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Europe’s top clubs to gather for first summit

Europe’s best and wealthiest football clubs will gather next month for a first summit meeting since creating their own independent organization.

The European Club Association, which includes 137 members – ranging from England’s Manchester United to Santa Coloma of Andorra – will meet Feb. 9-10 in Geneva to search for common ground on issues such as finances and foreign ownership, paying players’ wages and signing teenage talent.

“We don’t have a confrontational role,” ECA general secretary Michele Centenaro said Thursday. “We are very open and there to help the football community.”

Each of the 53 European football nations is represented on the ECA which was created in January last year as part of a peace deal between elite clubs and the game’s world governing body, FIFA, and European authority UEFA.

A total of 103 clubs have earned a two-year membership through their UEFA ranking, and a further 34 have applied or been rewarded for success in the Champions League.

It means tiny SS Murata of San Marino has a seat at the table while the world’s richest club, the Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City from England, does not.

“It is not just about the big clubs. The opinion of all the clubs will be taken into account,” Centenaro said from the ECA base near UEFA’s headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.

Centenaro said the general assembly in Geneva will hear reports from five working groups to help draw up policies to lobby football authorities and lawmaking bodies such as the European Union.

UEFA will also present ideas on future distribution of income from the Champions League which spread ?585 million ($759 million) in prize money among 32 clubs last season. Winners Man Utd got the most, earning ?43 million ($56 million).

The ECA must also decide how to fill an expected vacancy on its 15-member management board, which is led by former West Germany striker Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, now chairman at Bundesliga champion Bayern Munich.

Ramon Calderon was elected to the ECA board last July as a representative of Real Madrid but resigned as president of the Spanish champion last week.