Asian football is entering a new phase with next year’s revamped AFC Champions League (ACL). The new format of the annual club competition features some notable changes from previous tournaments and shows that the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is determined to further develop the quality of the game in the region.
Clubs from Japan, Korea Repu¬blic, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait and India will all feature in the reformed ACL from next March. Asia’s biggest club competition will be expanded from 28 teams to 32, including two teams from the qualifying play-offs. The group stage, which will run from 11 March to 20 May, will be played on a regional basis, with the teams being separated into East and West. The round of 16 will be held on a similar split basis on 27 May and 14 June before the tournament merges geographically for the quarter-finals, scheduled for 23-24 and 30 September. The semi-finals will be on 21 and 28 October with the one-off final scheduled for 6 or 7 November at a neutral venue (the hosts will be announced on November 26). This new format of the annual club competition was approved by the AFC Executive Committee at a meeting on 29 July.
All of this may seem quite familiar to those who know the UEFA Champions League, apart from the fact that the first two rounds will be divided along regional lines in order to ease the logistical burdens. However, the reformed ACL includes one significant change: for the first time, all of the participating clubs will be professional and they will have won their spots in the competition after tough qualifying races.
HIGH HURDLES
The restructuring of the ACL has been the major project for the Asian governing body since early 2006. AFC President Mohamed bin Hammam decided to revamp the competition in order to set a new standard for Asian football, not only on the pitch, but more significantly off it as well.
Asian football has developed consider¬ably in the last few years as various countries have developed and become more competitive at international level. Korea Republic reached the semi-finals of the 2002 FIFA World Cup”1, while co-hosts Japan made it to the round of 16. But while more and more Asian players are playing in the world’s top leagues – for example, in England, Germany, France and Italy – something needed to be done to further raise the level of the game in Asia and sustain this development.
Bin Hammam came up with the idea of reforming the AFC Champions League and making it a competition for professional clubs only. The aim of this was to encourage member associations to improve the organisation and manage¬ment of their leagues and clubs, thus ensuring a solid foundation for the competition. He placed former japan Football Association President and J. League Chairman Saburo Kawabuchi in charge of the AFC Pro League Ad Hoc Committee tasked with carrying out this major project. Kawabuchi was the man who spearheaded Japan’s first professional league.
Clubs wishing to take part in the ACL must meet certain criteria in areas such as the size of their business, attendance, marketing, governance, match operation, stadia and technical standards. They should also be established as legally authorised commercial entities and be professional organisations. “By keeping the criteria hurdles high, we wanted to show our member associations how serious we arc with this project,” explained Tokuaki Suzuki, Deputy Chairman of the AFC Pro League Ad Hoc Committee. “We also believe that the strict criteria will clarify the requirements for the participants.”
SOME CONCERNS
After on-site inspections and a survey, the committee checks the applicants’ ability to meet the criteria and they are then rated from A to D. “A” means they already meet all the criteria, “B” that they will meet the criteria by 1 October, “C” suggests that they are not guaranteed of meeting the criteria by 1 October and “D” means they do not meet the criteria.
The competing teams are allocated according to their grade and the number of clubs in their national league. In the East group stage, Japan (A), Korea Republic (B) and China (B) will have four clubs; Australia (B) will have two; and Indonesia (B) one. In the West group stage, Saudi Arabia, Iran and UAE (all B) will be represented by four clubs each, while Kuwait, Jordan and India (all B) will each have one.
Nevertheless, some people are con¬cerned that the allocations do not always match the country’s standards. Syria and Uzbekistan, for example, are known for their qualify on the pitch. Syria’s Al Karama were runners-up in the 2006 tournament, while Uzbekistan’s Kuruvchi reached this year’s ACL quarter-finals. Suzuki explains: “We are hoping that all participating teams will secure their slot
through their performances in the future. But right now, Asia is still in the process of developing, and we have to create our foundation first, otherwise we cannot continue with the tournament. That is why we have to consider the maturity of our professional leagues first when allocating slots to the associations.”
A LINK TO THE WORLD
The teams in the group stage will be joined by the qualifiers from the play-offs, which will be contested by the AFC Cup finalists, along with teams from Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam in the East, and Syria, Uzbekistan and Qatar in the West. This system is also new to the ACL. “We think it is important to have the qualifying play-offs,” says Suzuki. “It means that we can provide clubs who meet the criteria, but whose league still has some problems to sort out, with an opportunity to take part, fhe ACL is a link to the world – thanks to the FIFA Club World Cup – and it is always nice to leave the door open for our clubs to have a dream and encourage them to challenge for something.”
