I agree.

 

 

 

Paul and Jack's discussion sure has been memorable, I never thought that post would lead to such interaction. Attending to the matter of the post, indeed, my understanding and interpretation is this, and FIFA appears for some time now not assuming FIBA's more intense stance in re: participation on national teams:

- FIFA does oblige the clubs to release the players and this is the whole criticism from the G14 and the supporters of the Oulmers case, especially considering his case, of an injury sustained during national team competition, resulting in the player being unavailable for club play due to the incapacitating injury... It does appear, and the colleagues who are closer to this can advise us, that the dialogue b/t Platini, UEFA, the G14 and other clubs and players representatives (what does FIFPro do during this anyway, are they included truly?), may lead to more safety nets in re: insurance, some form of club representation in the process, essentially treating the Oulmers case before the courts do, unless they burnt the bridges they started building again...

- FIBA on the other hand had that pretty amazing notion that we read in the original post:
H3.6.3 Players' availability to play for a national team
H.3.6.3.1 General principles (see also H1.12).
a) Any club which signs a contract with a player is obliged to release
that player when he is summoned by a national member federation
to play for its national team in any age category in a main official
competition of FIBA.
b) Any player registered with a club is obliged to reply in the
affirmative when summoned to play for his national team.

Again, any club player IS OBLIGED TO REPLY in the affirmative...

At the same time, basketball players too have been known to negotiate and declare their unavailability for national team play, though sometimes in the past there were direct consequences for national league club play, when it was still run by the same federation, before we moved to the new professional leagues' model in some sports.

This too has a story behind it that may not be within the lines of this correspondence...
With the limited experience working through FIBA and our Greek basketball federation in the past, our two Greek cents here would be that after a change in the leadership of FIBA, which will not take place before 2010, considering the recent elections (mainly referring to FIBA-Europe here) this too will be revisited, if not before that time... To clarify, I do believe that the present leadership has offered a few good things, but is portraying an outdated reality in conducting "sport business" affairs... However, the "Eastward expansion" which led to getting the crucial voting majority (appeared landslide after Marculionis' withdrawal under somewhat interesting conditions) and essentially led to a renewed term may not be beneficial in the immediate (till 2010) future in re: organizing the world of basketball under contemporary terms, conditions, and essentially Law mandates...

Having observed the recent developments b/t FIBA and ULEB (the European professional leagues' association, featuring arguably the best teams in Europe, what the G14 would be for basketball) once again breaking ties and going their own way, one has to be sad that we still can't reach common ground and find at last a way to bridge the socio-cultural model and all the practices carried over from the past that will be/are/have been found in violation of EU law with what contemporary reality calls for.
Having said that, Jack's messages did talk to my heart and I appreciate them profoundly.
Hopefully we can find some common ground, something that FIBA and ULEB haven't reached on two occasions, leading to the breakup of European basketball, and UEFA and the G14 hopefully will learn from and won't have to wait till Oulmers or any irreparable damage to relations...

On the original post, this citizenship v residence issue does appear along the lines of the 'classicists' and proponents of preserving the socio-cultural model and pyramid structure with the concurrent self-regulation of NGOs/ISFs w/o EC or ECJ intervention in our case...
If this is the case and such regulatory evolution abides by what courts have commented falling within the "specific nature" of sport then there probably is no need to worry about any future legal proceedings, or would anyone forecast otherwise? Again, this is national teams' international competition we are referring to, and not the private entities' organization of club leagues, that have immediate labor law/services/establishment consequences...

Best wishes

Tassos
Sport&EU, The Association for the Study of Sport and the European Union can be found at http://www.sportandeu.com