UEFA Demands Transparent Bookkeeping in Soccer Clubs
The funding of Ukrainian clubs is for some reason considered an issue closed to discussion, with club bosses, coaches and team players mainly referring to euphemisms in talks about money. Should one dig up the sports press of recent years, nothing but the participation fees charged by the Professional Football League and the penalties imposed on players, coaches, or clubs will turn up. One can only guess at the amount of money, when coaches or players start complaining about delayed payments and bonuses. The sources of our clubs’ funding are shrouded in still greater mystery. Only the amounts of UEFA bonuses and proceeds from transfers of players sold abroad remain open to the public eye. To conceal money in this case is quite a task, since all Europe knows about it.
Our native tradition of silence about soccer money will soon be challenged. The UEFA now demands that all professional clubs of all European countries be licensed, which envisions transparency of the clubs’ bookkeeping. Thus, by visiting the UEFA site anyone will be able to find out about the income and expenditure, for instance, of Ternopil Nyva. The outcome of this could be most surprising. Clubs unable to confirm their financial capacity with official documents will not be licensed by the UEFA. On the contrary, if the amounts specified in the documents are too miserable, all Europe will chip in to help our poor players. In this case, however, the benefactors will be unpleasantly surprised to see our underpaid players’ fancy cars and other attributes of affluence.
A host of questions could arise on this issue. Perhaps it is for the best that the UEFA spurs us to do what we have long been expected to do so that soccer devotees will not be surprised by the unexpected migration of players from one team to another, but will know that a certain club has not earned money to pay them. It is quite possible that, having found out about real funding sources of our soccer professionals, most spectators will change their attitude toward particular players, coaches, and club bosses. Some will win deserved respect, and some will not be able to get away with just talk. The dialogue between the spectator and soccer teams, when everyone learns the real financial condition of our soccer, will finally have ground under it. Such a dialogue is badly needed, for the real financial support of soccer worldwide comes from spectators buying tickets for games, consuming advertisements at the stadiums and during television broadcasts, paying for the right to watch soccer matches on commercial channels, buying club symbols and souvenirs. That is how it should be, but so far from what it is in our country. Maybe the UEFA will help us.
Let us hope that, after our clubs have played the closing matches in the Champions League, their bosses will share their opinions of the proposed international licensing of Ukrainian soccer clubs with transparent bookkeeping. Thus far, only Dynamo and Shakhtar are known to be truly financially stable clubs. And many more such teams are needed.