Although the format has been announced, some amendments to team allocations may be made depending on the preparation level of the associations with B grades. The committee will visit those associations by early November and check to see if they have met the conditions.
If any of the B-grade applicants fail to meet the requirements by the deadline, they will be disqualified. A C-grade association may then be promoted if it meets the criteria by the due date. Syria and Qatar, initially rated as C, have recently started professional leagues to satisfy one part of the criteria. If necessary, the committee will make last-ditch amendments for final approval at the Executive Committee meeting on 26 November.
A GOOD DEAL
Another major change concerns prize money and expenses. All of the participating clubs will be guaranteed certain travel expenses and prize money. Previously, the winning club would pocket the prize of USD 600,000 and there were no travel expenses. The AFC has secured a total purse of USD 20 million per year for the revamped tournament thanks to a contract with the World Sport Group. Under these new terms, the champions will earn USD 1.5 million and the runners-up USD 750,000, and teams have the opportunity to win prize money at each stage. The budget has been guaranteed until 2012. Future amounts will depend on the outcome of the next two tournaments.
“The first two years will be crucial in enabling us to strike a good deal for the following years. It’s vital that we show the value of our Champions League,” stressed Suzuki.
The reformed competition is now at the starting gate. It will be interesting to see how the ACL and Asian football develops.
Football seems to compress time. In the modern game a boy can become a man, be hailed as the “next big thing”, be confirmed as a superstar and then find himself labelled a player in crisis in the space of just nine months. This is what has happened to the 19-year-old Brazilian striker Alexandre Pato.
Alexandre Pato was spotted as a teenager playing with dazzling skill at breathtaking speed for the
Brazilian club Internacional. He was signed in 2007 by European champions AC Milan, scored on his debut against Napoli and then scored on his debut for Brazil. With his boyish good looks and romantic goal celebration he instantly became a darling of the media. But a brief spell of poor form at the start of the 2008-2009 season, after a disappointing showing for Brazil at the Olympic Games in Beijing, generated headlines about the apparent waning of his star.
Alexandre Rodrigues da Silva was born on 2 September 1989 in the town of Pato Branco, in the southern state of Parana. The name of the town, which
means “white duck” in English, was to provide the player with his nickname. Pato Branco is not a hotbed of football like Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo but it did not take long for Pato to get noticed. In 2001, aged 11, he moved to Porto Alegre to join Sport Club Internacional, a club which has produced players like Gerson, Falcao, Branco and the current national team coach, Carlos Dunga.
In what was to become something of a habit, Pato made an incredible first-team debut aged 17 in November 2006, scoring with his first touch and setting up three goals in a 4-1 victory over Palmeiras. That season he helped drive Internacional to victory in the FIFA Club World Cup, scoring a goal in the semi-final against Al Ahly. It was not just Pato’s goals that
caught the attention but his irrepressible style of football – all tricks, feints and dribbles at high speed. With comparisons being made between Pato and two other Brazilians, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, it was nor surprising that clubs like Real Madrid, Benfica, Arsenal, Chelsea, Juventus and Inter Milan were lining up to sign him.
BRILLIANT ON THE BALL
Milan beat them all to the player’s signature, paying EUR 22 million for him in August 2007. “I discussed it with my father and with those closest to me but I never had doubts,” Pato said about the choice. “Milan is a great team, a serious club, and there are already lots of Brazilian players here. Milan is like a home to me,
like a family where there are lots of people who help me find serenity.”
Italian restrictions on non-EU minors kept Pato out of the Rossoneri’s first team until January 2008, so the Italian public did not know what to expect. But those at Milan who were watching the player every day in training were certain that the club which had brought Kaka to Europe in 2003 had unearthed another gem. Club captain Paolo Maldini said Pato was “brilliant on the ball, he can get himself Into a shooting position very quickly.” Team coach, Carlo Ancelotti, said that Pato’s speed and ball control brought to mind the 1980s Brazil and Napoli striker Careca.
The stage was set for something special and when Pato duly stepped onto it in January he did not disappoint. In the 75th minute of his debut, in a 5-2 thrashing of Napoli, he plucked a long ball down with perfect technique, skipped past a defender and clipped the ball into the net. He had been ice cool in the execution of the goal but now the emotion surfaced and, surrounded by celebrating team mates, he shed tears of joy.
