By Tony Attwood
Arsenal Independent Supporters Association (AISA) has announced that at its AGM the guest speaker will be Alex Phillips, UEFA’s head of the Executive Office.
I’ll give the detail of what the Executive Office is, in a moment, but without even going into that, it is a great coup for AISA to get Alex Phillips to the meeting. He is a man right at the heart of the sort of UEFA issues we debate – most notably the financial doping regulations.
For myself (and writing here personally, not in my capacity as a committee member of AISA) I am really hoping to be able to ask a pertinent question or two about just how likely it is that financial transgressors such as Manchester City are going to be debarred from Europe.
If you are not a member of AISA, you really ought to be – and details are at the end of this piece. The AGM is obviously open to members only.
Anyway, back to the meeting. The AISA AGM usually does have a speaker of significance to talk to the assembled throng, (last year Arsenal director gave a really interesting talk which revealed quite a few hidden truths about the players and their relationship with the club) and I am really anticipating this could be one of the best yet.
So here’s the run down on UEFA and where Alex Phillips fits in.
The UEFA Congress, the UEFA Executive Committee and the UEFA Executive Office form the hub of UEFA’s activities at the highest level. It is at these levels that key sporting and political decisions of UEFA are taken.
The Congress is Europe’s football parliament, and the Executive Committee has the power to make decisions on all matters which do not fall within the jurisdiction of the Congress or any other organ. The Executive Committee also manages UEFA as an overall organisation.
The Executive Office of which Alex Phillips is the head provides the support to the UEFA president, Michel Platini, and general secretary, Gianni Infantino.
Moving back to AISA – the prime work of AISA (and this is my summary, not an official line) is to represent the feelings and views of fans to the club and to work to support Arsenal on and off the field. Put another way, it runs campaigns and supports the team.
This is a multifaceted approach and covers everything from policing to the food and drink in the stadium, and many of these involve on-going discussions and debates. The meetings and discussions often don’t make the headlines but do allow fans to have their views made known to the club, and ensures that change happens.
Two projects that I am involved in are “Arsenal History” which among other things is campaigning to have more art (following the development of the Arsenal Wall, the canons and the ARSENAL stones on the south bridge) outside the ground. We’re also uncovering all the errors in the traditional telling of Arsenal’s history (see www.blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk) and hoping to publish a book in conjunction with Arsenal on the Woolwich Arsenal story.
I’m also involved in the “Voice of Arsenal” project through which members of AISA are asked to put forward their own personal concerns to the club. I’m just in the process of putting two issues that have been raised about ticketing, to the chief executive of the club, and we’re hoping that we will be able to influence the club’s thinking on this point. Members will be getting details of this at the AGM and shortly on the web site.
Arsenal Independent Supporters Association
- Making the Arsenal: the only book about Arsenal without Australians in it
- Arsenal History: currently telling the stories of all XI players who played in our first league game.
- Untold Arsenal on Facebook here
- Untold Arsenal Index: silly stuff, serious stuff, and stuff
- Arsenal Worldwide: supporting Arsenal from outside the UK
if possible the video replay to punish bad tackles …
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/wenger-use-video-to-punish-reckless-tackles
If you didn’t understand bits or all of the previous Untold piece, I just did an English translation of the full article, which can be found in the comments.
Yes, I know I ought to find better things to do with my time!
;0)
Impressive Guest Speaker Tony.
Whilst I was reading the annual financial report I saw IG make reference to the history project and figured you would be in the mix somewhere there.
So author/editor of groundbreaking blog with exponential growth, historical researcher for club, novelist, and AISA committee member.
Where do you get the time mate?
I must say I am impressed with such a guest speaker.
I hope he can make things a bit clearer and give you (and us) a view on how Uefa is going to handle it and how hard they going to play the financial game.
I hope the AGM is recorded/transcribed/protocoled, could prove useful in the future.
I think autumn has arrived in England… 😉
I’ll do a report of the AGM here, as far as I can.
And yes, it is autumn, and colour co=ordinated too.
Tony – are you the new Dr. Who?
Lol – A Casual Observer, I was thinking along the same lines! Tony’s new look is…..Um interesting.
Presumably you won’t be attending bearing a banner that says “Fick Fufa”?
hahahhahaha. that last comment really would be a treat!
grab someone else to do it tony and snap a picture for the website 😉
according to the swiss ramble they could survive it.. :
http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2010/09/cash-city-rockers.html
ok i posted the arsenal ramble… wrong link!
i am sure i saw the city’s ramble.. why can’t i find it now?!!?!??
ACE photo Tony.
ok i’ve got a bit of a stupid question here, but a stupid question that i’d like to know the answer to. i’v been thinking about sponsorships and seeing as emirates airlines are our sponsor and our stadium is named after it, what would happen if they weren’t our sponsors anymore, can we even lose them as sponsors? would we lose the stadium, the stadium name? like i said its a stupid question but i think this is place to find the answer
Tony,
I love the appearance! Absolutely brilliant… A kind and witty pic to match the writer! I know you have seen this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/quiz/2010/sep/28/football-quiz-charlie-george now post the score smarty pants!
I hope as arsenal supporters we shall learn more from him as his from the top-office of sports. Tell him to be arsenal F.C fan.
Call me a pessimist, but I can’t see how the new financial doping regulations can effectively deter the obscene spending of football clubs with rich daddies. It is far too easy to get around the new regulations. One simple example: owners can inject money into the club by providing a large sponsorship or buy 2 million football shirts per season.
The only effective way is to introduce a absolute spending cap for every club in Europe. But without doubts, that is another way to open a can of worms.
Re Doctor Who… Way back centuries ago I had an involvement as a writer with Doctor Who and Blake’s 7 (if you remember that) and the look dates from then. It started as a joke, but sort of stuck, and now it’s how I dress as we get into autumn.
@ arsene-al
they are gonna remain our sponsor because of the contract they signed with arsenal.. . naming rights till 2021… and shirt sponsorship until 2014…
Blake’s7 Rocked!
A cornerstone that modern sci-fi was built upon.
The Liberator still ranks up there with any of its modern peers.
I agree – I was addicted to blakes seven… I even had the dinky toy Liberator that I used to pretend to fly around the house and tie on bits of cotten and dangle from my celing – etc… I was very young but I was allowed to stay up and watch it due to my love of all things space and science fiction. My best mate even named his dog callie – or his dad did because he fancied her… I always liked Servalan – she was so fucking hot… evil – but so hot you could forgive her.
🙂
Man – good work!