Hill's homegrown mission

By Pete Sanderson

Improve relations
Since the headquarters were opened in November 2003, Jonathan Hill has been the man responsible for steering UEFA's ship through the increasingly political and occasionally volatile waters of the European Union. Hill's long term strategy as head of UEFA's Brussels office is for European football's governing body to develop better relations with the EU - a job which has become more significant in recent years.

UEFA's role
"Over the last ten or 15 years the relationship between sport - particularly professional sport - and the EU has become more and more important," Hill told uefa.com. "It is crucial that they understand who UEFA are, what we do and what we are trying to achieve. But at the same time we must listen to them and understand how they see sport and understand what their objectives are and how they could have an impact on our game."

Football family
One of the areas on top of Hill's agenda is ensuring UEFA's proposed new rules encouraging clubs to use locally trained players will be accepted by the EU. The rules state that the list which teams submit for UEFA club competitions will, from season 2006/07, include at least two players trained by the club's own football academy and a further two places for players trained by other clubs from within the same association of the said club.

New proposal
Hill said: "Our biggest challenge at the moment in Brussels and with national capitals of the 25 member states is trying to get political support for UEFA's new proposals on homegrown players. We need to explain to the politicians why we are introducing these new proposals and what we are trying to achieve while staying within the bounds of European law.

Greater good
"We also need to find proposals which will not be legally challenged. It is crucial we try to get political support for the proposals on the local training of players because it is for the greater good of the game."

'Special characteristics'
One of UEFA's long-term challenges, which will encourage the EU to pass motions such as that concerning locally trained players, is to convince the European Commission that sport needs to be treated differently to other businesses. "They must understand that sport is not like a regular business," Hill said. "It has certain special characteristics which make it different from other areas of activity. In the past it led to tension between UEFA and the political authorities but I feel we are winning our battle."

New treaty
Hill won an almighty battle in June 2004 when sport was, for the first time in history, included in an EU treaty. "The 25 member states of the EU signed a new treaty which regulates every aspect of the EU's activities last June," said Hill. "It was great to see that there is an article which deals with sport. UEFA had been campaigning vigorously on the precise wording of that text - we wanted a form of words which reflected the specific nature of sport. It seems we have been successful with that because the final form of the treaty talks about the specific nature of sport."

Sport policy
Hill added: "I am hoping the knock-on effect of the treaty article will be successful in that in the next ten years - if the EU implement a sports policy - it will have to take into account sports specificity."