DEATH OF THE NATIONAL TEAM

When Jose Mourinho complained vociferously last week about Chelsea's inability to become a member of G14, it was interpreted as evidence of a widening gulf between the manager and his chief executive Peter Kenyon. It seems now, however, that Mourinho was racked with a deeper and more pressing fear: that of being disenfranchised from the top table of European football.

The plan outlined in the document marks a dramatic change in their stance. In its G14 Vision Europe blueprint, the organisation acknowledges that in the past it has been little more than a pressure group, relying on the reputations of its members to influence the future direction of European football. However the policy document indicates a massive shift in strategy over the past six months.

It states: "From the beginning, G14's strategy was to act as a 'professional lobbying' organisation on behalf of Europe's top-level clubs ... It was felt in 2001 that, only in extreme cases and as an ultimate recourse, should G14 contest and fight openly on issues. . . it may be that we have now reached the point where we might wish to reconsider this latter approach."

This is more than idle introspection. Last September, G14 became a co-signatory to the case being brought by Royal Charleroi against Fifa, challenging the legality of the world governing body's regulations over the release of players for international duty. Charleroi's Morocco international Abdelmajid Oulmers had returned from a match against Burkina Faso with an ankle injury and his club were refused compensation. The case, in which G14 will argue that the rules are an illegal abuse of Fifa's dominant position as the game's regulator and commercial agent by organising international tournaments, goes to Belgium's Charleroi Commercial Court on Monday.

Also last September, G14's general assembly of member clubs commissioned its Vision Europe document, the first draft of which was drawn up by the management committee, whose general manager is Thomas Kurth.

The very presence of Kurth at G14 has always led to speculation about the organisation's motives for he joined just over five years ago after a decade spent working for Uefa as its head of competitions.

The multilingual Swiss had been the tournament coordinator for the 1992 and 1996 European Championships, as well as every finals tournament of the Champions League; with the latest revelations, it appears long-held concerns over G14's intentions for European club competitions have been well founded.

There are parallels between what the 18 traditional elite clubs intend for the European game and the "land grab" it is believed the professional game is attempting to engineer from the Football Association in this country.

Here it is widely assumed that, coinciding with the Burns report, Premiership clubs are seeking the division of governance and revenue generation. Unlike G14's Vision Europe, however, there has never been any explicit policy document to that effect. "The areas of authority and competence of the European football 'regulator' [ie the governing body] on the one hand, and the 'club body' in charge of the clubs' international competitions on the other, would be clearly and adequately defined," says G14's Vision Europe.

"It is apartheid: it would be the end of the European model of football," said Uefa's communications director William Gaillard. "They want to get rid of promotion and relegation and introduce the American model of a closed league. They might as well transform football into American professional wrestling where everything is predictable because it has all been mapped out before. It would also be the end of national teams."