Clubs whose players take part in the next two European Championships and the 2010 World Cup will receive about US$252 million from UEFA and FIFA.

The agreement, announced by UEFA president Michel Platini on Monday, is part of a deal to end the long-running disputes between soccer's governing bodies and Europe's top clubs.

The G-14 group of Europe's 18 most powerful clubs will drop their legal disputes with FIFA and UEFA, Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said.

"From today the football family is reunited, thanks to Michel Platini," said Rummenigge, who was representing the newly formed European Club Association that will include the 103 highest-ranked teams in European football.

FIFA will pay clubs whose players take part in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa US$110 million.

UEFA will pay clubs 43.5 million euros (US$63 million) for the 2008 European Championship, and 55 million euros (US$79 million) for the 2012 tournament, according to the current terms of the deal.

The payments, which will only be for the finals and not qualifying matches, work out to about 4,000 euros each day per player for Euro 2008, and 5,000 euros for Euro 2012.

"Clubs who provide UEFA and FIFA with certain amounts of money through these players should get some compensation and share in these profits," Platini said after the meeting at UEFA's headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.

The money will benefit all clubs that a player belonged to during the previous two years, meaning smaller clubs will benefit from the arrangement as well. If the payments had been made during the 2006 World Cup, more than 300 clubs would have received money.

The deal also means that the G-14 will be dissolved when it next meets on February 15. The group was formed in 1999 by clubs dissatisfied that they did not have enough say in the organization of international tournaments.

"G-14 welcomes the fact that its original initiative to launch a new, independent and fully representative organization to defend the interests of clubs has now come to fruition," the group said in a statement.

Top clubs welcomed the deal.

"It's a historic day that will benefit football in general and certainly club football in Europe," Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon told reporters after the meeting.

AC Milan director Umberto Gandini said clubs would now have "a direct dialogue and a direct influence on the way the most important decisions are taken at UEFA" through the European Club Association.

(Agencies via Shanghai Daily January 23, 2008)