BurnCK
Well-Known Member
BATE proving there’s no fair play at UEFA
Barcelona beat BATE Borisov of Belarus by five goals in Minsk last week. No surprise there. The
European champions have already put that many past Villarreal and Atletico Madrid this season, plus eight past Osasuna.
It is not what Barcelona did to BATE that is important, but what BATE are doing to the rest of Belarus.
Thanks to regular European football, including two appearances in the Champions League group stage in the last four years, the club have become unstoppable in domestic competition. They have won the last five Belarussian titles and went into this weekend 11 points clear.
The money that BATE Borisov receive as Belarus’s only Champions League entrants — and that situation will not improve because they never progress far enough to establish multiple places — is so disproportionately vast that rivals cannot compete.
Domestic football in Belarus is traditionally very open. Between 1995 and 2005, the Vysshaya League was won by eight different teams: Dinamo Minsk, MPKC Mozyr, Dnepr Transmash-Mogilev, BATE Borisov, Slavia Mozyr, Belshina Borbruisk, Gomel and Shakhtyor Soligorsk. Even in the post-war Soviet era, no team retained the title more than once.
Then BATE were re-established and, buoyed by UEFA riches, are turning the season at home into a procession.
To what end? The club do not even play in their City Stadium in Europe — its 5,400 capacity is too small to host the Champions League — and instead decamp to that of their rivals, Dinamo Minsk.
Nor is the gulf with the aristocracy of Europe decreasing through experience. A report of the match with Barcelona had the visitors ‘on course for a victory in which they barely broke sweat’ while ‘almost playing at walking pace’.
Bate ‘lined up with 10 men staying back and former Chelsea striker Mateja Kezman a lone figure as Barça dominated’.
UEFA spout financial fair play but their contribution to domestic football in Belarus is to ruin it. The gates at Dnepr Transmash-Mogilev are down four per cent, at Shakhtyor Soligorsk 15 per cent and at Belshina Bobruisk 31 per cent.
Nobody wants to watch a one-horse race, not even fans of the horse it would seem as BATE Borisov are also down, by 0.8 per cent, having fallen 6.4 per cent the previous year, too.
When the FFP rules are fully introduced, BATE Borisov’s hold over the competition will become unbreakable, as the investment needed to match them will no longer be permitted.
This will be repeated throughout the smaller leagues in Europe.
Michel Platini’s big idea is not just wrong, it is destructive. It will kill some of the most open competition in European football and create the opposite of fairness and democracy.
The people of Belarus will have thought they got rid of such a regime in 1991.
Read more: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/article-2044425/Carlos-Tevez-toast-Martin-Samuel.html#ixzz1Zj3EKAPR" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/articl ... z1Zj3EKAPR</a>
Barcelona beat BATE Borisov of Belarus by five goals in Minsk last week. No surprise there. The
European champions have already put that many past Villarreal and Atletico Madrid this season, plus eight past Osasuna.
It is not what Barcelona did to BATE that is important, but what BATE are doing to the rest of Belarus.
Thanks to regular European football, including two appearances in the Champions League group stage in the last four years, the club have become unstoppable in domestic competition. They have won the last five Belarussian titles and went into this weekend 11 points clear.
The money that BATE Borisov receive as Belarus’s only Champions League entrants — and that situation will not improve because they never progress far enough to establish multiple places — is so disproportionately vast that rivals cannot compete.
Domestic football in Belarus is traditionally very open. Between 1995 and 2005, the Vysshaya League was won by eight different teams: Dinamo Minsk, MPKC Mozyr, Dnepr Transmash-Mogilev, BATE Borisov, Slavia Mozyr, Belshina Borbruisk, Gomel and Shakhtyor Soligorsk. Even in the post-war Soviet era, no team retained the title more than once.
Then BATE were re-established and, buoyed by UEFA riches, are turning the season at home into a procession.
To what end? The club do not even play in their City Stadium in Europe — its 5,400 capacity is too small to host the Champions League — and instead decamp to that of their rivals, Dinamo Minsk.
Nor is the gulf with the aristocracy of Europe decreasing through experience. A report of the match with Barcelona had the visitors ‘on course for a victory in which they barely broke sweat’ while ‘almost playing at walking pace’.
Bate ‘lined up with 10 men staying back and former Chelsea striker Mateja Kezman a lone figure as Barça dominated’.
UEFA spout financial fair play but their contribution to domestic football in Belarus is to ruin it. The gates at Dnepr Transmash-Mogilev are down four per cent, at Shakhtyor Soligorsk 15 per cent and at Belshina Bobruisk 31 per cent.
Nobody wants to watch a one-horse race, not even fans of the horse it would seem as BATE Borisov are also down, by 0.8 per cent, having fallen 6.4 per cent the previous year, too.
When the FFP rules are fully introduced, BATE Borisov’s hold over the competition will become unbreakable, as the investment needed to match them will no longer be permitted.
This will be repeated throughout the smaller leagues in Europe.
Michel Platini’s big idea is not just wrong, it is destructive. It will kill some of the most open competition in European football and create the opposite of fairness and democracy.
The people of Belarus will have thought they got rid of such a regime in 1991.
Read more: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/article-2044425/Carlos-Tevez-toast-Martin-Samuel.html#ixzz1Zj3EKAPR" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/articl ... z1Zj3EKAPR</a>