Forum mulls enhanced EU sports role

The first European Sports Forum, held last week in the French town of Biarritz, kicked off a renewed EU-level stakeholder dialogue between the sector and the European Commission in view of a future EU competence on sport.

Around 200 representatives of European sports organisations, national sport confederations, National Olympic Committees and international sports stakeholders took stock of the implementation of the 2007 White Paper on Sport and discussed grassroots sports financing.

The Commission noted declining solidarity in sports funding as a result of increased internationalisation and competitiveness of professional sport, launching an independent study into the financing of grassroots sport in the EU 27 in early 2009.

The study will examine the sources of sports financing, covering national regulatory aspects that have an impact on funding streams related to the application of EU law, such as national monopolies on gambling.

A significant part of the forum was dedicated to the specific nature of sport. Here, the discussions mainly focused on football's disputed '6 5 rule' , proposed by FIFA to limit the number of foreign players in club competitions. The EU executive and the European Parliament argue that such a rule would constitute discrimination based on nationality and break Community law, which guarantees freedom of movement for workers.

EU sports ministers, an an informal meeting connected with the forum, asked the Commission to consider the matter of 6+5 and come up with a solution. Ministers also echoed a previous call from the European Parliament and the sports movement for EU executive to provide sports organisations clearer legal guidelines on the application of EU law.

Positions:
Several sports stakeholders told EurActiv that it was "a pity" that the forum's programme was dominated by long presentations and speeches, leaving no time for real discussion or dialogue between stakeholders.

FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter welcomed EU sports ministers' support for "the need for dialogue and discussion of the '6+5 rule' while respecting its compatibility with EU law".

"Sport does not aspire to put itself above the law," UEFA President Michel Platini told the ministers, "but it is specific. Sport is not an economic activity like any other. Football is a game rather than just a product or a market. It is a spectacle rather than just a business".

Platini urged Europe to change its stance, arguing "sporting equity and competition balance cannot be submitted to arbitrary market laws". Europe must "take inspiration from sport, instead of imposing on sport unsound ideological models which have been pre-manufactured elsewhere," he said, calling on the European Commission to provide more legal certainty and adopt guidelines allowing professional football to remain within European law without compromising its autonomy.

Mogens Kirkeby, president of the International Sport and Culture Association, warned that general economic stagnation would lead to a decrease in the overall financial resources available for sport. "A strong international and national focus on the elite sport after the Olympic Games, will create a competition on the available resources within the sport sector and it will put grassroots sport under economic pressure," he said.

Kirkeby thinks that more sectors must be inspired and encouraged to contribute financial resources to grassroots sport. "The starting point for such involvement of other public and private financial partners is the instrumental abilities [such as contribution to health or social integration] of grassroots sport," he added.

Echoing Kirkeby's concerns about the imbalance in attention and funding given to elite and grassroot sport, Enrique Sanchez-Guijo Acevedo, president of the European Paralympic Committee, said there was no doubt that competitive sport was "a very complex reality and that it merits profound analysis".

However, he underlined that elite sport is nourished by grassroot sports. "We cannot take the risk of over-talking about elite sports while losing sight of its essential backbone: base sports," he said.