"The incommensurate development of the economic dimension of some professional sports, especially in terms of TV rights, undermines the European sports model": this denunciation comes from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), gathered in its plenary session until this afternoon. Strasbourg Parliament first listened to the rapporteur, the Portuguese MEP José Luís Arnaut; then yesterday it received Michel Platini, president of UEFA. Parliament reviewed a text, which exhorts the governments "to support a sports model based on the principles of financial solidarity and openness to competition". The focus was mostly on football. "More cooperation is needed between the sports authorities and the public powers to fight corruption, the trade of young athletes, illegal betting". Platini denounced "the misleading influence of money" on sports, which "turns a discipline into a mere show". The speaker explained that, "unlike what one would think, European sport is almost exclusively based on volunteering. It is precisely such volunteers" and the amateur clubs "that preserve and hand down the values associated with sport".
