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The European Champions’ Cup continues to struggle to find an identity. Originally conceived as the successor to the Phillip Morris-sponsored Europa Cup and the bridge equivalent to UEFA’s Champions League, with elite clubs from all over Europe competing, it has regressed into a holiday weekend for the teams involved. Qualification for the Champions’ Cup is by nation, the top finishers in the previous European Team Championships being invited to send their NBO’s club champions.
All very fine in theory but for the fact that many nations simply do not have a club championship – other forms of competition prevail, such as a Premier League, a national knockout competition, international team trials, and so on. In those (and other) cases, the NBO nominates the team. Since the third edition, the top ten finishers (it was previously eight) in the most-recent European Championship, as well as the defending champions and the host country, have been invited.
Thus we had 12 teams competing in Eilat, Israel this fall for the 11th edition of the event. These were the top ten finishers, in order, in Dublin in the European Championship: Monaco, The Netherlands, Italy, England, Poland, Germany, Israel, Sweden, Bulgaria, and Russia. Italy had a second team as defenders and Israel a second team as hosts. Italian ‘clubs’ have won nine (Angelini/TC Parioli, six, and Lavazza/GS Allegra, three) of the 11 events held to date. Since they are both usually represented by national team members, the only chance of another team’s winning is to send its national team as well, as happened when Germany won in 2006 and The Netherlands in 2010.
This year, we had a new trend established – a sponsor buying the national team of a country other than his own! Let’s take a look at the clubs that competed, the countries they represented and the nationalities of their players (the full breakdown by nationality is on page 19). Sixty-four players competed on the 12 teams; of these, 15 were ‘imports’. Admittedly, Madala (ARG/ITA), Sandqvist (SWE/ENG), Elinescu (ROM/GER) and Wladow(POL/GER) are legitimate residents and/or citizens of their adopted nations and have represented them in World Championships.
But doesn’t it feel wrong to have two 2011 Dutch World Champions in the Russian side, a 2012 Hungarian World Champion playing for Germany and a Spanish sponsor/player buying the entire Swedish team? And Helness/Helgemo representing their third country (Monaco, after Norway and Italy) in this event? How about Meckwell playing for Ireland or Zia-Martel for France? Do I hear a bid? We have no problem with the players accepting Euro to play for whoever they like or the sponsors distributing those Euro to acquire the players – it’s the EBL which needs to reassess the goals of this competition and either tighten the participation rules or make it a national, not a club, competition.
Otherwise, the event is in danger of becoming meaningless, a minor invitational tournament. A simple solution would be to invite the top 12 national teams from the previous European Championship (no host, no defending champion). Hold the event every other year, in the years with no European Championship, and make the Champions’ Cup the EBL qualifier for the Bermuda Bowl, continuing the qualification process begun at the European Championship. That would be meaningful.
John Carruthers
IBPA Bulletin No. 575 December 10, 2012
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December 12, 2012
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