His plan involves increasing the size of the Champions League, reducing the size of domestic leagues and requiring national federations to pay players’ salaries when they leave clubs for international duty.
“If UEFA and the ECA reach an agreement,” he told the Aspire 4 Sport conference in Qatar, “we would like to increase the Champions League under the umbrella of UEFA. If not, the ECA is entitled to organise their own champions competition.”
In other words, Europe’s leading clubs threaten to break away from the UEFA Champions League and form the long-rumored “Super League” if their demands are not met.
The ECA wants to reduce the size of first divisions throughout Europe. A proposed 16-team cap on top flights would free weekends for marquee games between continental giants.
“We want a bigger Champions League and hope one day we could play perhaps Barcelona versus Manchester United on Saturdays,” he said.
The issue of compensating clubs for time their players miss for international duty is a longstanding one between the ECA (and its predecessors), UEFA and FIFA. Rosell believes national teams should either pay for their players or dramatically cut the number of international games.
“‘We have to review completely the calendar of UEFA and FIFA. They use our players for, I think, about 120 days every two years.
“We don’t think it’s fair we pay the salaries and they use our players and get other income by using our players. They need to reduce their own calendar, especially taking out friendlies.
“We hope FIFA and UEFA will hear what we want to tell them. The worst-case scenario is we’ll go away from UEFA.”
Photo via Flickr/cvrcak1
