Sports
‘UEFA Must Change Revenue Distribution’
European football’s governing body, UEFA must change how it hands out Champions League money, says Crystal Palace chairman, Steve Parish.
Parish says UEFA’s coefficient ranking system has helped Europe’s elite clubs become entitled with winning.
He feels that has also contributed to a two-speed Premier League.
“There’s a top half and a bottom half, and that disparity will get bigger and bigger unless we put some rules in to try to control it,” Parish added.
The Palace chairman was speaking at the recent launch of the Union of European Clubs (UEC) in Brussels.
The UEC’s general secretary, Dennis Gudasic, said that of the 22billion euros (£19.5billion) in revenue earned by UEFA from club competitions over the past 25 years, 34percentof it has been distributed to a group of just 12 clubs.
Currently 30 percent of Champions League revenue handed out to the 32 clubs in the group stage is determined by their coefficient ranking, which based on how that club has performed in Europe over the past decade. Clubs who have played in Europe regularly over that period get more of that 30percent than those who have not.
While Parish accepts the value of the Premier League’s television broadcast deals means the distortion caused by European earnings is less stark in England than in other leagues, he believes Europe’s top clubs have an unfair financial advantage.
“We’ve got six, now probably seven, teams [in England] where the amount of capital they have is either unlimited or is enormous compared to us, and qualifying for European football is almost impossible,” he said.
“It still doesn’t feel like a meritocracy entirely. And with the coefficient, it feels more and more that there’s a two-speed Premier League.
“You’re up against the situation where people have become so entitled with winning that they don’t accept any system which challenges the status quo or threatens it, and I think that’s what we have really got to look at across Europe.”The UEC is an organisation which seeks to give a voice to more than 1,000 professional clubs in Europe.
Representatives from 103 clubs were present for the UEC launch in person or online, with Aston Villa, Brentford, Brighton and Watford the other English clubs represented.
The UEC believes there are around 1,400 professional clubs in Europe who do not have a voice and should be represented on UEFA decision-making boards in the same way that member clubs of the European Club Associations (ECA) are.
The UEC says only 130 clubs have voting rights within the ECA.
Parish also said UEFA’s position as a regulator and commercial operator “seems a massive conflict of interest”.
“I do believe there needs to be bigger separation of ‘church and state’, if you like,” he said. “The people organising the tournaments and the people regulating them, and taxing those tournaments for the greater good, should be two different people.”
Hon Dike who spoke with sports journalists shortly after the flag off the 2024 edition of Chairman’s Football Unity Tournament at Botem Tai in Tai LGA, said the tournament is an annual event to promote peace and unity in Tai as well identify budding talents in the area for global competition.
The opening ceremony of the tournament was more like a carnival was witnessed by huge crowd including prominent indigenes of Ogoni Kingdom, sports lovers and people from all works of life.
The LGA boss revealed that special sports committee will be setup in the area to work out modalities to strengthen sports development in Tai.
He advised the participants in the tournament from various wards in the LGA to play the game by the rules and conduct themselves in a peaceful and orderly manner and use the opportunity to showcase their talents.
Hon Dike further disclosed that his administration will also give priority attention to skills development among the youth to enhance their human capacity and promote enterprise development in the area.
Earlier in his address the Chairman of Tai LGA Football Council, Elder Wisdom Gorgor said the annual football competition has been a unifying factor in Tai LGA that need to be sustained to forge more unity and development in the area.
He urged the participants to see the competition as an opportunity to embrace football as a full career and earn sustainable livelihood.
Elder Gorgor who commended the Chairman of Tai LGA, Hon Dike for his visionary leadership and tremendous development achievements recorded in the LGA under his administration, appealled to the Chairman to build a Mini Sports Stadium in the area to promote sporting activities.
The training was held at the Sani Abacha Stadium Indoor Basketball Court in Kano last Saturday.
According to the Vice President and Head of NBA Nigeria, Gbemisola Abudu, the event was part of the league’s commitment to growing broader basketball ecosystem in Nigeria and making the game more accessible across the country.
“Our first Jr. NBA clinic in Kano speaks to our commitment to growing the game in Nigeria and creating more opportunities for boys and girls to learn and play the game,” Abudu said.
“Nigeria has a rich basketball history and abundance of talent, which is evident every time you watch an NBA game. We look forward to continuing to engage with basketball stakeholders, business leaders and members of the community to further the game’s reach and impact on young people around the country,” she added.
The 2024 basketball initiative clinics of NBA Nigeria also included the league’s inaugural Jr. NBA elite camp for 150 boys and age-16 girls held at the American International School in Lagos in July.
Others include the NBA’s building of 1,000 courts in Africa over the next decade, Nigeria’s Festival Coins and Salubata named the top two winning businesses at NBA Africa Triple-Double Accelerator’s inaugural Demo Day in New York City held last September, and the third edition of “NBA Meets Art,” a curated installation celebrating basketball through the lens of Nigerian art and culture as part of West Africa’s premier art fair Art X Lagos, held in November.
Central to this vision is the federation’s investment in capacity building, evident in the just-concluded one-week Level 1 Badminton World Federation (BWF) Coaching Course, which marked a significant milestone for Nigerian badminton.
Held in Abuja, the course brought together 13 young coaches from across Nigeria. The last time such a course was held in the country was in 2017, making this a historic and transformative step.
The training was facilitated by the Badminton Confederation of Africa (BCA) in partnership with the Badminton Federation of Nigeria (BFN) and conducted by Dr. Ahmed Radah, the BCA Development Manager.
Radah, impressed by the talent he witnessed, praised Nigeria’s potential.
“Nigeria is blessed with immense talent and a strong badminton tradition. I believe this country has what it takes to dominate on the global stage,” he remarked.