UEFA as a New Agent of Global Governance

Introduction

In the introductory chapter to the book Who Governs the Globe? Avant, Finnemore, and Sell (2010), seeking to describe recent changes in the world of international relations, introduced the notion of “global governors,” that is “active agents who want new structures and rules (or different rules) to solve problems, change outcomes, and transform international life” (p. 1), “authorities who exercise power across borders for purposes of affecting policy.” Governors “create issues, set agendas, establish and implement rules or programs and evaluate and/or adjudicate outcomes” (Avant, Finnemore, & Sell, 2010, p. 2). The state remains one of the most comprehensive and authoritative governors, but its monopoly is no longer viable, as it must take into consideration interests, values, modes of operation and, above all, the power potential of multiple new actors. The global order is defined by complex interrelations among different kinds of governors, which may be synergic or conflictual.

The aim of this article is to argue that Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) should be numbered among the emerging powerful global governors, as it sets rules for global sport, an area bringing together the interests of states and transnational corporations alike. This case will be presented focusing on the example of the analysis of relations between UEFA and Poland, a host country of UEFA Euro 2012. The article reviews the recent functional evolution of UEFA and briefly analyzes the reasons for a state to enter into complex relations with UEFA. In addition, it describes previous competence clashes between UEFA and the Polish government concerned with the issues of match fixing and government interference in the affairs of the Polish Football Association (PFA). It also investigates the scope of changes in the Polish legal and institutional system. In the background of the analysis is the profound evolution of the institution of the nation state. The transformative interactions with the new global governors change the way the state achieves its internal and external policies, which, in the eyes of some students of international relations and sociology, amounts to an undermined state sovereignty.

Globalization of Sport and the Evolution of UEFA

The UEFA was established in 1954 as an international umbrella nonprofit organization consisting of autonomous national football federations. Its beginnings were modest: in 1960 UEFA had only three employees and mainly performed administrative functions as the organizer of the pan-European football tournaments. Nevertheless, within the last three decades UEFA has evolved from a traditional international nongovernmental organization into a hybrid international organization that combines elements of nongovernmental activities with those more typical of transnational corporations. The stimuli for change emerged from the multiple processes of growing globalization, particularly from the intertwined globalization of sports and media. New transmission technologies and the expansion of media companies resulted in mediatization of the more spectacular sport disciplines, with football in the vanguard (Giulianotti & Robertson, 2004; Hare, 1998; Maguire, 1999; Roche, 2000; Tomlinson & Young, 2006). World Championships, as well as their European edition, were transformed into a global media event. In the 1980s, the televised transmission of football matches started to bring in huge profits; in a few years the revenues from transmissions well exceeded ticket revenue, partly because of the heightened interest of transnational corporations for whom this presented a perfect marketing opportunity. The growing commercialization of football contributed to the appearance of new powerful actors, such as G-14, the group of the richest European football clubs. UEFA, fearing marginalization, began to redefine its goals and mode of operation (Holt, 2009). Since 1991 the UEFA organizational structure has grown at a yearly pace of 17%. Between 1991 and 2008 its income from organizing the European Championships has risen from €41 million to €1,300 million; 60% of this sum came from media rights and 21% from sponsoring and merchandising (UEFA, 2011, 2012a). As the official UEFA’s website reads, “by the year 2000, UEFA became a markedly different organisation than the one which first saw the light of day a century ago. The body is now a vibrant hive of activity with its own corporate identity and image, fully in keeping with the demands of the business world of the new millennium” (UEFA, 2012b).

The process of redefinition culminated in 2005 with a reworked strategy for the future titled Vision for Europe, by which UEFA described itself as a “complex organization, operating in a complex environment with a complex stakeholder map” (UEFA, 2005c). The document heralded rationalization of UEFA activities and presented a clear conceptualization of the goals of the organization. UEFA undertook to remain an association of associations focused on the ideas of solidarity and the promotion of positive sporting values, but at the same time accentuated the importance of “commercial success and sound finances without distorting the sport qualities,” as well as “setting higher benchmarks in the organization and commercialization of its rights and competition.” Symptomatically, the year 2004 was the last of the Championships where UEFA shared profits with a host country.

