UEFA to force-feed the Golden Goose

The President of UEFA, Michel Platini, has hinted that the confederation is considering dropping the Europa League competition altogether in favour of an expanded Champions League. The move, mooted for some time between 2015 and 2018, would see the unpopular continental second-tier system removed as and football's big money spinner double in size to 64 teams.

Platini has proved somewhat of an egalitarian leader: throughout his presidency, he has championed the expansion of the UEFA European Championships (the Euros) to 32 teams – or over 60 percent of the continent represented. Should the Europa League actually be canned, the Golden Goose Champions League credibility will be damaged: removing exclusivity from anything makes it far more commonplace.

The simple laws of physics state that increasing an object's size doesn't necessarily increase its impact – in fact, often it has the opposite effect.

That's not to say that the Europa League is great, because it really isn't. One of the principal failings of the Europa League has simply been the effort it demands, especially when players must front up in local leagues two days after lengthy trips abroad. Bigger clubs – especially in fixture-full England – have been known to simply send reserve sides overseas, sacrificing the competition for the sake of league position.

Rather than removing the Europa League or expanding the Champions League (which can't possibly hope to bring in more money now that ostensible top clubs are admitted almost by default), a better solution may be to simply resurrect the old UEFA Cup – a true home-and-away cup competition requiring less travel, less meaningless Thursday night encounters and each club having a true puncher's chance of advancing to the next round.

Think about it: Armenian champions Neftchi Baku look set to complete their Europa League experience this season with two points from a possible eighteen, both from draws with Serbian side Partizan Belgrade. The highlight of their continental football this season will almost certainly be a trip to the San Siro to play Inter Milan – in a reinstated UEFA Cup, the players retain their highlight and even have a chance at pulling off the unbelieveable.

A return to a continental cup competition is unlikely to proceed – the extra home dates afforded by a mini-league are simply too valuable for administrators and owners to give up. However, the romance afforded by smaller clubs taking on big money earners would certainly be hard to ignore. It's these realities which make a return to a Cup competition unlikely at best. But we can still hope.

Minnows deserve their puncher's chance

Proboxing-fans.com's lexicon of pugilistic nomenclature defines a “Puncher's Chance” as “[a fighter] who doesn't have a very good chance of beating the other fighter, who is probably more skilled, but could still pull off the win by landing a great punch and knocking his man out”.

Basically, a puncher's chance is what it says on the tin. It was the concept that defined all six Rocky movies (particularly the last) and underlies any sporting contest where one party is heavily favoured. This is never more true than in tournament football, where a 'keeper can get hot or a fluke deflection can win – or lose – a match or even a trophy.

As World Cup qualifying gears up, we're faced once again with the old chestnut of competitive balance in European football. This was brought to a head last week when big-name team England were pitted against San Marino in UEFA Group 8 qualifying. Predictably, the Three Lions put five past a team featuring a pair of brothers who run a moving company.

And, once again we're faced with calls to make principalities like San Marino, the Faroe Islands, Liechtenstein and Andorra undertake pre-qualifying in order just to get a puncher's chance. This doesn't just apply to Europe but also to several small nations in Oceania (perhaps finally consigning Archie Thompson's dubious International goalscoring record to the footnotes of history).

Yes, watching teams drubbed 31-0 may be boring; however, allowing teams that puncher's chance – no matter how infinitesimally small it is – is also the right decision.

Sometimes you have to endure humdrum sport because it's the right thing to do – just think of baseball's regular season. Football truly is the world's game and as a result it behoves FIFA to ensure the World Cup is equally accessible to all countries. For many players – home-leaguers, removalists and soda salesmen – a matchup with Steven Gerrard and Ashley Cole will probably represent the highlight of their career.

With each added qualifying game, the puncher's chance decreases. How often can lightning strike?

Sport has become more and more streamlined over the past two decades, football especially so: the past twenty years have seen both the European Cup and UEFA Cup re-organised and rebranded into money-spinning leagues. Were the same to occur at the International level, not only is the park footballer robbed of his moment, but any chance of upset – or even unexpected challenge – is automatically gainsayed.

