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Dear Brian;

Dear Friends of Football;

The world is changing and football is

painfully trying to adjust.

Globalization is transforming our game

into a commodity, loyalties into market

shares and tradition into brand.

Supporters are today football’s last

remaining faithful stakeholders.

However, loyalty does not go shopping

for a better deal and therefore

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supporters develop all the entrapments

of a captive audience.

There is nothing positive in being part of

a captive audience…unless one develops

a way to fundamentally, structurally,

influence the programme, and this

Supporters Direct has achieved!

A few years ago, in London, I told you

that originally clubs did not have owners

but members, that the concept

embodied in the club notion implied

collective decision making and active

membership.

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UEFA does recognize reality and above

all the diverse reality that encompasses

our 53 national associations.

In some countries, football clubs have

owners or shareholders; in others they

have members under many different

guises and arrangements. In some

places, clubs are listed on the stock

market, in others they are cooperatives,

in others yet, they are not for profit and

so on and so forth…

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Our President, Michel Platini, likes to

repeat that at a time when the owners,

managers and players, the advertisers

and sponsors are all foreign, the only

element left that is local and loyal are

the fans.

In this country, the professional élite

game is run under the towering principle

of sugar daddying.

We are not talking about free

competition capitalism here; we are

talking about people, often from abroad,

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private or public, known or unknown,

unregulated and sometimes unreliable,

pouring huge amounts of mysterious

money into a sport without expecting

any financial returns or long term

sustainability.

This is what UEFA’s financial fair-play

rules are all about: introducing

transparency, predictability and

sustainability in a financial game that

was not going in that direction.

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Supporters’ trusts have been

tremendously successful in the recent

past at putting back on sustainability’s

track many small and medium football

clubs in this country.

This positive trend may be upsetting

some people, I believe it is a positive

influence on football as a whole.

We at UEFA strongly believe that

Supporters Direct need a strong,

dynamic and strategically-minded

central organisation. Anyone suggesting

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otherwise is just trying on you the age-

old tactics of divide and rule.

Supporters Direct, over the years, have

been a reliable and strategic partner of

UEFA. Together we have pooled the

experience of the different European

supporters movements with a view to

spread good practice and inform

objectively those who aspire to take

their clubs’ destinies into their hands.

Supporters Direct have been

instrumental in setting up with UEFA a

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vibrant Supporters Liaison Officer

network in all the European Clubs under

UEFA license.

Supporters Direct Briefing Papers have

become invaluable documents in

building an operative body of knowledge

that will help shape the football of

tomorrow.

At the European level, Supporters Direct

are well established in Brussels both at

the Commission and with the European

Parliament.

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UEFA is proud of our partnership with

you. It is the keystone of our

relationship with supporters and a great

building block for our club ownership

policy of the future.

We will continue to sustain and fund

Supporters Direct’s endeavours on the

continent and their efforts at introducing

both participation and rationality in what

will be our children’s football.

Before ending this short presentation I

would like to pay a heartfelt homage to

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a friend of mine who is also a former

Chief Executive of Supporters Direct and

without whom, this great movement

wouldn’t probably exist today, thank you

Dave Boyle!

And thank you all!