Jacopo Carmassi is Principal Financial Stability Expert at the European Central Bank. All views expressed are exclusively those of the author and do not implicate in any way the European Central Bank nor any other entity to which the author is affiliated.
Correspondent from Brussels – Where are ECA and UEFA? This was the question asked by Spanish LaLiga President, Javier Tebas, in his closing remarks at the second edition of the European Professional Football Forum organized yesterday in Brussels by the Union of European Clubs (UEC). Together with representatives of 120 Clubs, key figures of several relevant bodies, including among others the European Commission and European Leagues, the association of European professional football leagues, attended the event – but ECA (the European Club Association) and UEFA were absent, despite having been invited. These absences are striking, but not entirely unexpected in light of the tensions between ECA and UEC: in fact, these tensions have now become an open conflict. But let’s take one step back, to understand what happened and why this has crucial implications for the future of football in Europe.
As previously reported on these columns, the ECA and the UEC have engaged in a tight race to conquer members. The ECA is the European Club Association, counting over 700 members from 55 countries and including the biggest Clubs. As first step, the ECA has widened its membership, moving from 247 member Clubs in April 2021 (the beginning of the Presidency of Nasser Al-Khelaïfi) to 717 Clubs as of today. They did so particularly via the members of the ECA network – Clubs without voting rights but with the possibility to benefit from several ECA services and from their participation to the network. As a second step, the ECA adopted this year an internal reform changing its membership rules: this reform has automatically transformed the members of the ECA network into associated members – under a new philosophy labelled as “Membership for All”.
Associated members have more rights and functions than network members (which do not exist any longer), but they lack full voting rights, unlike ordinary members. Meanwhile, the UEC, officially launched in April 2023 with the goal of offering representation to small and medium European Clubs, managed to gather over 140 members from 25 countries, and to elect a President and an Executive Board in April 2024. All Clubs which are members of the UEC have full voting rights and there is no membership tiering.
The UEC and the ‘One Club, One Vote’ system
Ever since its inception, the UEC has emphasized the “one Club, one vote” principle, which is also enshrined in the UEC statutes. After the strong criticism to the previous ECA membership tiering, with only ordinary members having full voting rights, the UEC has not changed its stance after the recent ECA internal reform: the UEC continues to argue that associated members remain excluded from decision-making processes, because they still do not have full voting rights. The UEC goes on to claim that the ECA continues to only represent the interests of the big Clubs, without offering adequate representation to the other Clubs. The UEC tries to cover exactly that ground – those Clubs that the UEC considers not to be properly represented, and which are typically small and medium Clubs, not only of first divisions but also of other divisions.
Clearly, the ECA has a totally different view: it regards itself as an association representing all Clubs, not only the biggest Clubs, but also the small and medium ones, and considers other associations as “protest groups”. Exactly because it sees itself as representing all Clubs – and to be precise, the only association representing Clubs in Europe – the ECA does not recognise other Club associations (specifically, the UEC) and calls all relevant stakeholders to do the same.
A Bruxelles nasce la nuova UEC: l'ECA dei piccoli club
ECA vs UEC, Al-Khelaïfi’s attack
In the conference room of the European Professional Football Forum, there was a clear echo of the words pronounced a few days ago in Athens at the ECA General Assembly by the ECA President, the President of Paris Saint-Germain Nasser Al-Khelaïfi: he requested that relevant stakeholders, like UEFA, do “not recognise the interminable array of protest groups or play politics”. Meaning: we ask stakeholders not to recognize the UEC, that we consider a group of rebels. One of the goals of the UEC is, however, exactly to receive formal recognition from relevant stakeholders like UEFA and the European Commission. With regard to the latter, the UEC aims to being recognised as a member of the Social Dialogue – a group with consultation, negotiation and information exchange purposes, involving significant entities, for a variety of activity sectors and including professional football. The ECA, as well as European Leagues, is already part of the Social Dialogue, which is chaired by UEFA.
The UEC reaction to the attack by the ECA President came quickly, yesterday in Brussels. Alex Muzio, President of the Belgian Club Union Saint-Gilloise and UEC President since April 2024, called for a process of reform of rules and governance for football. In this context, he argued that ECA pressures might further widen the gap between the élite Clubs and the other Clubs, if the UEC is not involved in the reform process: on this, and other topics, Muzio repeatedly stated that “the UEC is needed”. The President of the UEC also strongly criticised the limitations to voting rights for non-ordinary ECA members, and he added a further criticism on the decision-making processes of ECA: in his view, such mechanisms are not transparent, including on crucial matters such as the Club World Cup and the Memorandum of Understanding between UEFA and ECA. This memorandum, recently renewed until 2033, envisages that UEFA continues to recognise the ECA as the sole European association representing Clubs. Alex Muzio has then highlighted the non-participation of the ECA to the legal complaint against FIFA for abuse of dominant position on the matter of international matches calendar, filed earlier this week with the European Commission by various stakeholders. He argued that this non-participation by ECA looked like a protest group behaviour, echoing the words used by the ECA President. Finally, according to the UEC President, exclusionary practices at the highest levels seem to indicate that the football system may have abused of the autonomy historically granted to it in the EU legal framework.