For a sport so openly seeking egalitarianism (the one defensible reason for the Blatter regime's failure to implement goal-line technology is/was a desire for the sport at the park to played in almost exactly the same way as the World Cup Final), offering everyone the same opportunity is the fairest only way forward.

It's hardly like the lack of competition damages the sport. In contrast, it's likely to inspire youth who on one magical evening got to see a spectacular Wayne Rooney free kick and returns home to practice and improve. That teen could become Rooney mark II; he could also coach his local junior side.

American Samoa has only the remotest puncher's chance of defeating New Zealand in a home-and-home matchup. But they still deserve the opportunity.

Financial Fair Play: why it had to happen

No-one said that Financial Fair Play (FFP) was perfect. Even Michel Platini, the UEFA President behind the long-touted new standards, accepts his brainchild has some serious flaws. But in these days of the paradoxical austerity boom, European football clubs are going to have to take responsibility for their collective bottom lines.  FFP had to happen.

A slight shift towards prudence by some clubs – for example Newcastle United or AC Milan – has been balanced by remarkable spending by others. Nothing prompts wasteful extravagance like owning a football club. According to UEFA, almost seventy percent of all European top-flight clubs are losing money. Platini's regulations resolve to save clubs from themselves.

At its simplest, FFP penalises clubs who spend more than they earn. Opponents to the plan suggest this will keep the big clubs powerful and the small ones insignificant; they may have a point. However, it will also minimise the wealthy benefactor model made so famous by Chelsea, Manchester City and now Paris Saint-Germain.

Clubs are already beginning to implement the necessary changes. Whether UEFA enforces their laws is still to be seen.

While even Platini should accept the FFP legislation is imperfect, the overall ramifications of the legistlation should somewhat control spiralling wage-bills. The percentage of overall revenue spent on player wages by top-tier European clubs is simply bad business practice.

Within the past two years, American sport has seen lockouts in the NFL and NBA. A similar impasse has been reached between NHL owners and players. In all three cases, the warring parties struggle(d) to agree on a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) which splits revenue fairly between players and owners.

The graphic below charts the revenue split between players and owners in each of the four major US sports and compares it to top-flight European football clubs. The contrast is stark. Baseballers receive about 57% of their pie – as do hockey players under the current CBA – while NFL and NBA players' shares decreased to around 50% with their last CBA. (Given the habit owners have of “winning” these negotiations, the figures below come from the owners' last offer rather than the current iteration of the CBA which will certainly change).

Sources: The National Football Post, New book dives into business of baseball, Breaking down changes in new CBA, Twitter and the Belfast Telegraph.

And this chart doesn't even take into account transfer fees that are paid on top of wages! Even accounting for cross-continental differences, the average 13-20% extra that top division European footballers earn makes them the obvious outlier. What makes this startling is that the player/owner revenue sharing scheme now in operation in Europe isn't codified but voluntary – owners don't pay this lofty percentage out of legal compulsion.

No matter how different the sports, American owners like the Glazers, Stan Kroenke and Fenway Sports Group operate teams on both sides of the Atlantic. This means that there is a basis for comparison, if not for drawing fully-fleshed-out conclusions.  It's obvious that running a business and not accumulating debt - let alone making a profit - when you pay 70% of your income to employees is hard to do.

Because of the continental ramifications of employing a salary cap, an system index-linked to revenue was the most feasible way that UEFA could harness undisciplined spending.  FFP is not perfect, has loopholes aplenty and it won't necessarily address the lack of competitive balance across Europe's top four leagues. Hopefully, these refinements will come.

Don't judge a league by its elite

As football has become more and more corporate, the existence of elite cliques of teams in almost all the major four Europeans leagues have become an accepted part of the European football culture. While from time to time over the last fifteen years these subsections have been occasionally disrupted, it's not worth arguing against the balance of European football power being held by a maximum of four clubs in four leagues.

