Review reaches hearing

Football fans and stakeholders will be given the opportunity to make their views known on the future of the European game at a public hearing on the independent review on European football in Brussels on Wednesday.

Written input
The hearing is taking place following the written input that has been submitted to the review, which was launched last month. The review is being chaired by José Luis Arnaut, a former senior minister within the Portuguese government, and was officially launched by Mr Arnault, United Kingdom sports minister Richard Caborn and UEFA Chief Executive Lars-Christer Olsson. The review also has a special website in which football fans and interested bodies are entitled to make their contributions to the debate. Click here for the review site.

Nice Declaration
The review is focusing in particular on how the European football authorities, European Union (EU) institutions and member states can best implement the 2000 Nice Declaration on the specific characteristics of sport at European and national levels. In the declaration, European governments call on EU member nations to take account of sport's social, educational and cultural functions.

Variety of issues
Legal, political and financial experts will report, among other things, on the central role of the football authorities to govern football in harmony with the EU institutions and member states; ownership/control and management of clubs; and levels of expenditure on players, considering the financial stability or instability and concentration of wealth among clubs at international and national levels.

Agents' activities
The review will also examine how the football authorities oversee the activities of agents in player contract and transfer activities; revenue distribution within European football; how the game can be protected against match-fixing and corruption; and the role of the EU institutions, member states and football authorities in supporting and encouraging investment in the game.

Important steps
World football's governing body FIFA and European sports ministers will be involved in an advisory role. Conclusions and recommendations will be presented to UEFA, the European Commission and sports ministers across Europe, with a report scheduled for issue in the early summer. "We hope the independent review will make important steps to protect and nurture the development of European football and sport in general," said Mr Arnaut, "and that all lovers of sport will take this opportunity to assist us on this very exciting and important project."

Progress report
Mr Arnaut travelled to Budapest last week to present a progress report on the review to the UEFA Executive Committee, and to hold talks with football politicians and stakeholders. "The review, launched at the initiative of the United Kingdom while it still occupied the presidency of the EU and supported by the football authorities, may not have the media profile or emotional impact of big matches," Mr Olsson said in the latest edition of the official UEFA publication, uefadirect, "but it may prove vitally important for the future of European football.

Warm welcome
"The politicians and the football authorities have gone their separate ways for so long that it would be impossible not to give this joint initiative the warm welcome it deserves," Mr Olsson added. "It also comes at a good time, since many rules which have been in force for a long time have been challenged and sport is making an appearance in the courts far too often, a place where it certainly does not belong.

Key features
"If the independent review helps to give a clear and universally recognised foundation back to sport, it will certainly prove to be one of the key features of this year, both for football and for sport in general."