No professional sport in the world has quite the same dynamic as soccer in the sense that club teams hate seeing their players compete for their home country and vice versa. Players are investments and only bad things can happen (in the clubs' minds) when the players leave them.
Along those lines came news today that Bayern Munich won't release its star Franck Ribery for an upcoming hearing by the French soccer federation on the national team's disaster at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
The club complained Monday that it "had to learn from the media" of plans by the federation to summon Ribery and others to Paris for a hearing Aug. 17.
The German champion said that FIFA rules oblige it only to release players for competitive matches on the international soccer calendar.
Chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge informed French federation president Fernand Duchaussoy of the decision in writing, Bayern said in a statement.
"It cannot be the case that the French federation arbitrarily hauls Franck Ribery out of his commitments at Bayern Munich," Rummenigge said. "The club's preparations for the new Bundesliga season now have priority over the French federation's processing of the World Cup."
The club said Ribery would be playing a German Cup match against Germania Windeck on Aug. 16 and would start preparing the following day for the season's first Bundesliga match, against 2009 champion Wolfsburg on Aug. 20.
The French federation opened a disciplinary case last Friday against Ribery and four others who went on strike at the World Cup -- Nicolas Anelka, Eric Abidal, Jeremy Toulalan and captain Patrice Evra.
Don't ask me why this hearing is happening so long after the World Cup, when clubs are clearly gearing up for their long campaigns. Then again, who else would this whole situation happen to but the French?
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