Any federation or association responsible for the conduct and promotion of a sport or a sporting contest would naturally aim to make it as popular and lucrative as possible, but that cannot be at the expense of the essence of the sport.
Football is the most popular sport on the planet and its biggest stars are well-known names throughout the world. At its basic level, it’s a club-level game with strong allegiances. Local rivalries are the lifeblood of the game and the following that a club enjoys in the area that it comes from sustains the sport among the most enthusiastic fans.
Football leagues, for almost as long as the game has been played competitively, have been contested on a home-and-away basis, with the champions being decided after months of tussle. That’s what makes the decision by the Spanish and Italian leagues to hold one match this season overseas hard to comprehend.
La Liga plans to stage the Barcelona-Villarreal game in Miami on December 20, while AC Milan’s game against Como could be held in Perth early next year.
This has sparked some outrage not only among clubs but also supporter groups. The reasons are obvious. Playing in Miami or Perth will make a mockery of the home advantage a team is supposed to have. Big clubs have big budgets and may not think twice about travelling long distances. Even players earn frequent flyer miles on individual trips. But what about the fans who are the life source of football? How do they attend matches of clubs they have an emotional (and often financial) investment with? Who pays for their travel thousands of miles away for one game? How many of them can afford to do so? What about the increased carbon footprint? For local games, fans can often travel by road and in groups, which may not be possible in the case of expensive overseas trips.
It’s for a reason that a club is named FC Barcelona or AC Milan or Manchester United or Bayern Munich or Olympique Marseille or Liverpool. They have roots in the area they come for. Even clubs like Arsenal and Chelsea come from specific parts of a particular city. If matches are played somewhere else, it ceases to be the Spanish or the Italian league.
Commercial motive
Over the last few decades, with the advent of satellite television and internet, and relentless marketing, these big and successful clubs have developed a fan following across the world. At the same time, the geographical limitations of the area they come from make it difficult to exploit the revenue possibilities beyond a certain extent.
Big European clubs, these days, conduct lucrative pre-season tours to Asia, Australia and the United States, where they play friendlies against local sides in front of packed stadiums. The initiative to play domestic league games abroad is little more than a cash-grab exercise on the part of wealthy club owners. It’s just another way of leveraging their reach and popularity for financial benefit, but a cynical way to do so. These clubs may have become global brands, but they can’t afford to be rootless. Stories of their origin are famous worldwide, and their history is forever linked to the place where they come from.
La Liga President Javier Tebas has defended the decision saying fans around the world also deserved to see their teams play live. But they already do so in the pre-season.
If it’s ok for the bigger leagues to stage matches abroad, what stops teams from smaller footballing nations to do so? The All India Football Federation organised the Super Cup in Saudi Arabia a few years ago, but that exercise was not repeated.
The German league has said it has no plans of holding matches outside the country. The unique ownership pattern of Bundesliga clubs, where supporters have de facto control, may have something to do with it. “As long as I am here in the league responsible, there will be no match abroad, when it comes to competitive matches. Full stop,” German Football League boss Hans-Joachim Watzke said recently after his re-election. “It is not open to interpretation. I think at UEFA there are more people deciding on this. But as far as UEFA is concerned, my opinion is relatively clear.”
Fans’ view
The supporters are clear in their opinion, saying the move was motivated by short-term financial gain and unmindful of the clubs’ role in the community they have emerged from.
“The latest efforts to disrupt the nature of European football with La Liga and Serie A trying to relocate games to the United States and Australia are a direct attack on the essence of football,” Football Supporters Europe (FSE) said in a statement co-signed by hundreds of groups across the continent.
“Football is based on a set of rules and principles and the rules of domestic leagues are simple: you play the same clubs home and away and the best team wins the league. Relocating games to foreign soil undermines this vital pillar of the game. Any deviation from the existing rules is a perversion of football for the sole purpose of entertainment and short-term financial gain.”
Even European Union Sports Commissioner Glenn Micallef said moving the games abroad was not an innovation but a ‘betrayal’. He argued that it would have an adverse impact on the sporting integrity of the leagues.
Serie A responded by saying Micallef’s remarks were ‘excessive’ arguing that they were moving only one match out of 380 in a season.
But if one match is played abroad, there’s nothing to stop more of them.
The Premier League, the most popular and lucrative domestic football competition in the world, has till now not shown any inclination to organise ‘out-of-territory’ matches and much will depend on what European football’s governing body UEFA and world body FIFA think of these plans. UEFA’s ruling committee meets in Tirana, Albania, on September 11 and this issue is likely to come up for discussion.
But it’s pertinent to note what the supporters, who are regularly touted as the biggest stakeholders in the game, have to say in this matter.
Asking football’s governing bodies to “ensure that football remains rooted in our communities, where it belongs,” the FSE argued: “Clubs are neither entertainment companies nor traveling circuses. They exist for the benefit of their communities and provide a sense of belonging, where fans have been attending home games for generations.”