Michel Platini reached the sewers of power on the back of a manifesto that sought to democratise football in Europe and he has been in control now for long enough for observers to make an assessment of his impact to date. Taking everything into account, we reserve judgement but the signs are that his idealism is being compromised by the requirements of the power lobbies within the game.
Platini's big idea was a reduction in the Champions League quotas for the big three countries of England, Spain and Italy. This he has manifestly failed to accomplish as, lo and behold, each of these territories have the full complement of four teams for this season's tournament. And this is despite several of the teams having fallen short of good behaviour with Lazio "fans" stabbing several Dinamo Bucureşti supporters prior to the first leg of their qualifier, Valencia players perpetrating an on-field brawl after last year's Champions League match against Internazionale and those loveable Liverpool fans rampaging through Athens after last year's showpiece final.
We posted last season that the G14(18) would simply not allow any reduction in the major territories entrants and Platini has had to backslide ever since. His latest wheeze is to offer the four places but with one of these places going to the national cup winners. If this ruling had existed over the last ten years, it would have had minimal impact as, in England, every FA Cup winner has been one of the big four while, in Italy over the same period, only Parma and Fiorentina (once each) would have qualified via the Coppa Italia. The exception is Spain where none of the big teams take the Copa Del Rey seriously with neither Real Madrid nor Barcelona having won it for ten years. If Platini is able to get his "meritocratising" idea past the numerous obstacles in his path, this Iberian attitude will, no doubt, change. So, the actual result will be exactly the same as is currently the case - the big teams will always qualify for the Champions League unless they are suffering domestic punishment as is the case with Juventus currently.
Furthermore, Platini's plan will have two very unfortunate side effects. If the major G14(18) teams focus more on the domestic cup competitions then the chances of any of the smaller teams getting anywhere near the final will be vastly diminished. The situation in England last year where the first FA Cup final back at the new Wembley was always going to feature Manchester United and Chelsea will become the common template. Additionally, if the fourth place battle is to become, in many seasons, irrelevant then the new structure will increase the number of meaningless games where neither side has anything to play for of consequence which will have the unfortunate impact of increasing games which exist merely for the enhancement of the global betting markets.
Despite this, the power bases in the European game are fuming. They always exhibit a kneejerk response to anything that might look like having the outcome of reducing their power and control within the game. These operators do not do themselves nor anyone else the service of strategically thinking through any changes. So, we hear the European Professional Leagues chairman, Sir David Richards of the Premier League, spouting "anything which could affect negatively the league's competitions would be detrimental to the whole of European football". And, through his dollar-tinted spectacles, the knight is probably right. The lower level teams throughout the continent are dependent financially on the Solidarity Payments which operate like a bribe to the lesser nations to bequeath the trophies and the honours to the big G14(18) clubs in return for some crumbs from football's financial table. Furthermore, Kenyon and Gill at Chelsea and Man Utd have gone on record that their respective clubs have "the power to prevent change". Like they think that this is a suitable state of affairs...
No non-G14(18) team has won the Champions League since football sold out to the financiers and media barons in 1992 - fifteen seasons, fifteen prizes for the big guys. In the previous fifteen years when a more meritocratic competition which actually featured the national team champions existed, six of the winners were non-power teams including two (Crvena Zvezda and Steaua Bucureşti) from the east of the continent. Platini gained power within UEFA by promising the earth and then some to the disenfranchised former Eastern Bloc countries - it was their votes on which he rode into Geneva. Of the 32 qualifiers for the group stages of the Champions League in 2007/08, only Steaua Bucureşti are indicative of any change in the reality. Eighteen of the qualifiers are G14(18) proper or on the G14(18) Supplementary List. Only thirteen of the teams are even champions anyway!
Platini is stuck between a rock and a financial place. If he sticks to his principles, the G14(18) will pick up their ball and form their own proprietary Super League. If he plays along with their propaganda and lies, UEFA can retain some control of the world's premier club competition until the power operators decide that it is time for the Super League whatever. In Monaco tomorrow, the UEFA President is hoping to try to spin the national cup winners ruse into a reflection of his beliefs that spreading the pool wider within the big countries might be seen as a suitable substitute for spreading the pool wider throughout the continent. This is a fallacy and nothing has changed. For the Champions League 3rd Qualifying Round second Legs, UEFA wheeled out fourteen of their top tier referees for the sixteen games. Particular corruptive influence was demonstrated in the four penalties that ensured that big Werder Bremen, Shakhtar Donetsk and Lazio qualified instead of little Dinamo Zagreb, Salzburg and Dinamo Bucureşti.
Platini's publicity bash will also suffer from the impact of the death of Antonio Puerta as his Sevilla team will be playing Milan in the Super Cup on the Friday evening. Scandalously, UEFA refused to postpone the AEK Athens versus Sevilla Champions League Qualifier out of respect to the scores of innocent Greeks who have died in the government/ construction companies/ property developers-sponsored fires around the Greek capital and, yet, they were willing to reluctantly cancel the match once Puerta died. The value of a life is another warped factor in UEFA's strange world.
If all these power operators would just leave football alone, it can still be a beautiful game. The astonishing match between Glasgow Celtic and Spartak Moscow last night was solid proof of this fact despite the massive gambling on the event in Asia. The football was attacking and exhilarating and the theatre was all-consuming. Hearing the non-plagiarised singing of "You'll Never Walk Alone" and "The Fields Of Athenry" (take note you scouse song thieves) while all the participants did their utmost to win was physically exhausting to a spectator in the way that football used to be before betting patterns and power barons decided our match outcomes.
So what are we left with? The steady demise of the game until the Super League turns football into a sort of year-long Breeders Cup or Royal Ascot would be our reckoning. Platini, through his idealism, is a pragmatist. His two decade long relationship with Sepp Blatter is proof of that. Platini has been willing to give psychopathic Blatter legitimacy and Blatter, in turn, has brought the Frenchman into the inner circle of people who run football. Expect the same machinations now Platini is in power at UEFA.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
