The $6 Billion breakaway European Super League, in the news for a while now, has overnight thrown European football into probably its biggest turmoil yet. The midweek tournament that will be a direct competitor to the UEFA Champions League through a press release said 12 of the biggest clubs have joined them. The UEFA and PL reacted immediately and it’s not good news at all for football aficionados. Not since Project Big Picture did we face something of this magnitude.
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The league chaired by Real owner Florentino Perez. (Juve chairman Andrea Agnelli and Man United owner Joel Glazer will serve as vice-chairmen) will feature AC Milan, Arsenal, Atlético de Madrid, Chelsea, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Juventus, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Tottenham Hotspur as Founding Clubs. Three more big ticket clubs are expected to join ahead of the inaugural season, which is intended to commence as soon as practicable.
The Response Was Swift
The Premier League condemned the concept in a statement on Sunday and also sent a letter to its 20 member clubs warning them not to take part. Officials at European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, which runs the Champions League, labeled the proposal a “cynical project” in a statement.
This was co-signed by the Premier League, La Liga in Spain and Italy’s Serie A, as well as the soccer federations of each country. France’s federation and the French league have also added their voices to the growing opposition inside key European soccer circles. Politicians, including Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, also denounced the plans.
These statements kind of throw a spanner in the works of the ESL whose plans included midweek fixtures with all participating clubs continuing to compete in their respective national leagues, preserving the traditional domestic match calendar which remains at the heart of the club game.
The format would ideally see 20 participating clubs with 15 Founding Clubs and a qualifying mechanism for a further five teams to qualify annually based on achievements in the prior season.
It’s All About Money Honey
The Times reported that founding members will be offered up to £310 million each to join the competition. To compare, Champions League qualification is worth £100 million. Reports say that it will be bankrolled by United States banking giant J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. with $6 billion distributed as loans to the teams, but the firm has declined to comment so far. If you’re a European club that is potentially being offered £210 million more than what you’re currently receiving, why would you say no?
Money has always been the reason for the very idea of a a breakaway league. This, because in its current form, European soccer supplements domestic league play — an English league for English teams, a Spanish one for Spanish clubs — with Continental competitions between the best clubs. The most prestigious of those, the Champions League, brings together the best teams from each domestic league each year to play for the title of Europe’s, and arguably the world’s, best club.
The current system funnels hundreds of millions of dollars of annual television and sponsorship revenue to the world’s richest clubs, which supplement their domestic revenue with multimillion-dollar payouts from the Champions League. But the format also sustains smaller teams in each country, which benefit from the gloss of their encounters with the giants and share in the money those teams bring in from broadcasters.
The new superleague model would change that, by stripping the Champions League of its most attractive and most successful teams and effectively walling off the richest clubs in their own closed competition — and allowing them to split the billions of dollars in annual revenue among themselves.
Also, for a number of years, the Founding Clubs have had the objective of improving the quality and intensity of existing European competitions throughout each season, and of creating a format for top clubs and players to compete on a regular basis.
The pandemic has shown that a strategic vision and a sustainable commercial approach are required to enhance value and support for the benefit of the entire European football pyramid.
In recent months extensive dialogue has taken place with football stakeholders regarding the future format of European competitions.
The Founding Clubs believe the solutions proposed following these talks do not solve fundamental issues, including the need to provide higher-quality matches and additional financial resources for the overall football pyramid.
As Tom Cunningham, Editor of LWOS puts it, “Football is nothing without fans, they say. Well, by contrast, as we are quickly finding out, the fans are not the kings of football- they have been dethroned.
Instead, those with the highest bids have taken to the throne. There is no doubt that the format would take away the pure principles that make football such a spectacle- from underdog victories to the rarity of giants clashing.”
The Football Fraternity Is Not Buying It
So, What Next?
On Monday, UEFA are expected to approve changes to the Champions League that will include an expanded format, more games and tweaks to the revenue distribution. These changes were agreed only on Friday after protracted negotiations with Europe’s leading clubs and the European Club Association (ECA). All of this would now be overshadowed — and rendered potentially meaningless — if Europe’s biggest clubs renege on that agreement and are really ready to walk out as early as 2022, as some have reported.
The implications, though, go far beyond this. UEFA isn’t merely a competition organizer; it’s a confederation whose job is to redistribute revenue and develop the game across the continent. The Champions League is its biggest cash cow, and a severely weakened competition would have a serious impact on the sport throughout Europe, which is part of the reason one UEFA executive told ESPN they were prepared to “fight until the end.”
The Super League statement suggests they’re ready to sit down and talk with UEFA “to deliver the best outcomes for the new League and for football as a whole,” which in turn suggests they’re willing to do a deal.
But, the question is what happens next. If the 12 clubs hold the line, which they at the moment look like doing, it will inevitably head to the courts.
The furious reaction from the Premier League, UEFA and other European leagues signifies just how much this threatens the integrity of domestic and European leagues. Significant both for the future of English and European football.
Clubs would need the approval of the associations, who govern the domestic competitions, to join an unsanctioned breakaway league.
“I cannot envisage any scenario where such permission would be granted,” said Premier League chief executive Richard Masters in a memo to all 20 Premier League clubs.
The Ramifications
Potentially huge. Under Premier League rule L.9, which all 20 clubs sign up to, clubs must obtain ‘prior written approval of the Board’ if they wish to enter to anything other than the Champions League, Europa League, FA Cup, FA Community Shield, Carabao Cup or any other competition sanctioned by the county association.
Any player whose club agrees to join an unsanctioned competition risks not playing in any UEFA or FIFA competition, including the European Championships and World Cup.
Governing bodies and leagues could follow through on their threats to expel the clubs and their players. As member-owned clubs, Barcelona and Real Madrid would most likely require the support of the thousands of their supporters before formally joining, and any German clubs that agree to take part would face similar obstacles. All can expect heavy internal opposition, too; fan groups across Europe have consistently opposed even the idea of a closed superleague.
On Sunday, one umbrella fan group, Football Supporters Europe, called the superleague idea “illegitimate, irresponsible, and anti-competitive by design.”
“More to the point, it is driven exclusively by greed,” the group said. “The only ones who stand to gain are hedge funds, oligarchs and a handful of already wealthy clubs, many of which perform poorly in their own domestic leagues despite their inbuilt advantage.”
Derek J. Wheeler 