Simultaneously, with an organizational evolution, UEFA, working closely with its superior organization FIFA, began to develop a regulatory regime for European football, in many aspects independent of national law and to some extent even negating the rule of law in international sport. As Ken Foster remarks, global sports law emerged—lex sportiva—“a transnational autonomous legal order created by the private global institutions that govern international sport. First, its chief characteristic is that it is a contractual order, with its binding force coming from agreements to submit to the authority and jurisdiction of international sporting federations, and second that it is not governed by national legal systems” (Foster, 2003, p. 2). Lex sportiva concerns not only the rules of the game, but also relations with external actors. In the case of UEFA, lex sportive is mainly concerned with the rules for transferring football players and its authority over national football federations.

In 1995 the emerging lex sportiva of football governors clashed with the legal rules of another international actor, the European Union (EU). In the so-called Bosman case the European Court of Justice ruled that the freedom of mobility for football players holding European citizenship cannot be bound by the system of transfers requiring a transfer fee to be paid when a player changes his/her club after the expiration of a contract. The decision concerned all EU-based football associations and, indirectly, their Swiss-based umbrella organization, UEFA. This situation was repeated in 2000 when the European Commission accused the football authorities of breaching the right of freedom of movement, which led to the signing of a compromise on transfer regulations a year later (Crolley, Levermore, & Pearson, 2002; Holt, 2009). As Garcia (2007) noted, “the interventions of European institutions on the players market have seen the emergence of UEFA as a natural partner in dialogue for European institutions (. . . ). In the last years UEFA has not only changed its policy towards the EU. It has also been completely transformed as an organisation that has opened itself to public authorities and is willing to act as a governing body for the whole game, not just as an organiser of club competitions” (p. 12). In other words, through these competence clashes UEFA and FIFA were indirectly recognized and legitimized as elements of global governance by other international actors.

For the sake of precision, it should be understood that UEFA, as was already emphasized, cooperates closely with its superior organization FIFA and draws considerable power from this relationship. The regional restriction on the scope of UEFA’s activities does not, however, invalidate the claim of this organization to be playing a crucial role in networks of global governance.

Competence Conflicts Among the Polish Authorities, the PFA and UEFA

The second important dimension of UEFA’s lex sportiva is the aspiration for exclusive authority over every national football association. This is best illustrated by several competence clashes between UEFA and the Polish government focusing on the PFA (Szwedo, 2011). It is an open secret that the governing body of football in Poland is plagued with corruption (understood here as the practice of match fixing, that is the manipulation of sports results that covers the arrangement on an irregular alteration of the course or the result of a sporting competition (KEA European Affairs, 2012, p. 9). The problem, deeply rooted in the nontransparent sport system inherited from the communist era, concerns the officials, referees, fans, and players alike. In the second half of the 1990s, the sheer scale of the corruption evoked such public outrage that the government decided to undertake more radical measures in fighting match fixing. Nevertheless, some of these measures were condemned and negated by UEFA, which was seeking to preserve its control over the PFA.

