At least no one can accuse the Asian football authorities of not worrying about the little things. After all, it would be easy to overlook the little things, when your job is to nurture and promote the most popular sport on the planet for the benefit of almost five billion people spread over a third of the Earth’s surface.
In many ways, then, it is admirable that the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) can still find time to dictate precisely which water bottles, with which labels, fans should be able to bring into stadiums. That kind of attention to detail should reassure you that the future of football – from Beirut to Beijing and Ulaanbaatar to Hobart – is in good hands.
Unfortunately, that’s not exactly the picture that emerges from a report, commissioned by the global football players’ union, FIFPro, which assesses the benefits and shortcomings of Asia’s most prestigious club competition, the Asian Champions League. Instead, the report documents a tournament that acts as a near-perfect microcosm of the general direction of football around the world.
There are many types of officious nitpickers so prized by sports authorities. In addition to addressing the crucial issue of water bottles, the AFC’s “clean stadium” requirements – the rules decreeing that stadiums for Champions League matches must be free of unapproved advertising – address pressing issues such as the logos on the backpacks and the brand on the bottles. tapas.
The AFC seems to be much less concerned about whether the tournament actually works for the clubs involved. According to estimates from two competing teams, enforcing stadium cleaning rules alone costs $50,000 per game.
Traveling for away games is even more expensive. In Europe, teams routinely travel first class (for what the report describes as “high-performance purposes,” a logic that unfortunately does not apply to New York Times journalists), but the sheer geography of Asia means that is not so. One option. The average distance traveled for an away match in the Asian Champions League is approximately 2,300 miles.
That makes even the economics of flying notably onerous: One Australian team reported it had spent $95,000 to transport and house its players and staff members for a single game in Japan, substantially more than the $60,000 subsidy the AFC provides until the last rounds of the competition.
That’s where some of the 40 clubs that have reached the group stage will be able to make up for losses accumulated along the way. But just a few of them: Half of the $15 million prize goes to the winner and second runner-up. The losing semi-finalists could win $500,000. FIFPro’s findings suggest that most teams lose a lot of money simply by participating.
“The result is that competition is less affordable for those clubs that are eliminated early, which also tend to be clubs from smaller or less developed markets,” the report says. Urawa Reds, the Japanese club that won last year’s edition, informed the union that only the finalists would win enough prize money to cover their expenses.
Therefore, it is good news that the AFC has already decided to change the way the competition works. Starting later this year, the Asian Champions League will consist of only 24 teams.
Instead of the traditional home-and-away showdowns in the knockout rounds, the quarterfinals going forward will take on a form recognizable from the latter stages of international tournaments: single matches held in a single country over the course of just over a week. . It should surprise no one that, for the first five years, that final stage is held in Saudi Arabia.
Turns out the plan is a good one. And given the sudden influx of household names into Saudi clubs over the past year, the timing is also perfect.
Fewer teams means that each match in the new format should be of higher quality. Concentrating the final rounds in one place will allow for more matches between teams from the east and west of the continent. (Currently, the best of Japan and South Korea cannot face the powerhouses of Iran and Saudi Arabia until the final.) Teams that make it this far won’t have to plan or pay for multiple long-distance trips.
However, the comparatively scant details that have emerged do not make for encouraging reading for anyone hoping this is a chance to make the competition work for everyone. The AFC can’t do much about Asia’s size, but it also hasn’t offered any assurances about whether it intends to increase travel budgets or reduce its demands for stadiums approved by its partners.
What is known (it was very much in the headlines when the transformation was announced) is that the winner of the tournament will receive around 12 million dollars. The runner-up will receive 6 million dollars.
As far as FIFPro is concerned, there is a good chance that much of the rest of the “value associated with the final culminating rounds will fall to the AFC and the host nation.” The final phase will be a tempting property to sell to broadcasters. No one has said, so far, what part of the income it could generate would go to the clubs in the competition.
Of course, this would be a considerable missed opportunity. The AFC’s stated goal is to help spread, improve and support the game throughout Asia. It has, in the changes to its most prestigious competition, the perfect opportunity to do just that.
And yet, there is a good chance that he will reject it and prefer to shower wealth on the clubs that need it least, while passing on the benefits that may come from the new format to a handful of the strongest and richest teams in its strongest format. and tasty. suspenders.
It will do so because of the consistent belief, held among football’s executive class, that growth in football is a product of pulling rather than pushing, and that change is effected from the top down, not the bottom up. . A vast majority of clubs and countries under the aegis of Asian football leaders will be excluded and abandoned; The interest of the authorities will only be attracted when the wrong kind of water bottle, with the wrong kind of label, tarnishes the world they have created.
choose your morning
Xabi Alonso could really do without this. He is three months and 12 games away from winning his first Bundesliga title against Bayer Leverkusen. He could still finish his first full season as a coach by winning the championship, the German Cup and the Europa League. The economics of modern football dictate that this really shouldn’t happen.
You have to go back a bit to remember a more auspicious start to a managerial career: perhaps Pep Guardiola’s glorious debut campaign at Barcelona in 2009, which culminated in a Spanish title and the Champions League trophy; or further, until José Mourinho’s explosion at Porto six years earlier.
Unfortunately, through no fault of his own, Alonso can now expect an achievement that should be celebrated on its own merits to be relegated (at least in terms of how it is presented) to little more than an audition. Everything that Alonso delivers to Leverkusen in the coming weeks will be framed as an advance or a setback in his candidacy to be the next coach of Liverpool or Bayern Munich.
That’s as much in the nature of modern football as it is in the economic reality that Alonso so spectacularly challenges, of course, but it’s also a shame. What he was able to achieve at Leverkusen this season deserves to be celebrated for what it is, not for where he might yet lead.
Everything has a price. It is not clear why.
It is no surprise that Manchester United have chosen Dan Ashworth as the ideal candidate to spearhead the club’s (belated) modernisation. His work (with West Bromwich Albion, England, Brighton and his current team, Newcastle) has been undeniably impressive.
It’s also no surprise that Newcastle are so keen not to lose him that they have placed him on almost two years of what the British call gardening leave: essentially, Newcastle has allowed Ashworth to stop working, but will prevent him from taking another job paying him. Don’t do anything until his contract expires. Newcastle has suggested that only compensation of around $25 million persuade the club to change its mind.
What is a bit strange, and this is a genuine question, is why Newcastle should ask for a fee. Ashworth has a desk job and wants to go do another desk job. It’s hard to think of another industry where your current employer could demand money from a rival company to allow that to happen.
We accept transfer fees when they belong to players, of course, because that’s how football has always done business. Managers are also increasingly including termination clauses in their contracts. However, whatever form they take, they are in reality compensation sums designed to convince a club to terminate a contract.
However, when applied to people who are not present on the field in any way, to those squads of employees who exist near or over the line where football becomes less of a game and more of a business, they feel more than a little discordant; Dissonant enough, certainly, to make you wonder why they exist.
