12. Believes that the national dimension in football, whether at club or at national team level, constitutes one of the most popular elements of the game; notes that the pyramid structure of football in effect integrates national and European competitions in a way which is appealing to supporters; considers that any attempt to remove the national element from football would jeopardise the continued existence of national competitions and teams and, ultimately, such events as the World Cup, and believes therefore that any moves at EU level which might remove the national element should be avoided, as this would be detrimental to the game ...[+++];

to create European centres of excellence by means of collaboration between laboratories; to launch technological initiatives on an EU scale in promising industrial sectors by creating joint undertakings; to boost the creativity of basic research by means of competition between individual teams at European level; to make Europe more attractive to the best researchers by increasing support for them; to develop research infrastructures of European interest based on the example of the trans-European networks; to strengthen coordination between national research programmes.

I'm very aware that at the elite levels, like those of the Canadian national under-17 team that competes, the world junior team, and our recent Olympic teams, they all had French coaches on staff.

For the purposes of this Decision, the term ‘international dimension’ shall mean friendly or competitive matches between national sides (e.g. Germany, France, etc.) and club matches between teams from different countries.

The Canadian team that was entered in that event won two medals and achieved nine international standards.

As regards competitions between national teams, the Court ruled that the provisions of the Treaty concerning freedom of movement for persons do not preclude rules or practices excluding foreign players from certain matches where these are justified on non-economic grounds that relate to the particular nature and context of certain matches and are of sporting interest only, as is the case with matches between national teams from different countries.