The same clubs almost always take part in the Champions League. While class is routinely (and tediously) said to be permanent, it would be more true to suggest that the established plutocracy is everlasting.

Considering well-earned prize money, league TV rights deals (especially pertinent in Spain), Champions' League income and large stadia, the wealthy club shave such a fiscal leg-up, that those clubs once (still?) associated with a European football superleague are essentially playing in a different league to their club opponents. This leads, especially in England, to clubs flush with imported players: in each of their last Champions' League matches, EPL clubs boasted a total of 12 players who had played with their club's juniors. Only four of those players – Ryan Giggs, Kieran Gibbs, Wojcieh Szczesny and Joe Hart – were starters.

Based on the past few seasons, the best clubs in the world have been Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and, if you tilt your head to the left and squint reeeal hard, Manchester United. However, these clubs seem to have birthrights allowing them access to European football and the money to buy players that most/all other teams in their respective countries envision only in their stickiest dreams. Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern and United now don't accurately represent their respective leagues but sit somewhere in the third standard deviation, part of a superelite that may as well play in a bloody superleague. (An idea that's never totally put to bed, by the way.)

Even though individual rights deals, league finances and priority on junior development makes this an exercise in apples and oranges, the strength of each league's mid-table sides must be evaluated to provide an accurate comparison. Perhaps now it's time to evaluate a league primarily by those squads in the middle of the pack, with both their achievement at home and abroad. Given the regular passage of players from mid-table teams to the elite, this also seems to best describe the league as a whole, rather than just paint a portrait of those paragon clubs.

Talk to a evangelising school principal and he will try to convince you that the best student in the class represents the quality of his teachers, amenities, tributary schools and leadership. However, this is often proved incorrect by assessing those students in the meaty part of the bell-curve. Money unlocks many doors, both in the education system and the football world. How students, teachers, clubs and players perform without that cash most accurately reveals the truth.

Balanced Sports on Soccerlens: Champions League Preview

Balanced Sports has been published again on Soccerlens, previewing the upcoming Champions' League campaign for both Manchester clubs and for Spain's big two:


Real and Barca the teams to beat

Manchester plots European domination

Mourinho's greatest failing a lack of discipline - but not from him

Jose Mourinho has many gifts. For organisation, for having team buy into a philosophy, for quick quips and irritation. It's perhaps fitting that a master of hyperbole has been pilloried by the more rampant sensationalists in the British media concerning his antics during and after the Spanish Supercup.

courtesy: topnews.in

As the four Clasicos in seventeen days last season proved, these teams have no love for each other - on or off the pitch. After their loss in the Champions' League Semi-Final in (April/May), Mourinho made statements which, if he had his time again, would probably re-consider. Barcelona thought about legal action, but opted against it.

After a horrendous tackle by Marcelo on Barcelona new boy Cesc Fabregas, benches cleared. Mourinho is now under scrutiny for an incident involving Barcelona assistant Tito Villanova (bear in mind this analysis does come from the Daily Mail, well known for sensationalism). The Sun - also known for siutational amplification - also suggested Mourinho is approaching Real's tolerance threshold. Even the more moderate Daily Telegraph and The Independent questioned The Special One's tenure at the Bernabeu.

Comments branding Barcelona "a small team" didn't help and, alongside his paranoiac mania following their Champions' League exit, contribute to an image of a man either on the edge or who plays mind games at a black belt level. His comments more and more mimic those of dictators - strong, usually charismatic leaders with a firm grasp on a tiny part of the world - but from the outside viewed as small-time.

courtesy: tardis.wikia.com

More accurately, his words resemble Davros' - "Once more my Daleks will rule the universe.  Once more they will become the Su-preeeeeme Beeeeinnnngggs!".  If only it wasn't for that pesky Doctor Messi/Xavi/Iniesta.

In today's Guardian, a spokesman for Los Merengues' manager says his role in the stoush was "defending Real Madrid's interests". The Independent - and Paul Hayward - have asked if Jose is still worth his antics. When each match between the two best teams in football descends into a melee, it is a fair question.