The PFA is a free nongovernmental association. Most of its budget consists of donations from UEFA and sponsor fees for transmission rights. The government finances only the junior football associations and school football. However, Polish law stipulates that the Ministry of Sport supervises all sports federations and has the right to control them. The minister may reprimand the board of the federation, repeal its decisions, and appeal to a court with a motion to suspend authorities of the federation or even to dissolve it. In the case of suspension, the court appoints a custodian until the new authorities are elected (Ustawa o sporcie, 2010). However, the statutes of FIFA and UEFA stress the absolute autonomy of the national football federations. Article 7, para. 2 of the UEFA statute specifies, “member Associations shall manage their affairs independently and with no influence from third parties. Member Associations shall provide, in their statutes, for a procedure guaranteeing that their executive body is freely elected and that their other bodies are elected or appointed in a completely independent way. Any body or decision from a body that has not been elected or appointed in compliance with such a procedure, even on an interim basis, shall not be recognised by UEFA” (UEFA, 2010a; analogically, art. 17 of the FIFA statute, FIFA, 2011). The major sanction for not following the rules is suspension of the member’s rights, which results in the exclusion of the national team from the schedule of matches or in a walkover. Article 9 again emphasizes that the statute’s major breach consists of state interference in the affairs of the national football association. The rationale behind this rule is to prevent the political manipulation of sports, but in practice it became the main source of UEFA and FIFA power as global governors.

The first clash between the noncongruent Polish law and lex sportiva took place in April 1998 when the president of the Office of Physical Culture and Tourism suspended the Board of the PFA when it refused to accede to an anticorruption audit. The move was strongly criticized both by FIFA and UEFA. Both organizations threatened to exclude the Polish teams from international matches. After a few months of tug-of-war, the government backed off and withdrew the suspension in August (Kalendarium afer w polskiej piłce, 2012).

In 2003, in another thrust to fight corruption, parliament penalized bribery in sport, which enabled the police to persecute culprits individually. In January 2007, one of the members of the board of the PFA and a popular sports commentator was arrested. In reaction, the Ministry of Sport tried to convince the board to resign voluntarily and called for new elections to replace the disgraced PFA authorities. When the board refused, the minister suspended it and introduced an external guardian until a new board was elected. And again, both FIFA and UEFA condemned government interference in the affairs of the PFA as a “violation of the principles of autonomy that applies throughout the sports movement,” stating that they would recognize only the suspended Board “in relation to all football matters in Poland” (Sparre, 2007). At the time Poland and Ukraine were already shortlisted as candidates to host the Euro 2012. The Ukrainian government accused its Polish counterpart of sabotaging their joint bid. Pressured by the Ukrainians, and threatened by the possibility of an automatic walkover of the Polish national team in the Euro 2008 competition, the Polish government reinstated the board.

Nevertheless, the resolve of the Polish authorities grew with subsequent arrests and the conviction that the PFA authorities must have known about the match tampering. Recalling the last two clashes with international football authorities, in September 2008 the government put forth a formal motion to suspend the leadership of the PFA based on the “continuous and flagrant violation of its statutes.” This was submitted to the Arbitration Court affiliated with the Polish Olympic Committee. The reaction of FIFA and UEFA was unwavering: both organizations declared that the PFA board is “the only legitimate authority to run football in Poland and to represent it internationally. As a consequence, any letter, correspondence and/or communication that is not signed by the legitimate, and FIFA-UEFA recognised leadership, will be ignored and considered irrelevant” (FIFA, 2008). In addition, UEFA threatened to annul the decision to grant Poland the right to host the Euro 2012. As one of the UEFA officials stated: “The European Championships are administered through the Polish and Ukrainian FAs, not their governments. If there is no legitimate Polish FA, then we will not have a Euro in Poland” (Mail Online, 2008). Again, the Polish government yielded to the FIFA–UEFA ultimatum and reinstated the suspended president of the PFA. The defeat was not complete because both international football federations later agreed to join a committee with representatives of the government and members of the PFA in order to elect a new president of the board.

