Great news from UEFA

At long last, details have emerged about UEFA’s much-anticipated new ‘third’ club competition, The ‘Equity and Diversity’ Shield, which is due to launch in season 2019-20. European football’s governing body has decided to move with the times, recognising that the old paradigm of competitive contact sport is perhaps out of sync with modern thinking.  

Unlike the other two major club competitions, participating teams in the ‘Equity and Diversity’ Shield will not be drawn from specific geographical locations, but will –according to a statement on UEFA’s website- be selected from ‘communities of interest’, a move designed to “transcend the outdated notion of tribal boundaries, which are intrinsically decisive and oppressive”.

Under the new format, any ‘goals’ which happen to be scored during a game will be only part of an overall qualitative assessment made by a panel of judges, who will mark each team based on elements like: co-operation, social awareness, sportspersonship and cultural sensitivity.

For example, a team which does not score any ‘goals’ during a game may instead accumulate ‘merit points’ by performing an interpretive dance commemorating the historic achievements of indigenous communities, or perhaps by facilitating a series of workshops on themes like racism, transphobia or patriarchal hegemony. 

Any ‘goals’ conceded will be balanced out by an assessment of the inclusivity of the merit activities undertaken, measured against specific performance criteria focused on Equity and Diversity. Additional merit points will be awarded to teams drawn exclusively from communities or groups facing systemic oppression. Points will be deducted if a team is perceived to have unfairly benefited from privilege (for example, if it was discovered that a member of their squad had previously owned a slave plantation or had an uncle who was in the Gestapo).

The tournament will have no outright winner as such, but 16 qualifiers from the group stages will take part in a celebration of Equity and Diversity to be held at the end of each season. The four most worthy teams (as chosen by the judges) will then be awarded joint custody of the trophy for three months each. 

UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin said:

“We must move with the times and accept that concepts like ‘winning’, ‘losing’, ‘scoring’ etc. are becoming increasingly inappropriate in the modern world.

Academic studies suggest that the act of ‘scoring’ a ‘goal’ in a football match can be interpreted as an unconscious celebration of heteronormative penetrative intercourse and that this is not always consensual. Depending on the circumstances, members of the team conceding a goal might then be made to feel like ‘losers’ or even victims of abuse.  

Our new rules are designed merely to take a little bit of the focus away from the problematic activity of ‘goal-scoring’ by recognising that there are many ways to succeed in football. That is why the judges will be considering other performance elements, like good co-operation, social awareness, cultural sensitivity and so on.”    

As an avid football fan, I welcome this news. Some reactionary forces within the game will be hostile to the proposed changes, but we should remember that football was once played without goalposts and crossbars; it was once played without referees; it was once played without red and yellow cards. The introduction of ‘merit points’ is just part of the natural evolution of the game. In time, most fans will get behind the new format and support the drive towards equality of outcome at all levels.  

A spokesperson for the BBC has already announced that they will be bidding for the exclusive broadcasting rights for the new tournament.