Even Real Madrid, a club not known for patience and lenience with their managers, would be rash to fire the man who has transformed them from also-rans into an outfit who will challenge Barcelona. The side has apparently improved markedly over the offseason, fuelled by more spending (Fabio Coentrao and Nuri Sahin) and another year's acclimation to Mourinho's tactics. In the match in question, most observers had them slightly edging the match until defeated by a typically classy Messi goal.

Jose may feel pressure to succeed and consequently just be acting out more. This is unlikely given his past posts and the high expectations he must have shouldered there. He may feel the mindset of his squad is so fragile it can't bear a defeat to Barcelona without attendant, media-diverting controversy. Maybe his ego has become so large that he's lost some perspective. Any increase in his antics is due to a combination of all three factors.

It would be folly to ignore the lack of discipline and leadership Jose Mourinho has received from the Real Madrid front office. Perhaps more than anything else, this has empowered Mourinho to say and do what he likes. Given his results so far, it would be wrong if he were made to fear for his job. But he should be made to respect discipline - UEFA's, La Liga's or from Perez himself.

Since his Chelsea days at least, Mourinho's modus operandi has been to instill a siege mentality about his players, defending them from media scrutiny and removing any pressure from his boys by deflecting or absorbing it himself. By doing so, he's produced remarkably successful units at Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan and now Real. At the Bernabeu, however, once former General Manager and blatant Jose-antagonist Jorge Valdano was removed, he's received only minimal leadership from the front office. He has not been censured for his actions, some of which should have desperately deserved it.

Indeed by removing Valdano, Mourinho's only internal source of dissent, Real President Florentino Perez has actually served as an enabler. Corporate, family or political leadership - real leadership - comes not from money, but from making tough decisions. In this, Florentino Perez has failed as Real Madrid President. While Jose Mourinho is mandated to bring success to Real Madrid on the pitch, it is Perez's responsibility to make sure he does so in a manner worthy of his institution.

To draw parallels from politics, were Perez the head of a government and failed to adequately discipline a general he would risk his own career. In a non-entertainment business role - well, just look at what happened at the News of the World. When people whose job it is to get results don't get guidance from above their practices can slip into the unorthodox, unpleasant and sometimes the illegal.

Jose Mourinho hasn't done anything illegal during his status at Real. What he has done, though, is get (some) results and inflame an already-heated rivalry by being boorish. If Florentino Perez is happy to make that tradeoff, theirs shall be a match made in heaven. The only alternative is for Perez to man up and act like the leader his position says he should be.

Fulham to join Stoke and Birmingham in Europa League?

As the Premiership season hurtles to a satisfying conclusion, few may be more sated than Mark Hughes. The Welshman, in his twelfth year of management, has led Fulham to tenth place so far this season, boasts a +4 Goal Difference and a fair play record which sees them firmly in contention for European football next season.

Roundly pilloried in his early days at Craven Cottage - for a combination of factors including the club's mediocre-at-best early form, his egregiousness about his time at Manchester City, an insistence that every opposing manager properly shake hands with him and finally, his not being Roy Hodgson. Using a finally-healthy forward trio of Andy Johnson, Moussa Dembele and - critically - Bobby Zamora, Hughes has masterminded the Cottagers back from a perilous December position. Fulham still struggle to win away from home, but they've solidified their spot as a mid-table Premiership team and haven't had a player sent off since 2009.

UEFA awards a Europa League position to the best-behaved club (in terms of red and yellow cards) in each of the three best-behaved European leagues, so long as that club hasn't already qualified for the tournament. While Fulham lead the Premiership's disciplinary table, they haven't assured themselves of this spot - should they commit three yellows more than second-placed Blackpool (or worse, a couple of red cards) over their last two games, they would be

lose their position. Stoke City qualified for the tournament thanks to their FA Cup success, while Birmingham's League Cup triumph could see them playing in Podgorica next year. To see Blackpool - perhaps even from the Championship - would provide the most unlikely trio of English Europa League entrants in some time.

