Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the 31st ECA General Assembly – the biggest-ever meeting in ECA’s history, we should be so proud. Thank you to Mr. Ioannis Vroutsis, the Alternative Minister for Sports of Greece for hosting us, and for your kind words of introduction.
It is a pleasure to welcome the President of UEFA, Aleksander Čeferin, a great friend of ECA, together with UEFA colleagues who work hand-in-hand with ECA for the good of European club football. We also welcome the President of Confédération Africaine de Football Patrice Motsepe; the Secretary General of FIFA Mattias Grafström; the President of European Leagues Pedro Proença; together with representatives from the European Commission, domestic leagues, FIFPRO, fan groups, football players and legends, and many more special guests – we are so pleased you are here with us.
I would like to thank the Greek Football Federation and our 18 ECA member-clubs in Greece for welcoming us. Greece has such incredible history and culture, and the football fans are so passionate – they love their football. I will never forget when Greece won EURO 2004, I was in the stadium and the fans were unbelievable. And also last year, when Olympiacos won the UEFA Conference League, the city went crazy. It is such a privilege for us to be standing here in Athens on the site of the very first Olympic Games almost 3000 years ago, where the values of fair play and sporting honour were first created.
A final welcome, and the reason we are here:- our ECA Members – all of you, our proud family. And I would like to give the biggest warm welcome to our hundreds of new members with us for the first time. You are all so very welcome, this is your association, we are here to help you.
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It is amazing how quickly a year goes, and how much can be achieved in that time. This time last year, in Berlin, we put in place the foundations for an ambitious new cycle for ECA. Most importantly, we changed our statutes to open-up our organisation like never before.
People did not realise at the time, but these changes were so much more than changes to our statutes – they were changes to our philosophy and our DNA. We have made our organisation more inclusive, more representative, more impactful than ever. And we should never forget who started this journey at the beginning, the first ECA Chairman and now our Honorary Chairman, Karl- Heinz Rummenigge, who we honoured with an award in his name yesterday.
Today, as the sole representative body of clubs in Europe recognised by FIFA and UEFA, ECA represents 717 women’s and men’s clubs across 55 countries. This is an incredible expansion from 247 members when we started the new era of ECA in April 2021, and I am pleased to welcome Juventus back to our family. Now, all top division clubs in over 20 countries are ECA members. We have a 37-member Board, guided by a new Executive Committee; and nearly 300 clubs take part in our network of Working Groups, committees and panels.
Sometimes we are so busy working that we forget what we achieved in this short time – it is amazing. Today, all clubs shape the policies and decisions of our organisation every week. The strength of ECA comes from our base – small clubs, medium clubs, big clubs. We care about every one of our 717 members and this is a new philosophy and fact at ECA that I am most proud of.
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However, while ECA has undergone a great recent transformation, it is not just about numbers of members. Instead, our success is defined by what we actually do for our members.
First, together with UEFA, we give the maximum number of clubs the dream of playing on the greatest stage – European club competition football. Thanks to the new Champions League, Europa League and Conference League formats, today 108 clubs and their fans have the opportunity to experience the magic of European competitions – every player wants to be part of them, to walk out to the anthems. We have also worked with UEFA to introduce a new Women’s Champions League format with more teams, and a second women’s European competition, from 2025.
Second, with our partners we deliver financial growth for all our members. Thanks to our joint venture with UEFA, revenues for European competitions have increased by over 25% to €4.4 billion. Our Club Benefits programme with UEFA also secures major funding to clubs for releasing players for national competitions – including €240 million for clubs for EURO 2024 this summer. Equally, thanks to our MOU with FIFA, a total of $355 million is guaranteed for clubs – both inside and outside Europe – for releasing players at the FIFA World Cup 2026 and 2030. And the new FIFA Club World Cup will drive significant revenues into both the women’s and men’s club game.
Third, we give our members representation at the top table – we listen, and we give you a voice. We help clubs on big topics like the international match calendar and competition formats; but also on smaller details like injury insurance for your players, distribution of money by FAs, and even your travel costs where we doubled the funding. Whatever your challenges or issues, we represent your views with UEFA, FIFA, the Leagues and all stakeholders – but stakeholders must respect ECA in return, and not recognise the interminable array of protest groups or play politics. We don’t need more fractures in football; we need to do what is best for the game – built on communication, transparency and trust – including in relation to the transfer system, which is so important for medium and small clubs in particular.
