Search: 'European Union'

Amazingly, not everyone in Europe has welcomed the proposed super league. WSC correspondents sum up reactions in three of the key countries

Germany
When the plans for a European super league were first presented in the German media, reactions were as vague as the proposals themselves. Most Bundesliga club officials grieved over the loss of morality in sport in a rather populist manner, knowing that the vast majority of German teams would be excluded from the feeding troughs of the ESL and may have their very existence threatened. But even for those who will be involved in it, the new era may bring about just as many problems as advantages.

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The annual statement of football's accounts does not make good reading for fans of Nationwide clubs. Patrick Harverson looks at the numbers

Ask most fans how they think the European  commission’s 1995 Bosman ruling, which allowed out-of-contract players to move clubs on free transfers, has most changed domestic football and they will talk of the hundreds of foreign players who make a living in England today.

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Powder puff ideas are making the dreaded Super League a laughing stock before it's even begun

Be mightily afraid, there’s a super league a-coming and damned if it doesn’t keep changing shape. One day it’s going to be a midweek league involving 16 clubs, or two divisions of 16, or 20 clubs. Then it’s going to be an invitational end of season tournament running through the close season. It might be a sealed competition with no promotion and relegation, or it might be opened up to new members after the first two years.

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Patrick Harverson examines the furore that followed the publication last month of a report that detailed huge rises in footballers' wages in the past year

Are footballers paid too much? It is a simple enough question, but one that evades a simple answer. It can be, and often is, argued that footballers are paid too much in relation to the amount of money their clubs earn, or in relation to the performance they deliver on the pitch, or – as several tabloid newspapers suggested recently – in relation to the amount of money a nurse earns.

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With huge numbers of fans travelling to France without any hope of getting a ticket, the process is clearly favouring the rich and famous. Without a system change, the streets of Paris could be full of angry fans from all nations. A recipe for disaster?

You'll remember the advert broadcast before the England v Chile friendly in March. After running down a list of the qualities to be found in the England squad, the narration ended in a sneering challenge: “Come on Chile, the boys are waiting.” It could just as easily have been an invitation to a fight as a football match. As a symbol of arrogance headed for a fall (you’ll recall the result too), it was a neat example of how the build-up to this World Cup has gone.

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