Acting as autonomic and assertive global governors, football federations effectively torpedoed the activities of legitimate national authorities that were focusing on corruption, one of the acute maladies of the emerging Polish civil society (in 2010 Poland was ranked 41 among 184 states in the Transparency International report). Football federations interpreted these attempts to fight corruption as assaults on their power over national federations. National authorities, unable to stop corruption at the top, now focused on the grass roots. Since 2005, about 600 people connected with Polish football have been charged with corruption in sport and more than 100 found guilty, with members of the PFA Board of Judges, the former trainer of the national team, and the president of the training courses for judges among them. Still, the problem of corruption in Polish football has not been resolved. In 2010, the Central Investigation Bureau, the cell of the police responsible for fighting organized crime, placed the marketing and transport contracts signed by the PFA under investigation. In December 2011, the PFA faced another bribery scandal over the building of a new headquarters for more than 50 million zlotys. A newly appointed Minister of Sport called on the PFA board to resign, but to no effect. Knowing only too well that any disciplinary move could bring about another conflict with the international football authorities, the minister contented herself with writing a letter to UEFA and declared her desire to work with any democratically elected authorities of the federation (Nowak, 2011). Despite protests from the parliamentary opposition, the scandal was hushed up, presumably for the good of the upcoming championships.

Symptomatically, the fight between the Polish government and the football authorities over Polish football gained a symbolic dimension when, in November 2011, the PFA introduced new kits for the national team on which the traditional Polish white eagle crest was replaced with the PFA stylized logo. This enraged the Polish people for whom the crest is the most important national symbol (for 41% of the society). The PFA accused the Polish public of being too conservative and pointed out that only six of the 52 federations belonging to UEFA used the national crest. Eventually they were swayed in the face of general protests in the media and among ordinary football fans. This time national sentiments prevailed over the autonomy of a sporting organization.

Sports Mega-Events, Country Branding, and Modernization

The question remains as to why the Polish authorities did not hold their ground in competence clashes with UEFA. The answer lies in the reconstructed perception of the state’s interests in the era of globalization. The Polish government quickly learned of the power held by the governors of global sport and at the same time appreciated the value of the domain they governed as the vehicle of their own interests. One of the bargaining strengths held by UEFA and FIFA is their power to prevent national teams from competing in international tournaments. But from 2005 onward, the submissive attitude of the Polish authorities was triggered by another UEFA trump card: the right to grant the hosting of mega sports events.

Globalization manifests itself in the shape of the evolution of the essence of international power. After the end of Cold War, international order began to evolve from a Hobbesian one, based on persistent mutual conflict, to a more peaceful Lockean one, based on rivalry, with elements of a cooperative Kantian one (Wendt, 1999, pp. 246-312). The coercive “hard power” of military threats and economic pressure was supplemented by the “soft power” of the ability to win allies and build influence because of the attractiveness of a state’s culture, its political values, and foreign policy (Nye, 2004). Isolation or autarky was never less possible: in order to be successful a state had to engage in the process of attracting foreign investors and then withholding fluid virtual capital, of beguiling tourists and professional migrants, of presenting its exported products in the best possible light. In many dimensions, a state needs to present itself as a desirable product and has to rework its image as a brand. Country (or nation) branding became one of the important aspects of a state’s political and economic strategy. According to Anholt (2007), the author of Nation Brands Index, an attractive image of a country involving all descriptive, mediated, and factual opinions should be combined with a well-articulated competitive identity that enhances the position of the state on a globalized international arena and becomes the major channel of internal and external communication of national identity.

The issue of an international image and attractiveness gained particular importance for newcomers to international politics. Poland won its independence from the USRR in 1989. The first decade of autonomic foreign policy was committed to joining West European political structures (NATO in 1999 and the EU in 2004), but quickly a recognition of the new conditions of functioning in the globalized world appeared. An analysis, prepared in 2001 by one of the emerging Polish think tanks, showed that in most developed West European countries Poland was commonly perceived of as a grey, underdeveloped, agricultural country inhabited by fervent Catholics, a country of Solidarity, Lech Walesa, John Paul II, and anti-Semitism (Instytut Spraw Publicznych, 2001; Ministry of Economy, 2011; Polska Organizacja Turystyczna [POT], 2011). More importantly, the image of Poland was vague and incoherent: the overwhelming majority of West Europeans knew nothing about Poland and the rest had fragmentary and stereotypical knowledge. Generally, Poland was undistinguishable from other East European countries.