The best example of this is ECA’s relationship with UEFA. We don’t always agree on everything – in fact, it is through disagreement and challenge that better outcomes are achieved. And I am very pleased to announce today that we have extended our MOU with UEFA to 2033, extending ECA’s trusted partnership with our most important stakeholder. This gives us stability and allows us to have long-term strategy.
Fourth, we support the whole pyramid of football, which makes our own membership even stronger. We have moved away from a world of “haves” and “have nots”, to a more virtuous system based on the collective. Solidarity is a core part of ECA’s mission, ensuring non-participating clubs also benefit from the success of participating clubs. Today, for example, €308 million euros per year of solidarity now goes to clubs who don’t play in any European competitions; and €132 million euros a year goes to clubs who don’t progress beyond the qualifying rounds – 75% more than last cycle. At our recent Board meeting in Dublin I met with top division Irish clubs – they told me that their biggest revenue wasn’t their domestic league income, sponsorship or marketing, but solidarity thanks to the joint venture between UEFA and ECA. Following the agreement announced at the UEFA ExCo in Prague last month, UEFA and ECA now distribute the most significant and comprehensive solidarity system in world football.
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We should be very proud of what we have built together these recent years. We have completely reformed our institution; and we have set the highest standards along the way. But what I want to say today is that we cannot just rely on our successes of the past. We need to push to do better and better all the time.
What does that mean?
First of all, we will put “football first” at ECA. We are all here today for one simple reason – we love football. And as clubs, we employ and develop the players, coaches, sports directors, training centres, stadiums – we support all the infrastructure of the game. ECA clubs have nearly 3 billion fans on social media. No-one is closer connected to the heartbeat of football than us. We should do everything we can to harness that connection – and put our knowledge, ideas and passion back into the game.
We must also continue to improve our internal governance. We should always look in the mirror to make sure we are moving with the times. That is why we decided to remove our Network membership tier so that all new members are Associated Members. Not only is this a powerful symbol of greater equality at ECA – where everyone is in the family – but it also means that all clubs are represented on the Board.
In addition, our external brand should match the new ambitions and reach of our internal membership. For this reason we have commissioned a major Rebrand project to fully raise the understanding – and the standing – of ECA, both internally and externally. We also need to build our global partnerships, and I look forward to our new relationships with Harvard Business School and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. I would like to thank our Vice Chairs, our Executive Committee, our Board, our Management and Administration who drive all these projects and much more – it is hard to fully appreciate just how much effort goes into making things seem effortless.
Finally, we must do everything to uphold our strongest values…values that are very important to me personally, and which have driven ECA forward over recent times – the values of unity and respect. This means finding consensus through compromise between our members – even if we do not always agree. It means extending our hand to stakeholders and partners to find common ground – to complement each other, not to compete or gain power. It means marshalling our ideas for good to bring our local communities together, to support those most in need, and to promote peace – especially today. To that end, I am pleased the ECA Foundation has made major commitments of support following recent flooding across Central Europe and the wildfires here in Greece. Sport has a greater purpose, and I want the ECA Foundation to be a major focus for everyone.
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With all this in mind, it is so exciting to know there is still so much more to come. We may not always have every answer, but I promise you that ECA we will always do the maximum for our members to help you achieve your goals.
In that spirit, two days ago, I asked one of my close friends – a former player – what does football give you? He said, “it’s impossible to describe it…football is everything”. And he is right. Football gives us all the emotions – when we lose, we feel much more than just sad, we feel terrible. And when we win, we feel such happiness, joy – creating history for our clubs and our fans. Nothing can give you this, except football.
And if we continue to build bridges at ECA with an open mind – where every member has a voice, no matter the language, origin, opinion or ranking – and where decisions are always made by the majority not the individual, I have no doubt we can achieve anything together at ECA for all our clubs – where football is everything.
This has been the foundation of our recent past; and will be a hallmark of the next chapter of our great future together.
Thank you.