William Martucci, Director of Operations at the UEC, underlined that the main problem, that of voting rights, remains unsolved, because the concept of membership is not equivalent to the concept of representation. He noted that only 116 out of the approximately 700 ECA members have full voting rights (and that this number has remained substantially stable over time); and he added that, out of these 116 Clubs, 33 of them control half of the Board, therefore having the same power as all the other ECA members considered together. Martucci also observed that, as of today, the UEC has a higher number of members with full voting rights (over 140) than ECA (116).
Finally, LaLiga President Javier Tebas, a supporter of the UEC project, spent words of appreciation for the UEC, praising its growth and its ability to resist in a challenging environment. He criticized UEFA and ECA for their absence at yesterday’s event; and he expressed doubts over the legal validity of the recognition by UEFA of the ECA as the sole European association representing Clubs. He also launched a call to work immediately on a reform of football governance.
Inside the ECA-UEC clash: Al-Khelaifi's less elitist move to attract more clubs
ECA-UEC clash, the issues on the table
The clash between the ECA and the UEC does not seem to become softer, and it actually seems to become stronger: this cannot be downplayed to some arguments or tensions between individuals, or to a strong but constructive exchange of views, because in reality this reflects a deep fracture on the vision of the football system. The clash indicates a structural divergence on numerous matters which are crucial for the present and future of European football: these include, among others, the mechanisms for representation, the European and international football governance, the issue of the (widening) economic and financial gap between the big Clubs and the other Clubs, the issues of competitive balance and financial sustainability, and the relative strength of domestic competitions versus international competitions (in this regard, LaLiga President asked FIFA President Infantino to take a step back on the Club World Cup and cancel it).
Even on one of the few topics (together with the Superleague issue) where there is some form of convergence between UEC and ECA – UEFA solidarity payments to Clubs not participating to European competitions – the alignment is only partial. Both the ECA and the UEC have welcomed the increase in solidarity payments, but this improvement, although significant, does not entirely solve one of the most important issues for the UEC: competitive balance and the increasing gap in the economic and financial strength of big Clubs participating to the European competitions vis-à-vis the other Clubs. This matter, and of course solidarity payments, have a crucial relevance for UEC members: in fact, one of the working groups of the UEC is focused on these aspects and it is likely that the UEC will present in the future specific policy proposals in these areas (as well as on two other topics which are key in the UEC strategy – governance and financial sustainability).
ECA vs UEC, the events that could change the scenario
Two potential new developments could possibly produce a decisive impact on the outcome of the ECA vs UEC match. The first factor regards the choices of Clubs: the current equilibrium could change, in one direction or the other, in case of a new, large wave of inflows of member Clubs towards one of the two associations. This scenario could materialize, for example, if a significant number of ECA associated members were not entirely satisfied about their associated role and decided to migrate to the UEC in order to obtain full voting rights (this is clearly what the UEC would hope). But such scenario could also materialise if a relevant number of Clubs which are currently neither ECA members nor UEC members decided to join one or the other association. The second possible development that could change the current equilibrium is a formal recognition of the UEC by relevant stakeholders such as UEFA or the European Commission: this factor would be important per se, but also for the potential effects that it might trigger on the first factor, the possible inflow of new members.
If none of these potential new developments will materialise in the short run, how could the impasse be broken? The solution cannot come from these columns (let alone from the author of this article), and the matter is too complex to have easy or simplistic solutions. From an observer perspective, one could argue that, after these two years of discussions (sometimes explicit, but not always) on the ECA and the UEC, something is missing: a public event with a debate between the two associations, at the presence of Clubs and of relevant stakeholders. Each of the two parties could illustrate its own points of view and its vision on all the matters which are key for the representation of football Clubs in Europe. It could also be a useful opportunity, for both associations, to try and convince those Clubs which have not taken a decision yet, as well as the relevant stakeholders. Is this scenario not very realistic? Maybe. But, many times, football offers dreams, and so it could make sense to keep some (little) hope.