s actions were “inappropriate, unsportsmanlike and vulgar.”

The FA released this statement moments ago:

“We were shocked and appalled by the disgraceful events that occurred in Serbia last night.

“Our players and staff were subjected to racial abuse, violence as well as missiles being thrown at them throughout the match. What occurred is inexcusable and not acceptable.

“After collating evidence from those present, including a senior UK Football Policing Unit representative, we are making a formal complaint to UEFA today (Wednesday).

“We call on UEFA to take the strongest possible action against the Serbian FA, their supporters and anyone found guilty of being involved in the numerous instances of violence and abuse.

“We have also been in contact with UEFA’s senior executives to express our deep concern at this matter.

“It is also clear that we must defend Danny Rose, who was sent off due to the frustration of being a target of racial abuse.

“FA officials made UEFA officials aware of racist abuse from sections of the crowd aimed at a number of England’s black players at half-time on Tuesday evening.

“This matter was discussed again during a meeting with UEFA after those disgraceful scenes which followed the final whistle.

“No football team should be asked to play in any environment where racial abuse, violence and threatening behaviour is prevalent. We must question the validity of sending a team to Serbia in the future.

“We look forward to UEFA dealing with last night’s events as a matter of urgency.”

One hopes the English FA will cleave to this standard in the event UEFA fails to address the matter adequately. This has got to stop.

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Belgium are international football’s hot new thing

Posted by Jerrad Peters under Belgium, UEFA, World Cup 2014 on Sep 07, 2012

UEFA will be the final confederation to commence World Cup qualifying when 22 matches kick off Europe’s participation in Brazil 2014 on Friday. But rather than discuss Spain’s chances of defending their title or Sir Bobby Charlton’s gloomy England forecast, folks seem to be obsessing with the hot new thing in international football these days: the young, talented and, according to La Dernière Heure, fantastically wealthy Belgium squad that will face Wales in Cardiff.

One of Belgium’s most prominent dailies, La Dernière Heure, or La DH, quite literally made headlines on Wednesday when it ran a photo of the Belgian national team—Les Diables (The Devils)—atop a banner that read, “Les Diables, 3e Équipe la Plus Chère Du Monde. (The Devils, 3rd most expensive team in the world.)”

The paper had tabulated the recent transfer fees commanded by members of Belgium’s squad and found that only Spain and Brazil eclipsed its €125 million “value”. Hyperbole, to be sure (La DH limited the scope of its arithmetic to summer 2012), but then again the euphoria surrounding this team, this “golden generation” of Belgian players, has been so all-encompassing that with only two days before the Wales match there just wasn’t a stone left to be turned over. Read the rest of this entry »

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This just in: modern footballers are not inherently evil

Posted by Richard Whittall under General, UEFA on Sep 06, 2012

The latest from KCKRS is a good reminder that it’s never a good idea to reduce the “Modern Footballer” to a Daily Mail caricature of an evil, self-interested man-whore only interested in crashing Ferraris and bankrupting League Two clubs.

According to UEFA, players are still kicking the ball out of play when an opponent goes down injured despite directives that the responsibility to stop play now lies with the referee and they should continue until they hear a whistle. In other news, habits are hard to break and it’s still hilarious players are afraid not to play the ball out in a gentlemanly fashion but will fall over if the local air pressure changes by 1/1000th of a millibar.

Not only that, but players will also crowd the ref at the slightest provocation in the same game they’ll swap shirt and shake hands with opposition players.

In other words, footballers are creatures of complex conventions and habits rather than simple purveyors of evil, just like everyone else. Some habits involve old gentlemanly things like halting play for injuries and helping prone opposition players get back on their feet. Others involve being total and utter dicks.

Perhaps we might look at ways to curb certain bad habits and encourage healthy ones, rather than holding players to a silly moral standard.

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The Story So Far — September 6th Will the Premier League follow UEFA’s lead with Financial Fair Play?

Posted by Richard Whittall under EPL, Football Finance, Morning Links, The Story So Far, UEFA on Sep 06, 2012

The Lead

There’s a philosophy in political science that holds democracies work best when different groups—whether based on income, career, location (rural or urban) etc.—specifically advocate for policies which reflect their best interests, which is often in their deliberate self-interest.

The idea is to (very roughly) vote in a representative government that reflects, as closely as possible, the interests of the state in aggregate. So, if the middle class qua socioeconomic group is in the voting majority, the majority of public representatives will work toward policies that benefit middle class voters, at least in theory.

Therefore, under this approach it’s not inherently a bad thing to want politicians to offer you goodies (lower taxes, free healthcare), and not a member of a different economic or social group. In fact, it’s rather a good thing.

For this reason, it may also be a good thing that Manchester United is advocating for strict Premier League restrictions on spending, similar to UEFA’s Financial Fair Play provisions. From today’s Independent:

Manchester United and Liverpool will today both press the Premier League board to introduce financial controls on clubs’ spending that would force every side to break even each year or face sanctions.

The Wigan Athletic chairman, Dave Whelan, yesterday said the measures, discussed at the league’s meeting earlier in the summer, were badly needed, and suggested that Manchester City’s level of accelerated spending – which has taken them to a Premier League title – had been the catalyst for Old Trafford pressing for the move.

The cynic in all of us will immediately recognize United is pushing for this kind of regulation not for the general interest of football as a whole, but for reasons related to snuffing out a pesky competitor in the Premier League. Manchester City is owned by a Abu Dhabi group with practically limitless financial resources, while Manchester United is owned by an American family which floated an IPO to help pay down some of the debt from their leveraged buyout in 2005.

My question is: do the reasons for Man United’s advocacy for tighter financial restrictions matter?

After all, Man City will have a dissenting vote, as will other clubs who might benefit from the ability to post financial losses year-after-year in their attempt to break through a concrete ceiling above fifth place in the league.

Yes, United are certainly hypocrites in the big-spending game, but there is a real argument to be made that forcing clubs to spend on turnover rather than on the deep-pockets of their owners will help slow player wage inflation and curb unsustainable transfer fees. This is what the Martin Samuels—those who believe FFP and similar provisions bar non-traditional Big Four clubs from success—fail to realize: that in the long term, lower prices for players helps everyone, not just clubs content to ride a historically large fan base built over the last century.

Whether Manchester United realize that shouldn’t matter much, but unfortunately it will drive the naysayers in the battle for better financial safeguards in European club football.
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