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Leagues to sue Fifa over 'abuse of dominance'


RoyMac5

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cye0148e10go

"The top European leagues, including the Premier League, and global players' union Fifpro will launch legal action against world governing body Fifa over its "abuse of dominance" in the game.

The European Leagues, which represents 39 leagues and 1,130 clubs in 33 countries, says it is filing a complaint to the European Commission to protect the welfare of players.

It comes following growing pressure from leagues and player unions, including the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA), over the number of games added to the calendar and the impact on players.

A Fifpro statement said the international calendar is "now beyond saturation", "unsustainable for national leagues" and a "risk for the health of players".

It added: "Fifa's decisions over the last years have repeatedly favoured its own competitions and commercial interests, neglected its responsibilities as a governing body, and harmed the economic interests of national leagues and the welfare of players.

"Legal action is now the only responsible step for European leagues and player unions to protect football, its ecosystem and its workforce..."

Interesting. About time too imho. 

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4 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cye0148e10go

"The top European leagues, including the Premier League, and global players' union Fifpro will launch legal action against world governing body Fifa over its "abuse of dominance" in the game.

The European Leagues, which represents 39 leagues and 1,130 clubs in 33 countries, says it is filing a complaint to the European Commission to protect the welfare of players.

It comes following growing pressure from leagues and player unions, including the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA), over the number of games added to the calendar and the impact on players.

A Fifpro statement said the international calendar is "now beyond saturation", "unsustainable for national leagues" and a "risk for the health of players".

It added: "Fifa's decisions over the last years have repeatedly favoured its own competitions and commercial interests, neglected its responsibilities as a governing body, and harmed the economic interests of national leagues and the welfare of players.

"Legal action is now the only responsible step for European leagues and player unions to protect football, its ecosystem and its workforce..."

Interesting. About time too imho. 

 

Whilst doing this, I suggest they start by not playing friendlies 10,000 miles from home at season end and before it starts and go back to straight draw and knockout for European competition.  Scrap the Europa league as well which has about 500 matches.  This will of course mean they won't get 150 k a week in wages and might have to struggle on 75k.

 

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11 hours ago, Crewton said:

I'm happy for the top leagues to put the boot into FIFA, but I'd love to see how they get that argument about too many games past a half decent lawyer when they play tournaments and exhibition games all over the world in any available periods not filled by official competitions.

 

10 hours ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

 

Whilst doing this, I suggest they start by not playing friendlies 10,000 miles from home at season end and before it starts and go back to straight draw and knockout for European competition.  Scrap the Europa league as well which has about 500 matches.  This will of course mean they won't get 150 k a week in wages and might have to struggle on 75k.

 

Who gets the money from the friendlies? Who gets the money from yet another extended FIFA competition?

I'd rather my Club played meaningless friendlies out of season (mostly) than have our own competitions threatened, like the FA Cup, by another made up FIFA bunch of matches for them to sell to the media.

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56 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

 

Who gets the money from the friendlies? Who gets the money from yet another extended FIFA competition?

I'd rather my Club played meaningless friendlies out of season (mostly) than have our own competitions threatened, like the FA Cup, by another made up FIFA bunch of matches for them to sell to the media.

I don't think the BIG clubs are doing this for the benefit of any clubs other than their own. Protecting domestic cup competitions is the last thing on their minds. My point was that making the strain on players by overplaying one of their reasons for resisting further over crowding of the fixture list is a bit of a stretch when they fill even the winter break with friendlies and go round scooping up enough players to put out 3 highly competitive senior teams at the same time.

Clubs like ours are unlikely to get anywhere near any of these FIFA competitions.

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Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, Crewton said:

I don't think the BIG clubs are doing this for the benefit of any clubs other than their own. Protecting domestic cup competitions is the last thing on their minds. My point was that making the strain on players by overplaying one of their reasons for resisting further over crowding of the fixture list is a bit of a stretch when they fill even the winter break with friendlies and go round scooping up enough players to put out 3 highly competitive senior teams at the same time.