Despite the promising start, Pato was discovering that time in SerieA is a luxury. “In Brazil you can keep the ball with your head up for 20 seconds, deciding what to do. Here, after three seconds someone tackles you. I like playing this way, it helps you grow. I try to be calm on the pitch and off it and to do the right thing for the team. I still have a lot to learn and I am working hard every day to do so.”
“THE SAVIOUR”
Pato’s assessment was more balanced than that of many observers. When he added a brace of goals two weeks later against Genoa, some newspapers ran headlines such as “Destiny’s Child,” “the Saviour” and “the Messiah.” Others raved about the potential of the all-Brazilian strike force of Kaka, Pato and Ronaldo, dubbed “Ka-Pa-Ro”, in tribute to the 1950s Milan trio of Swedes tagged “Gre-No-Li” after Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordahl and Nils Liedholm.
Pato’s unusual goal celebration -making the shape of a heart with his thumbs and forefingers for his girlfriend, actress Sthefany Brito – installed him as
the housewives’ favourite and the feeling that everything was going perfectly was confirmed when he scored a stunning goal for Brazil on his debut in a friendly against Sweden in March, earning him :he most flattering comparison of all, with Brazil legend Pele. “I’m delighted to have got on the pitch wearing the national team shirt for the first time,” he said. “I’m happy I scored and for the comparisons with Pele. For me he is a hero, a phenomenon.”
A STUNNING GOAL
Pato went on to make 18 league appearances for Milan last season, scoring nine goals, but he could nor prevent the club slipping our of the places for the 2008-2009 UEFA Champions League and crashing out of the 2007-2008 Champions League against Arsenal in the first knockout round. As Milan stumbled towards the championship finish line -where they were beaten to fourth place by Fiorcntina – Pato was not exempt from the general criticism of the team.
Milan opened the 2008-2009 season with a defeat in the San Siro to newly-promoted Bologna and a defeat away to Genoa. The same observers who had been quick to elevate Pato to the pantheon
of football gods now seemed ready to bury him. “The most worrying thing for Milan is Pato. He’s inert, never incisive,”the Gazzetta della Sport intoned. “What has happened to ‘the little duck’ that charmed us all?”
Perhaps too much had been expected of the player. He had, after all, made only ten first-team appearances in the league for Internacional before being signed by Milan. His natural ability is not in doubt but his experience of playing at the top level is very limited. Fellow Brazilian, Milan team-mate Emerson, provided some much-needed perspective. “Pato is a young kid. We have to be very patient wich him. He came to Italy by himself and he needs people who are close to him. He needs time.”
A stunning goal from a 25-yard free kick in Milan’s 3-1 win over FC Zurich in the UEFA Cup in September suggested that the crisis – if there had ever been such a thing – was over. “I’m happy because I’ve always given the maximum in training and in matches,” Pato said after the match. “Ancelotti has been close to me and now I hope to play like this in the next league game too. My only thought is to do well for Milan and Brazil.”
Norway’s original program to fight racism, homophobia and violence through football has, in recent years, been expanded to benefit players with disabilities and special needs – an impressive and successful project.
A small triumph is being celebrated in Oslo. In a big indoor football stadium belonging to top Norwegian club side Lillestrom, a seven-a-side football team is exchanging slaps and jokes after slotting home another goal. The referee whistles for the restart. But the celebration here
has little to do with goals, cups, or league tables: it is a victory over learning disabilities and mental problems. Because virtually all of the players on both sides have some form of learning or behavioural difficulties: the striker is autistic, the winger has attention deficit disorder, many are epileptic or dyslexic, and so forth. The coordinator for the Norwegian
football association (NFF) is 51-year-old Anders Krystad. With his row of gold earrings, he looks more like an ageing biker than a facilitator of footballers with disabilities. But that is his role, and it is one he relishes. “I used to work full time with the NFF and have also worked for a professional club, Valerenga. But in the end I got bored with spoilt 18-year-olds demanding millions. I wanted to work with the grassroots. Now I deal exclusively with excluded and disabled people, and people of different ethnicity.”
