UEFA has set mind to introduce squad limits to curb the growing gap between the rich and poor clubs, the president Aleksander Ceferin announced at a conference in Lisbon.
The radical step is being considered in order to counter the rule of financially elevated clubs, those likes of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Barcelona.
Ceferin stated that UEFA needs to raise concern for ‘decrease in competitive balance’ in the European club football.
“We do have to examine new mechanisms like luxury taxes and in particular sporting criteria like squad limitations and fair transfer rules, to avoid player hoarding and excessive concentration of talent within a few teams,” Ceferin said, without elaborating over the term ‘luxury tax’.
“We do need to assess whether the transfer market as it operates today is the best we can do? We cannot be afraid to touch it.”
Why is it necessary?
Smaller leagues in Europe like Ajax Amsterdam and Benfica complain how bigger clubs hoard players by picking at their distinguished, young aged ones and send them off on loan elsewhere. To cite a few figures, Italian Juventus have more than 50 players loaned out and Chelsea has sent 38 players on loan earlier this season.
“We cannot allow the greatness of some to overshadow and drown out the least of us.
“If we allow gaps to become too great we will be neglecting those who have little opportunity,” Ceferin asserted.
However, the president didn’t quote out of any concrete steps or plans that will be contemplated upon in order to bring the proposal into being.
“We face a threat that the bottom becomes unstable because the rest of the world is focused on the top and our policies must reflect the stance that we value the entire pyramid,” Ceferin added.
He also declared that the European soccer governing body would establish a new division ‘Protection of the Game’ to batter threats like doping, match-fixing and corruption violence in the game.
49-year old Slovenian Aleksander Ceferin has pursued a degree in law and is youngest ever president of UEFA who got elected in the body September last year.
