G-14, says its Web site, is “the Voice of the Clubs.” There are reasons to view that claim as suspect. The number is wrong, for a start. The group originally had 14 members, but it now has 18.

As to being the “voice of the clubs,” G-14 does its best to inject some credibility into this sweeping claim, with its fine hint of globality. The group claims – correctly as far as I know – to be “the first international club organization in world soccer”.

What is not being said in all this is that G-14’s members are not just any old clubs, they are 18 of the world’s richest, and they do not have a global span – they are all from western Europe. No African or Asian or South American clubs to be seen here. And certainly no average clubs.

For the record, we’re talking about: Real Madrid, AC Milan, Ajax, Juventus, Bayern Munchen, Inter-Milan, Barcelona, Manchester United, Borussia Dortmund, PSV-Eindhoven, Porto, Olympique-Marseille, Paris Saint-Germain, Arsenal, Bayer Leverkusen, Olympique Lyonnais, Valencia, and Liverpool.

G-14 is a rich guys group, and the idea of rich guys getting together with anything other than their own interests in mind need not be considered for a moment. G-14 is about making more money for its members.

Even before their official formation in 2000, the G-14 clubs were linked with threats to squeeze more money out of UEFA’s European Champions League tournament. If UEFA didn’t cough up, G-14 – the leading figure in those days was Silvio Berlusconi, with his team AC Milan and his huge television empire – it was hinted, would form a breakaway league.

UEFA responded by increasing the number of participants in the Champions League and giving clubs a larger share of television revenue. The pirate league has never happened, but the threat of it has never gone away. As recently as last Saturday, a G-14 spokesman told Reuters: “We do not intend to form an alternative to the Champions League.”

The rumors were swirling once again, as they do whenever G-14 gets into a confrontation with the soccer powers. G-14 is backing a court case that started yesterday in Belgium that challenges the FIFA regulations requiring clubs to release players for national team duties and denying any compensation to the clubs for such use of their players.

Specifically, the Belgian club Charleroi is suing FIFA because its Moroccan player, Abdelmajid Oulmers, returned injured from a friendly international with Burkina Faso in November.

Oulmers needed surgery – which Charleroi paid for – to repair torn ankle ligaments and was out of action for eight months, during which time Charleroi continued to pay his wages.

It is Charleroi’s contention that FIFA is breaking European Union laws by forcing clubs to release players for international matches, and it is demanding compensation of $750,000 for the loss of Oulmers’s services – his absence, the club claims, scuppered its chances of winning the Belgian championship. FIFA rejects all the charges.

The case could potentially cause widespread changes in the game. G-14 no doubt picks its battles carefully, choosing in this case to back a small club likely to elicit much more sympathy than any of its own rich members.

FIFA’s position is that any compensation for injury to a player must be paid by the national association that used him – in Oulmers’ case, the Moroccan federation.

But FIFA knows most national federations lack the resources to pay compensation and to afford the costly insurance that would become necessary.

The threat of compensation would have a chilling effect on the playing of national team games by countries not among the rich and powerful. Any attempt to impose compensation payments must invariably end up back in the courts as the lawyers try to demonstrate just who is responsible for a player’s injury.

In Oulmers’s case, for instance, if his injury was the result of a violent tackle from a Burkina Faso player, why should the Burkina Faso federation not be the responsible party? This is dangerous ground for soccer – for any sport – because it leads ineluctably into the area of personal liability, either for players, or, the ultimate nightmare, for referees.

For years, FIFA has included in the game’s rules a disclaimer that “a referee is not held liable for any kind of injury suffered by a player …” But the legal underpinning of such an ill-defined exemption is very questionable.

G-14’s solution – ostensibly a reasonable one – is to call for the creation of a “solidarity mechanism such as an insurance pool,” under which clubs and national associations would share the costs. But of course, any sharing of costs would hit the poorer federations hardest.

Very little of this is about soccer; virtually all of it is about money. G-14 has entered the case, it says, because it believes FIFA is using excessive regulations “not to serve ‘the good of the game’ but to favor its own commercial interests.” And those commercial interests are substantial. FIFA recorded profits of more than $250 million from the 2002 World Cup, a tournament featuring national teams. But national teams are comprised of club players – our players, says G-14.

While G-14 is expressing its own desire to serve the “good of the game,” it must be remembered that the group is also demanding a share of the revenue from tournaments like the World Cup and European Championship.

This is where G-14’s altruistic stance wears a bit thin. About 75% of FIFA’s profits are returned to the national associations. Much of the money goes to the players, in the form of bonuses. But FIFA puts 5% of the profits into its own development fund, used to help the world’s smaller, poorer countries. It’s not easy to imagine G-14 being interested in financing a development program in, say, Grenada or East Timor.

That the general interests of the sport are better looked after by FIFA than by the rich-guy G-14 clubs cannot be seriously doubted. But FIFA risks defeat in the Charleroi case – its unbending position over injury compensation cannot be called reasonable. Whichever way the court’s decision goes, it will probably be appealed to the European Court of Justice. One would hope the parties will reach a compromise before that, rather than risk chaos in the sport.