Krystad’s most important project is Colourful Football. The campaign was started by Oslo club Valerenga in the mid-1990s. The original plan was to fight racism, homophobia and violence, and find ways to include and integrate people from minority cultural or ethnic backgrounds; in recent years it has expanded to benefit players with disabilities and special needs. “Since 1996,” says Anders, “we’ve held Colourful Football tournaments every year, for boys and girls aged between 12 and 14. The games are seven-a-side, with at least four girls in each squad. But we deal with all ages, not just youngsters.”
NOTHING MATTERS
Krystad mentions, in particular, a team of drug addicts in Tromso. “Drug addicts are very difficult to deal with because they never turn up for stuff. They will miss their doctors’ appointments, they miss mealtimes, they miss meetings, they even skip Christmas day with their families. Nothing matters. Yet you know what? They will turn up for a football match. Our team of drug addicts gets a 95% turn out every time.”
Today, it is the players with disabilities who are Krystad’s concern. He helps to run a nationwide league in which 75 teams of players with intellectual disabilities participate. Krystad watches as one player fouls another, quite spectacularly. He explains that, though the games might not be the most skilful in Europe, they are always competitive. “Everyone likes to win, no matter what their talent level. Sometimes we have a real problem with cheats – teams who include too many non-disabled players! The referees are specially trained to watch for that. It all takes a lot of investment, in time and money, but the professional clubs are happy to help.”
The therapeutic value of football for people with disabilities is undisputed. It socialises the players, bringing out people who might otherwise be isolated, or even stuck in residential homes. It gives them exercise, which is important as people with intellectual disabilities are prone to over-eating. “Though,” Krvstad chuckles, “the fattest guv out
there today is probably the coach, and he’s not disabled at all, apart from his addiction to burgers.”
LONELY AND JOBLESS
The kickabouts also boost endorphin levels, which help counter depression and autistic introversion. Still another benefit is the way the players learn self-respect, after a lifetime of being regarded as “freaks” or “losers”. “A lot of these players,” says Krystad, “have very severe disabilities – we’ve got guys out there now who don’t know their own name, who can’t tie their own laces. The striker, for instance, has never learned to kick the ball with the inside of his foot – in 15 years of playing.”
Krystad applauds a decent header, then returns to his theme: “You might find that kind of disability comical or absurd, a lot of people do – they laugh at the mentally disabled. Yet when the players come out here they feel part of a team, they feel better about themselves, they don’t feel like losers. A great example of this is the blond guy over there; let me call him over.”
The “blond guy” is 29-year-old Martin Samdvik. He has unspecified learning disabilities and, like many players in these teams, he is averse to discussing himself in terms of diagnoses or conditions. He would far rather talk about what he can do rather than what he cannot. And Samdvik has done quite a lot for himself. Krystad has given him a chance and trusted him
and so he has overcome severe difficulties in his life. After a period when he was totally isolated, lonely, jobless and almost hospitalised, he has now got a girlfriend, a flat, a purpose … He has also become something of a talisman for the rest of the disability football movement in Norway, not least because he started his own team. He was a Norwegian representative at the Special Olympics. He even got to meet George W Bush in the Oval Office. You can see why the other players in the team look to Samdvik for guidance: he talks about his life with a definite courage, almost an insouciance, despite his sometimes faltering speech.
LOW SELF-ESTEEM
“1 started playing when I was eight. Then, when I was 16, I had to go to a special school. I felt pretty bad then. My self-esteem was very low. I hated being called a spastic. I suffered a lot of abuse. But after a few years I decided to do something about it: I wrote to the authorities and asked them if I could start my own team. They said ‘yes’ – so I did. 1 got a lot of friends from my special school
to join me. Then we got press and TV coverage. It was very encouraging.”
Samdvik shouts across the pitch. His team are being beaten by their closest rivals. “What is so good,” he says, “is that the team becomes like a family. I remember one game we played there was this girl on the side: she was sitting at the edge of the pitch, and she was crying. But we waited for her, then she felt better, and we carried on – as a team. Maybe in other teams she would have been laughed at – but we understood what she was going through. That is why the team is so important. We all help each other.”
As if to prove Samdvik’s point, at that moment a player runs off the pitch. He falls to the floor and starts bucking and writhing. He is having an epileptic fit; a doctor jogs over and tends to him. The players gather round — concerned, but not interfering. This is just another part of disability football; seizures are not uncommon.
Ten minutes later, the player is sitting up, and sucking on a water bottle. The rest of the team are getting on with the game. And getting on with life.
