Today Sepp Blatter (left) reinforced a ruling FIFA made on July 10th: Clubs are obligated to release U23-eligible players for next month’s Olympic Games in Beijing.

Blatter distributed a letter to this effect to all member clubs, publishing excerpts from that communicae on the FIFA’s web site. While the declaration seems a redundancy - a president repeating what his organization had already ruled - Blatter’s statement was necessary after series of clubs have to withheld releasing their age-eligible players. Lionel Messi remains with Barcelona, the club trying to keep him from Beijing despite his being named to the Argentina Olympic team. Brazilians Diego and Rafinha have defied their Bundesliga clubs, Werder Bremen and Schalke, and joined their Olympic teams. This has led their club to declare them in breach of contract and appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The controversy between club and governing body centers on the International Match Calendar - a schedule produced by FIFA that divides the calendar year between club and country. In those windows defined as country - called release periods - clubs are obligated to release players for national team duty. Despite being sanctioned by FIFA, the Olympics fall outside of a release period. The 2008 match calendar allows for a window around August 20. The Olympic tournament starts on August 7th, with the gold medal match scheduled for the 23rd.

The view of the clubs holds that, because the tournament does not fall within a release period on the match calendar, clubs are not obligated to release players. While most players have still been allowed by their clubs to participate in the games, some players deemed by their teams to be particularly important to their club have had their Olympic release withheld. Barcelona faces third round Champions League qualifying during the Olympic tournament, thus their desire to keep Messi (left, for Argentina). For the same reason, Schalke wishes to keep Rafinha. Werder Bremen automatically qualified for the Champions League group stage by virtue of their second place finish in last season’s Bundesliga, yet they view playmaker Diego too important to their preseason preparations to justify a release.

FIFA disagrees with this view. When news out of Germany started reporting Bremen and Schalke planning to hold back players, FIFA was asked to clairfy: were clubs required to release of age players? FIFA released the July 10 statement:

“In view of the importance of the Olympic Tournament for the entire sporting movement in general and football in particular, as well as on the basis of customary law, the release of players younger than 23 has always been mandatory for all clubs. For Beijing 2008 the same principle shall apply.

“This is not a new position and the regulations have not changed.”

While it is not a new position, it is a position that is based on convention. The International Match Calendar, on the other hand, is a firm regulation. At least, that was the club’s view. When the time came for players to leave their club training and join their Olympic teams, some clubs held firm to this interpretation. While players like Messi have respected the club’s interpretation of their contractual obligations, players like Diego and Rafinha have left their club. Rafinha had made it clear earlier this month that he had no intention of complying with Schalke’s request to report. Diego, on the other hand, initially indicated deference to Werder Bremen’s wishes only to change his mind this week and join Brazil’s Olympic team.

Shortly after Blatter’s affirmation of FIFA’s stance, the European Club Association has took up the Olympic fight.

The ECA is the successor to the G-14 - the group of super clubs, disbanded earlier this year, formed to represent the clubs’ interest. Whereas the G-14 represented 18 clubs when it expired, the ECA represents 103 clubs across all 53 national associations in Europe. Formed for the sole purpose of protecting its members interests, it club unionization.

The ECA’s president, Bayern Munich chief Karl-Heinze Rummenigge (left), issued a statement saying, “[the ECA supports] all clubs that currently face losing important players.

“The ECA suggests that FIFA president Sepp Blatter should define clear guidelines and regulations in consultation with the IOC regarding subsequent Olympic Games, once the current framework for the Olympic football tournament expires.”

It was not just a statement clarifying the ECA’s view. Within Rumminegge’s language, the true nature of the Olympic conflict took shape - a nature that goes beyond the Olympic soccer tournament.

In the soccer world, the Olympics are a minor tournament; a tournament that, since the advent of the World Cup, has lacked identity. The sport was originally dropped from the Olympics in 1932 when FIFA created the World Cup. With in Berlin in 1936, the sport returned and defined itself as the world’s premier amateur competition. But as the Olympics have assimilated professionalism over the last two-plus decades (soccer allowed professionals in the Olympics starting in 1984), the Olympic tournament lost its purpose. In 1992, the tournament rebranded itself, putting an age limit on the event, making it the premier U23 prize in world soccer.

