Page 4 - The Deal Roundup November 2018

Player Power
By
Adam Ellis

23 years on from the landmark introduction of the Bosman rule, last week saw
another instance of player power carving into football’s status quo with Denmark
players holding a strike over their commercial rights.
The holdout by the likes of Christian Eriksen, Kasper Schmeichel and Lasse Schone
was the result of an in-house conflict between players and the Danish FA over their
own individual sponsor deals and the national team sponsor, Hummel.
The dispute saw the Danish FA resort to calling up players from the third tier of its
football pyramid as well as futsal players for the international friendly against a full-
strength Slovakia side.
All the talk was whether the Denmark FA (DBU) could save face and reach a middle
ground before the match in Trnava as well as a competitive match which followed
against Wales. For the first match, they couldn’t.
Ticket prices for the Slovakia game were slashed to €1 and, with little to be expected
from their team, Denmark’s makeshift side was defeated 3-0. Which isn’t exactly a
drubbing by any means for a team hastily assembled like a Frankenstein.
Humiliation for the DBU was averted in time for the UEFA Nations League clash with
Wales on Sunday. Out of a situation spawned from the politics of sports business,

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