Clubs like ours are unlikely to get anywhere near any of these FIFA competitions.

And my point was that the the money was going to whichever Club rather than lining FIFAs pockets with made up or over stretched competitions.

Who pulls the strings. 

Clubs like us may as well not bother then. Oh and not so long ago 'clubs like us' was Aston Villa.

Edited by RoyMac5
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1 hour ago, RoyMac5 said:

 

Who gets the money from the friendlies? Who gets the money from yet another extended FIFA competition?

I'd rather my Club played meaningless friendlies out of season (mostly) than have our own competitions threatened, like the FA Cup, by another made up FIFA bunch of matches for them to sell to the media.

No club plays these games without a huge financial benefit.  No player competes in them without a nice earner.  Don't play in them, take less wage, save your legs and cut the European  games in half. They can have that FA cup replay then.

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1 minute ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

No club plays these games without a huge financial benefit.  No player competes in them without a nice earner.  Don't play in them, take less wage, save your legs and cut the European  games in half. They can have that FA cup replay then.

Not if FIFA stick another Cup competition in is the point.

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11 hours ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

 

Whilst doing this, I suggest they start by not playing friendlies 10,000 miles from home at season end and before it starts and go back to straight draw and knockout for European competition.  Scrap the Europa league as well which has about 500 matches.  This will of course mean they won't get 150 k a week in wages and might have to struggle on 75k.

 

Of course the BBC don't help. It was on the radio this morning, and also on the BBC football webpage, that Man City had lost in a pre-season friendly to Celtic. It was a pre-season friendly FFS. Who care? I can't imagine City fans will losing too much sleep over the defeat. There's also an interview with Arteta ahead of Arsenal's friendly against Bournemouth in L.A.

These events and interviews may be of mild interest to fans of the clubs involved (and therefore should be on their own websites) but they're hardly national news. Why is licence fee money being used to pay for BBC reporters to fly to LA, and other parts of the world, to cover such matches? Rant over.

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25 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

And my point was that the the money was going to whichever Club rather than lining FIFAs pockets with made up or over stretched competitions.

Who pulls the strings. 

Clubs like us may as well not bother then. Oh and not so long ago 'clubs like us' was Aston Villa.

Times have changed, and Aston Villa are now owned by a pair of multi-billionaires, but even so have flirted with FFP charges, both currently and in 2018/19 before their takeover.

Most UK fans have little interest in friendlies, overseas or not. If they're not pre-season warm-ups or testimonial/charity games, I think they should be banned to protect players health and fitness.

If you think that these clubs will play any fewer games if they win their case against FIFA, I've got a timeshare you might be interested in.

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5 minutes ago, Crewton said:

...If you think that these clubs will play any fewer games if they win their case against FIFA, I've got a timeshare you might be interested in.

I didn't say that and you didn't bother with what I did say. You strike me as the type to have bought a timeshare though. 😄

Personally I'd be hoping we get bought by some billionaires like Villa and then we could get back to Europe.

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4 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

I didn't say that and you didn't bother with what I did say. You strike me as the type to have bought a timeshare though. 😄

Personally I'd be hoping we get bought by some billionaires like Villa and then we could get back to Europe.

Oh, and what "type" is that exactly? 

 

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The top leagues and clubs do not care one bit about player welfare. This is entirely designed to stop international football encroaching on their ability to stage commercially beneficial tours and friendlies in the USA, far east and Saudi.

Any clear space in the calendar they can squeeze out of FIFA will instantly get filled up with matches designed to make money and the players will play the same amount of games, if not more, as if this legal case had never happened.

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It’s worth pointing out that when Liverpool were dominant in the 1980’s, their players were playing 60+ games a season, and they didn’t seem to complain.

Man City have full internationals, like Kovacic, warming their bench and they have the temerity to complain with their massive squad…

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