English fans turning their backs on travelling to Euro 2012

by

English supporters are not interested in buying tickets for the three away Euro 2012 fixtures in June. The tickets have been for sale on the Football Association website and 12,000 tickets (nearly half) have been returned to UEFA for the games against Ukraine, France and Sweden – all being played in the Ukraine. The tickets will now go on sale to the general public.

The FA anticipates up to 10,000 tickets may be bought independently by fans but expects that only another 3,000 tickets to the games will be sold. England’s fans pride themselves on their support of the national team and it means that its supporters will be outnumbered for the first time in many years at a UEFA fixture

Kevin Miles, of the Football Supporters Federation says the downturn in the economy has certainly contributed to the poor ticket sales, as has the cost of accommodation and travel. Prices at hotels have been “inflated” and the long distances involved mean airfares will be expensive anyway.

The other issue, according to Miles is that although the matches are being marketed as a holiday package, neither of the venues – Donetsk, or Kiev – are viewed as holiday destinations. Miles, speaking to BBC Sport told the program that the lack of attractions in the cities, such as a beach left fans wondering what they would do between games.

Another concern is safety. Sol Campbell, the England defender, speaking on the BBC’s Panorama program urged Asian and Black fans to “stay at home” and not travel to the Ukraine and instead watch the games live on television. The show featured film of Asian and Black students being assaulted and this would have clearly put the issue into the forefront of supporter’s minds.

For several years the Foreign Office has had an advisory caution in place for Asian and Black tourists considering visiting the Ukraine. The warning has been in place for several years and it would almost certainly have had an impact on these fans considering attending the matches in the Ukraine.

However, Miles feels that while potential abuse of fans could be an issue it is probably not the main reason for the poor return on ticket sales. He thinks the majority of fans have made up their minds for a variety of other reasons, including cost and the decision to attend other Euro games instead.

Lydia Nsereka becomes first woman to be co-opted onto FIFA’s executive committee

by

President of the Burundi Football Association, Lydia Nsekera, became the first woman to be co-opted onto the executive committee of FIFA on Tuesday. She is a member of the Woman’s Football and the Woman’s World Cup committees and on the organizing committee of the Olympic Football Tournament. She has been on the International Olympic Committee since 2009.

Nsekera, 45, will take her place as a co-opted executive committee member at the 62nd FIFA Congress this week and the formal election of a woman onto the committee will take place at the FIFA Congress next year. Meanwhile FIFA is going ahead with its’ restructure of the ethics committee. There will actually be two committees now, one to investigate matters and another to adjudicate.

Due to the illness of one of the candidates for heading the committee, the announcement of who would chair them has been postponed. An extraordinary meeting will be held in Zurich in July after the FIFA Congress has approved amendments to the Statutes. Then they will appoint both chairs. The new Statutes will come into force 6o days after Congress.

Swiss-Italian businessman, Dominic Scala, did not have to wait for his appointment when he was made independent chairman of the Audit and Compliance Committee. This will be made official at Congress. Other countries have been given the go ahead to play friendlies against Kosovo, taking them a step nearer full FIFA membership.

Elsewhere, FIFA named the six cities to host the Confederations Cup next year in Brazil. There are concerns over stadium building projects so there are contingency plans in place for only four or five cities being ready. The six cities are Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, Fortaleza, Salvador, Recife and Belo Horizonte. FIFA also said its insurance programme was being extended to cover players at the Olympics.

 

Manchester United named as the most valuable club in the world

by

Manchester United named as the most valuable club in the world The chief operating officer of Manchester United, Michael Bolingbroke, has said that football clubs should not just be after quick money on offer from overseas sponsors’ interested in the Premier League. He said that clubs need to focus most of their marketing on the core fans or they run the risk of damaging the brand.

Bolingbroke was speaking at the annual Global Leadership Summit at the London Business School. Manchester United has 333million fans across the world and 139 million of these are core fans. These figures come from research carried out by TNS Sport in 2007. Brand Finance has labelled it the most valuable sports club in the world.

United say that their core fans are more important than any sponsors or broadcasters to the club’s marketing strategy. Bolingbroke backed this up by saying that getting the insight from these core fans had been critical in recent years to the club’s commercial success.

He said that although core fans are not a key revenue driver, they drive growth with the atmosphere they provide at the club and their invaluable insight. The club maintain interaction with their global fans by interacting with the core fans and Bolingbroke says this is more important to the future of the club than sponsors or broadcasters. He said that other clubs should be wary of alienating their core fans by going after quick money.

Manchester United make their strategy work by asking how core fans like to be treated as opposed to, say corporate fans. There are differences and United use these to make all their fans happy especially on match days. Manchester United have, however, also been one of the busiest clubs when it comes to overseas sponsorship, signing deals recently with telecommunication companies, Globul and Du.

Repeated incident of misconduct could see players being sacked

by

Footballers risk having their contracts terminated if they are guilty of serious or persistent misconduct. This is according to the behaviour clause in a footballer’s employment contract which ties players to their clubs. The problem is that this is open to wide interpretation and the football authorities and the players’ union are looking at ways of clarifying it.

The PFA chief executive, Gordon Taylor, was speaking yesterday to the culture, media and sport select committee enquiry, ‘Racism in Football’. He said that the contract is too generalised with regards to behaviour and that it should state specifically what an offence of gross misconduct is, for example racist abuse. There was support for this from David Bernstein, the FA Chairman who said it was an ‘interesting area’.

He said that players are very well protected by their contracts and, in his opinion, sometimes over-protected. He said that clubs and players need to clarify what constitutes a breach of contract and spoke of one incident pending where they were waiting to see what the club does. It was generally agreed that it was not a good situation if a club were afraid of million pound lawsuits if they terminated a players’ contract.

John Terry, the former England captain, is currently facing racism charges for allegedly racially abusing Anton Ferdinand of Queens Park Rangers. The committee was told that his trial date had been put back until after the European Championships this summer. David Bernstein made it clear that he thought the decision to strip Terry of the captaincy was absolutely right.

It was a very controversial decision and led to the resignation of the England manager at the time, Fabio Capello. Both the PFA and the FA are in agreement that changes in the way a contract is worded must be made and it is just a question of what form those changes will take.

 

Rangers lose their appeal at the SFA tribunal

by

Glasgow Rangers lost their appeal at the Scottish Football Association’s appeals tribunal when their claim that they were being unduly punished for Craig Whyte’s financial misdemeanours was rejected. Whyte withheld £13 million of tax and VAT which should have gone to the taxman. The club was also fined £160,000 for gross misconduct and bringing the game into disrepute.

The tribunal, which was headed by Lord Carloway, said in their summing up that it was right for the original disciplinary tribunal to ban the registration of new players over the age of 18 for 12 months. They also said that it was right that offence was attributable to the club as a member of the Scottish Football Association and that the tribunal was right to raise the maximum fine of £100,000 to £160,000 in this case as it was so serious.

It actually could have been much worse for Rangers. They could have been expelled from the Scottish game or had their membership of the SFA suspended either of which would have had dire consequences for the club. Rangers complained about the effects of the restriction on transfers but the tribunal ruled that this was correct as the club had brought the game into disrepute. The club can still extend contracts for existing players.

The ruling will throw doubts on the future of the consortium who are trying to get a creditors’ agreement next month allowing the club to come out of administration, hopefully in time for the start of next season. The consortium is headed by Charles Green, the former chief executive of Sheffield United and apparently consists of a further 20 investors who remain unidentified.