By David Gold
October 28 – Barcelona President Sandro Rosell will be one of the star attractions at the International Football Arena’s (IFA) thirteenth conference next month in Zurich, where he will be discussing European football as part of a distinguished panel.
Rosell will appear with AC Milan director Umberto Gandini, Premier League general secretary Nic Coward, Lorient President Loïc Fery, Sportfive director Philipp Hasenbein and IE Business School professor Paris de l’Etraz.
The Barcelona supremo was elected as President of the European champions in 2010, and oversaw the club’s fourth European Champions League title success last season, as well as their third successive La Liga title.
Rosell was the running mate for former Barcelona President Joan Laporta in 2003, and the former Nike executive was largely credited with bringing the Brazilian superstar and former World Player of the Year Ronaldinho to the club.
In his time at Nike, he helped seal a deal between the company and the Brazilian Football Federation, and Rosell has also previously worked with the marketing wing of the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games Organising Committee, as well as serving as the director of Swiss company ISL, the former marketing partner of FIFA.
Since his election in 2010, Rosell has been responsible for Barcelona’s move towards balancing their books, citing a large wage bill as a concern last summer.
Money will likely be high on the agenda at the IFA conference, with debt in La Liga soaring ever higher in recent years, and is now estimated at €3.5 billion (£3.1 billion/$5.1 billion).
The financial problems in the Spanish game have led to unrest among players, many of whom have gone unpaid when their clubs have gone into administration.
The start of this season was delayed by a player’s strike over the issue, but the league has also been plagued by increasing tensions over the individual TV rights deals each team is free to negotiate.
The system means that Real Madrid and Barcelona take far more money than any of their rivals, and has led to some, in particular Villarreal and Sevilla, lambasting the quality of the league and calling for a collective deal.
Italy, France, England and Germany all have collective TV deals, and this is sure to be a hot topic for discussion, particularly after Liverpool chief executive Ian Ayre recently called for the Premier League to move towards an individual TV rights model.
Other issues likely to come under scrutiny on the panel include UEFA’s Financial Fair Play initiative, which requires clubs to balance their budgets over rolling three-year periods.
This is the first season club accounts will be analysed, with teams allowed to make losses of £40 million ($65 million/€46 million) in the first three seasons UEFA look at.
Though Barcelona are unlikely to fall foul of such rules, a number of other teams, in particular those run by foreign owners such as Chelsea, Malaga or Manchester City, whose ability to balance their books will be under increased scrutiny in the coming years.
IFA Zurich 2011 takes place on November 7th and 8th at the Dolder Grand Hotel, Zurich.
To find out how to attend please click here.
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