This transition from amateurism to professionalism has brought the Olympic tournament into the middle of a long-running fight between FIFA and the clubs. Clubs have always (but to varying degrees) fought FIFA over releasing players for national team duty. The compromise in that fight is the International Match Calendar. Clubs, who originally sought to maintain complete control over when they released players, have acquiesced to release players during pre-defined windows - the release periods. Between the club and the sports governing body, this represents a truce - a truce defined the tension of each side’s believe that it has ultimate control.

The height of this tension is embodied in the existence of the ECA. The big clubs were concerned enough about FIFA infiltration into club football business they formed this union. It is the successor to the G-14 - an entity that only disbanded after securing an agreement with FIFA and UEFA where the governing bodies would pay club compensation when contracted players are injured at the World Cup or the European Championships. On February 15 of this year, the G-14 transitioned into the ECA - a broader and more powerful group of clubs.

FIFA should have known the ECA would pick-up the G-14’s fighting spirit when, during its first meeting, the organization went out of its way to denounce Blatter’s 6+5 proposal. The 6+5 idea - a piece of FIFA legislation that would require each club to always play six players eligible to play for the league’s corresponding national side - was being billed as a means to prevent the migration of players towards big leagues and clubs. But the legislation was never popular, being highly criticized by clubs upon arrival. Although the European Union, months earlier, had declared 6+5 illegal (all but killing the measure), the ECA still wanted to weigh-in against Blatter’s prized idea.

In hindsight, the ECA’s stance on 6+5 looks is a warning shot: a ceremonial act designed to show willingness to do more. The ECA could not have done anything to effect the destiny of 6+5. The idea was already dead. Still, the ECA wanted to show FIFA that no idea is too dormant, too small, or too benign to pass without its notice. The ECA’s position on 6+5 casts Karl-Heinze Rummenigge’s statements on the Olympics in a different light.

Standing up to FIFA and fighting the Olympic rulings is not about helping a few clubs keep a small number of key players from a minor tournament. It’s about standing up to FIFA - nothing else. The invasions of the Sepp Blatters and (UEFA president) Michel Platinis into the clubs’ business is no longer going to be tolerated. Ad hoc rulings that refer to custom and spirit as the basis of a ruling will not be good enough reasons to take contracted players away from their club responsibilities. In the future, the clubs will need to be consulted, and major decisions that change the landscape of the football world will have to be made in consort with the ECA. That is the atmosphere the clubs are intent on creating.

Should FIFA fight these changes and act with the same hubris that Blatter has exhibited throughout his presidency, the body risks being marginalized and losing relevance with the ECA. FIFA still carries the credibility of independence and objectivity, but the real power in soccer lies with the clubs. The clubs have the money. They pay the players, and they provide a vast majority of the product soccer fans consume.

At the point when FIFA’s relationship with the clubs becomes too acrimonious, the clubs will find something else to put in FIFA’s place. This process will happen slowly, as the clubs unite and flex their muscle on issues like the Olympics, but with each small victory other associations will be embolden to form. An ACSA (Associacion de Clubs Sud Americana, South American Club Association) will be next. Asia and North American would follow.

Consider this a test of Blatter’s leadership. If he has the foresight to see these outcomes, he will strike a deal with the ECA now. Let the players go to Beijing this year in exchange for a guarantee of more input when the decisions for the 2012 Games need be made. Input, after all, is why the ECA was formed. Defuse this controversy now. Do not let it be a means by which the ECA can gather more strength. Try to prevent the ECA from being perceived as a model for other confederations. Above all, maintain the high road that FIFA still, tenuously occupies.

It is unlikely the creator of an invasive proposal like 6+5 can accept a world in which FIFA is not hegemonic. Expect Blatter to let ECA’s power grow. As the ECA grows, today’s fight over the Olympics will seem like the seed of a club-versus-FIFA conflict that will define and ultimately undermine the Sepp Blatter-era.

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