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UEFA President Michel Platini has made a keynote speech to European affairs ministers from 27 countries, in which he called for concrete recognition of sport’s specificity, as well as the autonomy of sports federations.
In his address in Brest, France, Mr Platini – speaking on behalf of European team sports – called for the European sports federations to be given the possibility to draw up, together with the European Commission, guidelines on the application of European law to sport, which would give sport the legal framework and legal certainty required to develop and protect the European sports model. The UEFA President also asked that the federations be given the means to introduce rules for the protection of young people through a policy of encouraging training, as well as the means to develop better control of clubs’ spending at European level.
The ministers praised the approach by the European team sports, and endorsed a Franco-Dutch government initiative backing the idea of sport’s specificity and sports federations’ autonomy. The matter will now be referred to the European Council bringing together European Union heads of state or government.
Mr Platini was invited to the meeting in Brest by Mr Jean-Pierre Jouyet, French secretary of state for European affairs. France assumed the presidency of the European Council on 1 July, and French president Nicolas Sarkozy last week spoke of the need to strengthen the recognition of sport’s specific nature in an address to the European Parliament. “The European sports movement does not wish to be above the law,” said Mr Platini. “On the contrary, we need laws in order to protect the true values of sport. However, these laws need to be written and interpreted in a way that recognises the specificity of sport and the autonomy of its institutions. For sport is not just an economic activity like any other,” he added. “We need a legal framework that protects the things that form the essence and beauty of sport: its educational, social and civic values. At the moment, sport is experiencing numerous regrettable developments, thanks in particular to the blind application of European law to sport: European competition law cannot be used to govern automatically and exclusively the world of sport. The governments of the European Union said it in Nice in 2000. The European Parliament repeated it firmly in May of this year by adopting a resolution with an overwhelming majority: the specificity of sport and the autonomy of its federations must finally be recognised in a practical way in order to protect the values of sport, which are also those of Europe.”
Mr Platini thanked Mr Jouyet and the Dutch European affairs minister Frans Timmermans for the work undertaken by the two governments to support the idea of sport’s specificity and sports federations’ autonomy. “But now Mr Jouyet and Mr Timmermans also need the support of their 25 team-mates. Sport needs the backing of each one of you.” European team sports - basketball, volleyball, handball, ice hockey, rugby and football - recently drafted a document laying down their key proposals, and which was presented in Brest. “It is an approach which has already convinced the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament on two occasions since, in 2007 and again this year, they approved the main points set out in this document which we have prepared,” said Mr Platini.
“And it is an approach which has also found favour with the European Commission. The Commission has understood our wishes and approves of the lawful, reasonable and balanced approach of the European team sports federations. They know that we are credible partners who understand the complexity and demands of European law. You will see that, through this document, what we hope to achieve is not that the European Union should govern sport, but that the European Union should give the national, European and international federations the means to govern themselves - within the clear, precise framework of the law.”
Mr Platini said that sport had high expectations of the French EU presidency. “For the first time we feel as if we have not only been listened to,” he said, “but also and in particular, that we have been understood.”
