BRUSSELS (Reuters) - AC Milan's Champions League final victory over Liverpool on Wednesday left a bitter-sweet taste among many of European soccer's top officials who believe they should never have been in the competition in the first place.
For Milan's 2-1 win in the Olympic Stadium, brings the spotlight back on to a deeper problem that soccer, and sport in general, is currently having to live with on an almost daily basis: the fear of court action which can erode the power of ruling sporting bodies.
On the pitch, the Italian club won Europe's top prize fair and square and the image of veteran Paolo Maldini being handed the trophy by Michel Platini -- the former Juventus player now officiating at his first Champions League final as UEFA president -- was one to savour.
According to senior officials at European soccer's governing body if Milan's match-fixing indiscretions were fast-forwarded by 12 months, they would not be admitted to the prestigous competition next season.
Milan were deducted points for their involvement in the Italian match-rigging scandal and lost their automatic place for the competition.
But they were handed a slot in the qualifiers by UEFA because UEFA decided they had "insufficient legal basis in the regulations" to deny Milan a place, much as they would clearly have liked to.
Since then the governing body has amended its rules in a bid to allow it to decide who should and who shouldn't be allowed enter its own competitions.
"If these new statutes had been in place, Milan would most likely have been denied entry on sporting grounds," a UEFA official explained at the same time as Milan's happy hordes were heading home to Italy.
Unfortunately at the time, our lawyers told us that we would not win the case, should Milan appeal the decision."
SPORT'S FUTURE
But even though the new UEFA rules are in place, the Swiss-based body still cannot be 100 percent assured of preventing a club entering its competitions, pointing to a question now being asked by UEFA and many other sports officials in general -- who is in charge ?
The Milan case also points to the urgency and importance of next month's European Commission paper on the future of sport, which will propose a strategy for how sport should be run across the European Union.
Last year Milan would have been free to take their chances with an appeal in the civil courts which, if they had won, would have forced UEFA to reverse its decision.
Whether they can do so in the future remains an issue at the moment. If they go to court, UEFA could well follow them in with a counter case.
UEFA does not want to go down that route but knows that if clubs feel they can challenge a ruling they will.
The issue does not just concern Milan. What would have happened if West Ham United, for example, had qualified for Europe through their league position in England after being found guilty of inconsistencies in their handling of the Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano transfers.
"The Premier League found them guilty, but didn't deduct points. However, if we (UEFA) wanted to still stop them entering on sporting grounds, they would most likely go to court and plead a restriction of trade," the official said
"West Ham could base their case on the precedence of the Premier League decision, despite the fact that these are UEFA competitions, run by UEFA and so UEFA should be able to decide who enters."
Sporting bodies, such as UEFA and FIFA, are seeking for a dispensation from regular EU rules, citing sport as a social movement, rather than a business model.
In other words, UEFA and FIFA believe they should be allowed to run soccer as they see fit. It makes sense to them as it does to most fans. They hope Europe's law-makers see it that way too.
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