The Whites' positive goal difference is also a boon. Alongside freescoring midfielder Clint Dempsey, their primary forward trio of Johnson, Zamora and Dembele have played a combined forty-two starts as Dembele and Zamora have spent much of the season recovering from broken legs. Each of the three has a differing, harmonising se

t of skills - Big Bobby's the target-man with eyes on an England call-up, Johnson's the archetypal goal poacher while Dembele is fleet of foot and nimble in the link-up.

This trident - thrust by Dempsey and Danny Murphy - has Fulham, Michael Jackson statue and all, sitting tenth in the league. Even after receiving an entertaining 5 -2 thrashing at the hands of Liverpool, Fulham boast a goal difference of +4, the second-best figure over the past ten EPL seasons for a club finishing in that position. Should they finish lower this differential could be a Premiership record. Like many managers, Hughes is most visible in defeat. That very little has been said of him during 2011 could perhaps be the ultimate compliment that his job in London has been completed in the image of the man himself - with very little fuss.

Image: Fulham's owner, Mohammed Al-Fayed with plastic friend. Courtesy: sports.yahoo.com

UEFA Champions' League: Sergio Busquets, the most hated man in Spain

For a someone playing a crucial role for two of the most lauded clubs in recent history, Sergio Busquets is perhaps both the man who does the dirty work and the face of a popular dictatorship. In other words, Sergio Busquets may be the most hated man in Spain outside Catalunya, a player Spain forgives only when his stunts are used (from their perspective) for their team - another popular autocracy.

Barcelona - and Spain - rule world football. They are the two best teams in the world today and there is much overlap between them as many of the Spanish national team play their club football for Barca - including Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, Carles Puyol and Bojan. In a league where spectators are forced to tacitly support one of the "Big Two" as well as their own preference, certain players who irritate when playing against your side become fast favourites.

Not so with Sergio Busquets. That's not to say he's not a wonderful footballer - he is almost everything you could want from a defensive-minded midfielder - but his big stage playacting (see here for one example) during yesterday's Champions' League SuperClasico may well have proved the final straw for many neutral observers. In Facebook terms, he will have gone from "Like" to *Dislike* for many neutral observers. Roundly condemned by Madridista fans and commentators alike, his - and other Barca players' - overexaggeration of several minor incidents irritated so much that a game which should have been a wonderful spectacle (and at times was, especially Lionel Messi's marvellous solo goal to seal the win) was overshadowed by the Dark Arts - diving and exaggerating contact to attract free kicks or cards.

Outside Barcelona - where too his actions should not be lauded - it's likely that his performance last night attracted Busquets no fans, and indeed the ire of several sections of press and supporters. UEFA make a habit of not wanting to set precedents and as such are unlikely to sanction him for his actions, especially when the game also prompted a brawl, a foul-mouthed Pep Guardiola presser, Jose Mourinho sent to "The Cage", an arguable red card for Pepe, further alleged diving incidents from Pedro and Dani Alves and finally, a war of words since the match leaving Barcelona investigating a formal complaint.

While many individuals involved with yesterday's encounter appear the worse for their actions and antics, it is Busquets who will almost undoubtedly come off amongst the worst. Firstly, he has priors for "simulation". Secondly, for a Spaniard it's impossible to get a larger stage than a Champions' League Semi-Final against Real Madrid - a match which nominally forces the entire of Spain to choose a side (in a World Cup final, the vast majority will be supporting Spain already).

Finally, these actions only reinforce his popular perception (at least by pundits on ESPN and the Guardian's Football pages) as a player who dabbles - and occasionally dives headlong into - the dark side of the force. Mourinho, though his postgame statements reek of paranoic mania, has a history of playing people offside with his comments and doesn't play such a crucial role in the Spanish national setup. Where Jose seems to have accepted his role is to be disliked by everyone other than fans of his current employers, Busquets must face Euro 2012 next year as one of the faces of a Spanish midfield. He may not be looked at in quite the same way again by the neutral.