This situation was clearly reflected in international rankings of country brands. In 2010, despite numerous yet incoherent efforts at building its branding strategy, Poland took 26th place among 50 countries in the Nation Brand Index and 83rd place among 110 countries in the Country Brands Index (Future Brands, 2010). When, at the turn of 2004, the Ukrainian Football Association made its Polish counterpart the offer of a joint bid for organizing Euro 2012, the Polish government did not hesitate to support it. The UEFA Euro is one of the most prestigious and well-known global mega-events, a marketing spotlight not only for companies that want to sell their products by linking their brands with the UEFA’s Euro brand, but also for host states (Horne & Manzereiter, 2006). It provides a showcase effect (Hiller, 1989, p. 119)—television exposure of the locality. It is estimated that the UEFA Euro 2008 garnered a TV audience of 155 million people in 231 countries.

Another motive for the Polish government’s supporting the bid was a belief in the diverse political, to a lesser extent social, and above all economic (infrastructural) legacy of a sport mega-event, typically harbored by host countries (Cornelissen & Swart, 2006; Pillay & Bass, 2008; Horne, 2007). In their joint bid, Poland and Ukraine declared that Euro 2012 “will enhance the social cohesion of our countries and the management capabilities of these people.” Both countries counted on upholding national pride in their societies, but above all admitted to the hope that they would become “more firmly integrated in the European family of nations and more committed to and capable of further development of European values in social, cultural, economical and political matters” (UEFA, 2005b).

In the case of Poland, the hosting of Euro was perceived and presented as a locomotive of modernization for the entire country. One of the top political commentators wrote: “The granting of the right to host the Championships to Poland in 2007 will be based on the same positive psychological impulse as the election of Karol Wojtyła as pope in 1978.” More radically, the then Polish president Lech Kaczynski declared: “It will be extortion, but a good one. It will have to be done, and I am glad—and it won’t be possible to do it half a year later” (Dembek, 2009). It may be assumed, without much exaggeration, that in public discourse UEFA was assigned the function of external controller, setting standards and deadlines, executing modernization efforts from the Polish authorities and Polish society under the threat of taking away the Championships. The attitude of the Polish government contributed to the legitimization of UEFA’s role as a global governor, equipped with the competence of a sovereign power over the developmental processes in the host country.

Legal and Institutional Adaptation of the Polish State to the Requirements of UEFA

On April 18, 2007, the Polish–Ukrainian bid won the secret voting by the UEFA Executive Committee over the other short-listed bids of Italy and Hungary-Croatia. According to UEFA regulations (2005a), UEFA brings the spectacle and the host country prepares the stage, but for the first time for Euro 2012, the host countries were to cover virtually all costs of the organization and would get no share in its profits. At the time Poland had no stadiums complying with UEFA criteria, its hotel capacity was at best limited (only Warsaw could offer a sufficient number of hotels in the required categories) and the standard of roads and railways left much to be desired (Humphreys & Prokopowicz, 2007; UEFA, 2005b). Preparing for the Championships presented a huge organizational and financial effort for the state, but the government and society in general shared the belief that the Euro would bring an immense legacy of infrastructural development. A special report on the impact of the Championships on the Polish economy, commissioned by the governmental company responsible for preparations, estimated that by 2020 the budget of the Polish state would gain at least 29 billion zlotys (ca. €7,25 billion) of additional income from the quickened pace of infrastructural development and tourism (Borowski, 2010). Nevertheless, potential gains are clouded by certain and known costs of hosting the games: in 2012, the building of all stadiums consumed more than 4 billion zlotys, while the total cost of all Euro-related investments extended 100 billion zlotys (ca. €25 billion).

