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Measures to be taken to ensure the preservation of the fundamental values of sport

Motion for a resolution | Doc. 12062 | 13 October 2009

Signatories:
Mr François ROCHEBLOINE, France, EPP/CD ; Mr Ulrich ADAM, Germany ; Mr Pedro AGRAMUNT, Spain, EPP/CD ; Mr Laurent BÉTEILLE, France, EPP/CD ; Mr Georges COLOMBIER, France, EPP/CD ; Mr Arcadio DÍAZ TEJERA, Spain, SOC ; Ms Sónia FERTUZINHOS, Portugal ; Mr Jean-Charles GARDETTO, Monaco, EPP/CD ; Mr Davit HARUTYUNYAN, Armenia, EDG ; Mr Maximiano MARTINS, Portugal ; Mr José MENDES BOTA, Portugal, EPP/CD ; Mr Felix MÜRI, Switzerland, ALDE ; Mr Maximilian REIMANN, Switzerland ; Mr Giacinto RUSSO, Italy, ALDE ; Ms Luz Elena SANÍN, Spain, EPP/CD ; Mr André SCHNEIDER, France, EPP/CD ; Mr José VERA JARDIM, Portugal, SOC ; Mr Hansjörg WALTER, Switzerland, ALDE ; Mr Marco ZACCHERA, Italy, EDG

Sport is a vector for the expression of essential social and educational values. Europe has an obligation to do whatever it can in order to render such values compatible with sport’s economic dimension. The uncontrolled emergence of purely financial considerations accentuates certain already well-known excesses: the use of drugs, the transfer of younger and younger players between clubs, the totally disproportionate amounts given over to transfers and wages, the risk of corruption and of the fixing of certain results, the dangers linked to the liberalisation of on-line betting on sports, as well as the badly regulated role of sporting “agents”.

The economic crisis has temporarily put a brake on such considerations and consequently on abuses. It has not led to the disappearance of the causes of such abuses. Regulation is more than ever necessary.

However such regulation will only be efficient if it is implemented, at the least, on a European scale, unless it were to create a distortion of competition.

On account of its geographically broad field of action, the Council of Europe is particularly well-placed to promote the enacting of the necessary rules in collaboration with the various international sports organisations (e.g. in the field of soccer, FIFA, UEFA and the EPFL) whilst taking into account, of course, the regulations of the European Union itself.

As a consequence, the Parliamentary Assembly requests the Council of Europe member states to:

  • draw up together a series of laws which would enable a guarantee of the transparency of the accounts of sports clubs and the regularity of their financial transactions, in particular as regards transfers;
  • undertake the drawing-up of a convention standardising national regulations concerning the legal and financial aspects of sport activities;
  • examine if the regulation of wages is an adapted and legally viable measure in team sports;
  • envisage, subject to the specific conditions of young sportsmen and women in training or at the beginning of their careers, a limitation per club of the number of contracts with professional players;
  • define statutes for the position of sport agents;
  • confirm the property rights of the organisers of sport events over the commercial use of competitions which are part of such events, whatever form such use may take.