Europe’s top clubs will meet next week to discuss the prospect
of Qatar staging the World Cup in the winter of 2022, a proposal La
Liga's president has labelled ‘a grave error’.
The European Club Association (ECA) will discuss ramifications of a
switch from summer in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday (March 3).
The
ECA has 214 European club members, including Arsenal, Chelsea,
Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Celtic and Rangers.
Under
a previous agreement, FIFA allocates an amount of money to the ECA ‘in
order to recognise the important part they play in the success of the
tournament’.
The ECA’s current agreement with FIFA has
expired, and they need to agree a new deal with world football’s
governing body for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups.
“The decision is a grave error for European leagues.” Javier Tebas, La Liga president, told Sky Sports News HQ in an exclusive interview.
“We think that we have been shown a lack of respect. To break up the
season is an error. We do believe the World Cup should be celebrated in
Qatar but in the months of May and June and not break up the European
league seasons. We haven’t decided anything yet, it is seven years
away.”
Richard Scudamore, Premier League chief executive,
said he was “extremely disappointed” over a proposal that was endorsed
by UEFA.
“We have spoken to Richard about this, and the
other European leagues.” said Tebas. “We all disagree with the decision.
UEFA should have thought more about its leagues and competitions given
the amount of players that play in them and we have been affected badly
by this decision.
"We feel let down (by UEFA) as well, given we have so many worldwide players in our European leagues.”
Karl-Heinz
Rummenigge, ECA chairman, said earlier this week: “European clubs and
leagues cannot be expected to bear the costs for such rescheduling. We
expect the clubs to be compensated for the damage that a final decision
would cause.”
Jerome Valcke, FIFA General Secretary, said on Wednesday there would be “no apology” and “no compensation”.
No comments:
Post a Comment