City Football Group, Red Bull or Volkswagen: The fact that an investor has a stake in several clubs becomes a problem for the competition and Uefa.
Nyon/Vienna. Two weeks time. And about 50,000 kilometers flight distance. The owner of the new Champions League winners Manchester City would have to plan that much if he ever wanted to visit all of his 13 football clubs in succession. The “City Football Group” of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan from Abu Dhabi now includes teams from five different continents: from Mumbai City FC in India to Melbourne City and New York City to FC Palermo in Italy.
One person or company owning multiple clubs is a prominent trend in professional football. Now the so-called Club Financial Control Body of Uefa has dealt with such constellations – and in all three cases examined the clubs AC Milan / FC Toulouse, Aston Villa / Vitória Guimarães and Brighton & Hove Albion / Union Saint-Gilloise for the European Cup competitions approved for the coming season.
The regulations of the European association state that no one may influence more than one participating club in the three European competitions, the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League. Because: “If you own two clubs in the same competition, you could instruct one to lose because the other should win,” said association president Aleksander Čeferin.
However, Uefa itself only found out in a study last year that more than 180 clubs worldwide already belong to a structure like the City Football Group. And that makes it clear: In practice, the European Cup rule is becoming increasingly difficult to enforce.
Managers resign
2023-07-11 05:54:20
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