It’s been ghosting in and out of the public eye over the years, time and time again: The idea of a European Superleague. Most recently The Sun reported of a secret meeting at the plush Dorchester hotel in London between several top ranked executives from Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea once again discussing the matter with US billionaire Stephen Ross, owner of the NFL team Miami Dolphins and the man behind the vastly successful ICC Cricket competition.
The man’s personal wealth is rumoured to be around the £3billion mark and he might be willing to add his financial clout in order to turn this idea into a not too distant reality.
Judging by the smiles of the conspirers they seem to be optimistic that their European Superleague will indeed come into existence sooner rather than later.
A breakaway from the current competition that would shake European football to the core.
The idea behind this is as simple as despicable, but makes total sense from a business point of view: Rather than having to qualify for the prestigious and lucrative Champions League competition a number of top Europan clubs (number rumoured to be 20 tying in nicely with the 20/20 Cricket theme) form a European Superleague.
In this league the top twenty clubs play each other year after year in a closed shop competition, safe in the knowledge of guaranteed and vast global TV income without the fear of ever having to miss out due to one of those super clubs maybe having a not quite so super season every once in a while.
We’ve already seen big clubs like Chelsea, Liverpool and Man U struggling to qualify for the CL both in the distant and near past and it clearly doesn’t fit those clubs’ vision of themselves as traditionally successful clubs to miss out on playing other big clubs year after year in front of correspondingly big global TV audiences.
These clubs have developed an overgrown sense of entitlement. They have gotten used to the monies and attention provided by CL participation and like a drug addict they struggle to cope once their next shot is taken away from them by simply not qualifying. We all know how UEFA and the European clubs have always been looking for ways to make even more money from football, hence the development of no longer having a traditional European Cup Winners Cup anymore.
Hence the fact we have clubs finishing 2nd, 3rd or 4th (making them league losers in their domestic leagues actually) competing in a contest called Champions League.
Hence the concept of having group stages creating more games instead of having a straight knockout competition.
Apart from the already mentioned English powerhouses (yes, even Liverpool, still living a charmed life built on trophies won in the past) a select few of other clubs would be likely to join: Bayern Munich of course whose boss Karl-Heinz Rummenigge just a few weeks ago raised the issue again, obviously getting worried that Bayern Munich could end up left behind financially by not being able to benefit from the riches provided by the Premier League TV deal.
Who else ? Surely Dortmund and Schalke. Surely Barcelona and Real. Celtic Glasgow. Juventus, the two Milan and Rome clubs, maybe Napoli. From France PSG and Lyon.
Ajax from Holland. That’d complete 20 clubs. No doubt certain other clubs may bang on the door and may be allowed in if it fits the criteria.
Clubs like Galatasaray, Fenerbahce, Porto, Sporting Lisbon, one of the big Moscow clubs, Dynamo Kiev, maybe Olympiakos from Greece.
Whenever a billionaire such as Ross puts his financial powers behind such an idea of a league breakaway it has to be taken seriously. On the other hand time and time again UEFA and the clubs in Europa have rejected the concept as it entails several other questions. The most important of course being that i’s pretty much render the current Champions League as we know it redundant. If there is no chance for any of the other clubs to get into the Superleague and the “normal” Champions League has to cope without the powerhouses taking part, well, that pretty much also ends the fight for the CL (qualifying) places, making the domestic competitions even less interesting.
One wonders if teams would fight for anything other than trying to stay in the league or win the title.
It is for those reasons I despise the idea of a European Superleague. It is just another arrogant, selfish and disrespectful move by big clubs to shut out other teams from the really big money in the game today. It is cowardly to form a closed shop, taking away the financial risk from the big clubs which sometimes simply are not good enough to deserve playing in the Champions League. And why do most football fans love stories like the Leicester City one so much this season ?
Because we enjoy it when a small-ish club beats the odds and wins something. Or gets to play the big boys in the Premier League.
Why would we want to see the same teams playing each other year after year in a Superleague ? How boring would that be ?
The interesting thing for the neutral fan is to see a small club becoming a banana skin for a big club every once in a while.
Coming back to Stephen Ross and his Miami Dolphins, we all know that sports culture in the USA is different. The concept of relegation and promotion is alien to them.
They don’t have clubs, they have franchises. If one doesn’t work out because the team is crap over a number of years, if the fans don’t fill the stadium or the council refuse to build a new state-of-the-art stadium for the local American Football or Baseball team, that franchise simply gets sold and moves a few thousand miles elsewhere.
They are used to having their closed shop major leagues with a vast underbelly of minor leagues and never the two shall meet by exchanging temas through relegation and promtion. In Europe and especially football (soccer for the Americans) it’s different.
We love the concept of teams fighting for promotion and against relegation. We like the idea that a small club can grow, rise up through the leagues and become a bigger story. Or the other way around: A big club messing up, tumbling down the table, maybe even getting itself relegated, back from riches to rags again (Forest, Leeds, Coventry).
Closing out this article, I’d like to kick off the debate by asking some questions for you to ponder:
1) Do you realistically expect the European Superleague to become reality in the next two or three years ?
2) Would you welcome the idea and watch the games ?
3) If you are opposed to the idea, would you change your mind if West Ham, playing in the OS, were to be invited to join the Superleague ?
4) Do you think UEFA (or the domestic league bodies) should punish clubs joining the Superleague by denying them taking part in any domestic league competitions ?