Some time is needed before it will be possible to estimate whether Poland is a notable exception in gaining economically by organizing a sports mega-event. But the preparations required not only financial investment, but also institutional and legal adaptation to UEFA requirements. In the process of bidding, the PFA had to present a list of 25 guarantees for UEFA, signed by the proper authorities. They concerned, respectively, governmental support for the event, protection of intellectual property, customs, visa and work permits, foreign exchange and import/export of capital, financing of stadiums, hotel infrastructure, support for promotional activities, safety and security, tax exemptions, and support from fiscal authorities. The first guarantee required support from public authorities at all levels, local to central. In the case of Poland, these guarantees were confirmed not only by representatives of the central offices, institutions, and host cities, but also by representatives of the biggest parliamentary parties, including the opposition.

The justification for introducing the legal and institutional changes required by UEFA was laid out by a special act voted on September 11, 2007, by the Polish parliament. The government had been obliged to prepare an order with a list of enterprises necessary for the proper and timely preparation and organization of the finals, according to the offer presented to UEFA. The act stipulated that all administrative decisions regarding the enumerated enterprises would be performed immediately, which abolished the need for obligatory social consultations. In order to coordinate the preparations the government appointed a limited liability company, whose managers were freed from public institution salary restrictions. The company, named PL.2012 prepared a so-called Master Plan, regularly presented on its website, to coordinate and supervise the activities of over 80 different institutional actors. All in all, the preparations engaged over 200 public institutions and organizations (2012).

With the list of guarantees UEFA assertively manifested its status by requiring special privileges exempting its functionaries from the laws of the host country, for example regulations concerning visa and work permits. Another group of guarantees concerned tax and tariff benefits and exemptions. UEFA and its functionaries were exempted from taxes on its incomes, profits, and turnover connected with the organization of the event. The Polish Ministry of Finance had also promised to undertake every measure to return to UEFA VAT taxes and of any other tax. In 2007, the then Minister of Finance informed UEFA that upholding all the elements of the guarantee would not be possible as it was not compatible with Polish and EU law. In May 2010, with the progression of preparation and rising costs, the Ministry tried to renegotiate some details of the guarantee, as it needed to be confirmed by a dedicated order. Immediately rumors spread that, during negotiations, UEFA had threatened to withdraw the hosting rights for Poland and transfer them to Spain. In the end, in January 2011, the Ministry issued an order exempting UEFA from CIT and PIT taxes (Huczko, 2011).

The strongest manifestation of the role of global governor on the side of UEFA has been its involvement in guarantees concerning special intellectual and industrial property rights (especially guarantees 8, 12, 13, and 19), such as the legal protection of names and logos of the Championships, counteracting ambush marketing and the production of illegal gadgets, dishonest ticketing practices, and unlicensed commercial public viewing. In evaluating the Polish–Ukrainian bid, UEFA stated that neither the Polish nor the Ukrainian legislations met all the requirements set by UEFA in the areas of intellectual property, ambush marketing and ticketing, crucial for the commercial success of Euro 2012 (UEFA, 2005b, p. 19).

When Poland won the bid for Euro 2012, UEFA started to act on the guarantees as a rule imposing external authority. In 2008 the Polish Ministry of Economy commissioned a group to study the need to adapt Polish law to UEFA requirements. The experts recommended introducing a series of legal changes in order to fulfill the obligations of Poland toward the UEFA, regarding, for example, the restriction of licenses for noncommercial public viewing of matches. The process of adoption necessitated the restructuring of public institutions. The Polish Patent Bureau appointed a special team to cater to the interests of UEFA, that is to administer registration procedures and to summarily examine cases lodged by UEFA against entrepreneurs breaching rules set by UEFA. In addition, the Minister of Sport and Tourism had also appointed an UEFA-dedicated Committee for the Protection of Rights with representatives from the Patent Bureau, the Ministry of Finance, the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, the police and the Ministry of Justice (PL.2012; Rupiński, 2010). In September 2010, UEFA prepared a detailed toolkit for host cities with marketing guidelines, reminding them at the same time that the guarantees gave it the right to brand with its official promotional materials the most important buildings and tourist venues of the city (UEFA, 2010).

