RSS
Home
Ownership issues in European club play
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
Here’s an article floating around ESPN Soccernet at the moment that interested me. Take a look, it’s about how Bayern Munich’s chairman is saying that the English Premier League clubs in the Champions League (Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United) will dominate the competition again this season.
For those who don’t remember, Chelsea, United and Liverpool were all in the semis last year and it was an all-English final between United and Chelsea.
The reason it drew my interest was because of the part at the bottom where the chairman says, and I quote from the article, “Rummenigge said Germany needed to have an open discussion about relaxing the country’s strict ownership rules and making it easier for individuals to make big investments in Bundesliga clubs.”
That drew me back to something I mentioned in this recent post about a Guardian article. In the article, culture secretary Andy Burnham talked about how people should realize that the interest in the English game comes not necessarily from the quality but because leagues in other countries have different ownership rules that don’t allow for such takeovers as those existing in England (i.e. Manchester City).
While Burnham points to this difference as something that hurts the fabric of the English game, the Bayern chairman points to it as an issue for Bundesliga clubs if they want to keep up in the Champions League.
What do you think, does this hint at the need for universal standards across Europe to even the playing field, or will it just even itself out eventually? Do you think English ownership/takeover rules should be different, or as some suggest, that clubs should be owned by the supporters?
