Something is rotten in Lausanne

There are Liverpool implications in Lausanne.

UEFA: Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) Lausanne, Switzerland 12/7/20

In a huge decision for all of European Football, and Liverpool, the CAS has unceremoniously reversed a February 2020 decision by UEFA to ban Manchester City from European Football, and a €30m fine racked on for good measure. The fine was reduced to €10m, a virtual slap on the wrist for what amounts to cheating.

€10m. To an organization with the deep pockets of Man City, is absolutely ludicrous. Like collecting the coins left by visitors in your couch cushions.

Chelsea were hit with a two season transfer ban for FFP violations a few short years ago.

PSG sat on the bubble of sanctions for their own FFP violations, but avoided a similar fate as City, when an upper board member at PSG became a member of UEFA’s hierarchy before the verdict. Hardy harr harr!

UEFA created the FFP rules in 2009 to limit the growth of Europe’s super clubs by attempting to make financial expenditures fall in line with each league’s guidelines for financial fair play.

It was created to keep leagues more competitive so a few rich clubs could not simply dominate because of the differences in financial capital. At the time this was seen as a positive step to keep the game within reach of everyone. From PSG to Motherwell, Barca to Derby Country.

But since it’s inception, UEFA has shown little stomach for enforcing these most necessary rules governing how clubs operate financially.

In their most recent decision. CAS have literally destroyed any creditability in the FFP. Opening the floodgates as it were for every super club in Europe to play loose and fancy with the rules to gain an unfair advantage. Who cares anyhow? If you get caught, the penalties will be negligible.

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The precedent has been set folks, to come down hard on the next violator will be seen as either too little too late, or overcompensating for past errors. Either way it will be patently unfair given this precedent. It will be next to impossible to fairly implement punishments to future violators.

It is widely known that the IOC is the most corrupt governing body for international sport, and have been for many decades. Running a hot second in the race to the bottom (from a graft and corruption standpoint), is FIFA. And UEFA is not immune to this cancerous corruption as we have just witnessed.

This is an assault on the faith and goodwill that must be present to the perception that sport will be administered fairly. This leaves a taint and tarnish that just isn’t going to ‘go away’.

The whole game suffers. Each and every club side in European football is directly effected. The ones who’ve played by the rules that is. So what is the incentive to play by the FFP going forward?

There are clubs who simply do not operate that way, Liverpool are one of these. This is another reason for that most apt moniker ‘this means more’. Some clubs are willing to cheat to get ahead, some are not.

Think Leicester City 2016 here, which is why that title winning side, built by Nigel Pearson, and steered by Claudio Ranieri seemed like such an aberration. Because it was.

Everyone steps lightly on eggshells, around the 900kg. silverback in the room. Money is ruining this most beautiful of games. Indeed all of sport has been tainted and corrupted by unimpeded influxes of huge monstrous sums of capital. Everyone knows this. Everyone.

Money corrupts everything it touches. Sport is not immune to this flaw in human nature. We know as greed. It is rampant, pervasive, and ubiquitous.

Yet we keep our heads buried in the sand, cheer our favorite sides, buy tickets, and merchandise, and publicly support a sport that gets more corrupt and unfair by the day.

I chose to discontinue my support for all the American sports for mainly, but not limited to this very issue. I no longer support or watch the Olympics, and I’ve chosen to boycott the World Cup in Qatar, because of the corruption and unfairness in those governing bodies.

And so, I’m now left with a choice? Do I continue to support, watch, participate in a spectacle of sport that is rigged and fixed so only the strong (financially speaking) can survive. Hmmmm…for me, this is a clear issue of conscience and character.