The third area of the Polish state’s legal adaptation concerned issues related to security in stadiums during the Championships. First, it provided for police screening and the handing over of information about persons applying for UEFA accreditation. Second, in order to streamline coping with security breaches from football fans, it introduced the institution of long distance trials with a simplified legal procedure. Third, it penalized many kinds of behavior such as covering of the face or being in another sector than the one indicated on one’s ticket. And fourth, it allowed for the sale of low-alcohol beer in the stadium, possibly in connection with the UEFA stipulation that it satisfy its official commercial sponsor (a beer company).

This last regulation evoked criticism from various NGOs and human rights organizations, especially those concerned with privacy rights and the protection of personal information (Gazeta Prawna, 2011; Panoptykon, 2011). Nonetheless, it should be emphasized that the majority of the internal public actors deemed most of the described legal and institutional changes politically legitimate because of the expected legacies of the mega-event. For example, the introduction of a strict regime of intellectual rights protection, established and imposed by UEFA, was readily justified by the government view that despite the discontent of local entrepreneurs this would contribute to forming a positive image of the country in the eyes of potential investors. According to PL.2012, “at the occasion of co-organizing UEFA Euro 2012 our country will develop and enhance its image not only in the area of infrastructure, but also in the area of intellectual rights protection. Today the scope and effectiveness of the protection of those rights is one of the major indicators of the development of civilization in a state; it favours the inflow of foreign investments and increases competitiveness” (PL.2012). PL.2012 also supports parliamentary efforts to prepare new, more restrictive legislation on intellectual property rights, which is regarded as one of the legacies of the Championships.

Conclusions

The organization of UEFA Euro 2012 may be interpreted through the theoretical lenses of the interaction between two types of actors of the emerging global order: the state and the new global governor. Contemporary states faced with quickly changing conditions of globalization needed to redefine their national goals according to the requirements of competitive identity; for example, they learned to give more attention to their international image as shown in the media. Sport mega-events began to be perceived as valuable spotlights through which states might present themselves to a global audience of investors, tourists, and consumers. Yet, the ownership of those events belongs to nongovernmental organizations, which, once convinced of their desirability for other actors, such as states and corporations, quickly learned how to set the rules of the game in accordance with their own interests. If a state wants to use a sports event for what it perceives as its best interests, whether it be nation building, infrastructural development, or a show-case effect, it must adhere to the conditions set, authoritatively and arbitrarily, by the international sports federation, that is, to sign the restrictive guarantees attached to the bid application. At the same time, the state is completely excluded from the negotiations, as this is deemed a matter between a national football federation and its superior organization. Once a state gets the right to organize the event, the federation starts to act on the guarantees that require legal and institutional transformation of the state.

This is not only the case with UEFA, but also of FIFA (and, in more general terms, of other major international sports federations, especially the IOC (Hayes & Karamichas, 2012; Lenskyj, 2000). As Roberto Alvarez stipulates, there may be an interesting trend in FIFA’s choice of hosts for World Championships: the bids usually go to countries that are considered institutionally weak and corrupt, for example South Africa in 2010, Brazil in 2014, Russia in 2018, and Qatar in 2022. As easy-going partners in aggressive negotiations, they are prone to yield to the considerable influence of the quasi-corporate international sports federation. Yet in Brazil some of the demands of FIFA, such as the right to sell alcohol in stadiums, were recognized as an attempt to interfere with state sovereignty (Segalla, Rodrigues, & Marcondes de Moura, 2011). Surprisingly, in the case of Poland the legitimacy of UEFA demands has only once been questioned by the government—and unsuccessfully—in a matter of minor importance, that is fiscal exemptions for UEFA. In all other areas, UEFA was recognized as a global governor entitled to introduce globally recognized rules of organizing sports mega-events in a host country. Undoubtedly, as sport is gaining the status of one of the most crucial global social phenomena, and thus becomes a target of power clashes between old and new actors of global governance, there appears to be a need for deeper analysis of the relationships and processes, briefly presented here, on the example of Poland and UEFA.