Football association may lose the control over the league

Zdroj: SME

It is the Slovak Football Association (SFA) that manages the highest football league in Slovakia. In some European countries, in which a football sport is better developed, clubs themselves manage the league. Also in the near-by Czech Republic it is done that way.

This kind of association of professional clubs manages the league’s organization, selection of a general advertising partner or a sale of transmission rights.

“I would be very glad if we managed the league in like manner in our country and the SFA was just the association’s partner,” says Dusan Tittel, a general secretary of the SFA. Besides national teams, the SFA would mainly deal with football of amateurs and youths.

In Slovakia, this kind of association was established in June 1999 and since the year of 2000 it has been registered officially. However, according to clubs being asked, it is not active. Till now, nobody to solve the problem has been found, says Jan Kovacik, an owner of the football club Dukla Banska Bystrica. “I would be glad if the situation changed, but I cannot hear anybody asking for the change,” he said.

According to him, 1.7 millions Slovak crowns, which his club will get for the transmission and marketing rights from the Sport Progress organization for one season, is too little.

The Sport Progress organization is contracted by SFA in order to provide for the sale of the transmission and marketing rights for the league. At the same time, the SFA is the owner of the transmission rights. The SFA has a 34% share in the Sport Progress and the rest is owned by the Progress Promotion Bratislava company. The company is represented by Vojtech Miklos. Also a joint stock company MGDS is a partner of the Progress Promotion and Vojtech Miklos is the chairman of the MGDS board of directors. The shares of MGDS are issued in the form of a paper certificate and they are not public.

“I do not see a problem in making all information related to the operating of the association public,” says Tittel. However he refused to make the price that the Sport Progress pays to the SFA annually public. “The money we receive from the company annually is a part of business secrets, but as a one-third co-owner, we get 33 cents out of each crown earned,” informs Tittel.

According to him, the contract with the company is updated each year and the lump-sum “secret” payment, which is paid by the company to the SFA, is each year higher. Tittel says that during his three-years performance in the SFA, “the SFA has not received a better offer for the cooperation from another agency willing to take the whole marketing over”.

The Football Association has never organized a selection process aiming to choose a new marketing partner.

Nevertheless, according to Tittel, it is questionable whether it is better to sell all transmission rights to a company for the fixed price or to operate “as a direct co-owner of the company and to share its profit”.

Concerning this issue, a licensed manager Jozef Tokos, a sports lawyer asks whether it is not better to „announce an international tender for a marketing partner. It is obvious that nobody applies for since there has been no tender announced.“

Concerning the transmission rights for the first league, these have been sold to the STV. The contract is going to expire at the end of the season. The price of the rights is not open to public. However, last year, Miklos said for Pravda daily that during two years and a half, from 50 to 70 millions crowns would be invested into football for the rights.

A reporter of the sports department of the Slovak Television (STV) Stanislav Scepan thinks: „Regarding to the standard of the league, the price paid by the STV is overvalued“.

The money received for the sale of the transmission rights is divided according to the principle of solidarity, equally among all the clubs, according to the principle of success criteria and the rest is divided according to the position in the table, says Tittel.

The Markiza TV used to also broadcast an own football program. But when the Sport Progress stopped the co-financing, the TV finished the project.

Today, on the TV we can see the advertisement promoting the Slovak football stating: „70 % of registered sportsmen in Slovakia are represented by football players”. There are also the SFA’s billboards all over Slovakia stating: „Football is a game for everybody.“