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Super League might not work in European football, but perhaps it’s the answer for Asia.
The Europeans Champions League (ECL) is the pinnacle of club football. The prestige and prize money is unmatched by any of the other continental club competitions and it’s this tournament that the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is trying to replicate in Asia’s with the revamped Asian Champions League.
There are significant funds pouring from Asia into European Football for both the Premier League and the ECL and only by creating a competition with similar allure will the money pouring out of our confederation find a home inside the AFC borders.
Such a need to combat this is growing as Europe clearly has its eyes on more Asian cash if the proposed 39th round of the English Premier League is anything to judge by.
Tellingly Thaksin Shinawatra didn’t spend his money in Thailand when he invested in football, he spent it on Manchester City. Despite it being half a world away it wasn’t a very surprising move (even ignoring the fact he was exiled at the time).
The progress made from the significant changes to the Asian Champions League introduced this year is promising and the AFC has improved the standard of the competition and its marketability.
The prize money has been buffed up and instead of admitting the champions of each nation, there has been much more focus on spots in the competition given to the stronger domestic leagues. This is a similar change to what now happens in Europe through the effects of the UEFA coefficient.
While I am glad the competition has improved I don’t think this is the competition format which is the best way of tackling Europe and winning Asian hearts and money.
If the competition does work it will come at the expense of the region’s national leagues.
We have seen how much of an advantage Champions League money is in Europe and how it has reshaped their club football. Such a case where the top teams are irreproachable might be ok for European leagues which have been around for a hundred plus years and are woven into the fabric of the land but would severely hurt spectator interest in developing football countries.
As it stands now, because of their lack of power on the pitch, teams from Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore are nearly frozen out of the Asian Champions League (playing off for 2 spots between them) despite being huge commercial markets for football. The crowds that greeted Manchester United dwarf that of support for any Malaysian domestic team
I am going to suggest a different plan for Asian football.
I am happy for the ACL to keep going and progressing but propose a new competition not tied to the current domestic clubs. A super league is something which has often been met with derision in Europe when proposed and rightly so. Often the proposal includes the big clubs leaving behind their domestic comp or treating it as second best, something which goes against the heart and soul of the game and years of successful tradition.
An East Asian Super league however could be different. It wouldn’t have to cause Armageddon on the existing domestic competitions and there is much less to lose and much more to gain if it is successful.
Set up in a similar way to the Super 14 (and I suppose familiar to cricket’s IPL) – if a space for it in the calendar could be made, easier said than done – Asia could have it’s own teams that are playing high quality football in front of huge crowds and TV audiences.
As an example of how the competition could work:
Eleven teams playing ten matches with the top four going to the final series. Five games at home, five games away, all taking place over two months.
It’s a tight schedule but it has to be a small season in order to cause as little disruption to the existing Asian competitions as possible.
The teams could have an unlimited amount of Asian players in their squad with the only rule being that they must have two players on the field in the team from the nation where the team is based.
That would need the AFC to throw it’s weight around with FIFA but defending a European monopoly on top quality football isn’t in Fifa’s mandate so it’s possible.
The early recruitment could be done in much the same way that the Super 12 was done. Those in strong domestic leagues like Korea and China would likely have mainly local players drafted in from their own domestic clubs with an opportunity to bump up their salary and bring in perhaps a player or two in certain positions from West Asia. While teams in Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand would have to attract players from all over Asia and assemble something more multicultural.
It would attempt to capture the glamour of the Premier League’s East Asian tours but with a meaningful competition.
There would be three spots for foreign (non AFC players) which is where the emphasis of the competition’s recruitment will have to be in that first year to capture the region’s imagination (Beckham, Juan Veron, Owen, Donovan and Figo would all be great targets).
For a maximum 12 games work, a million dollar pay day plus massive sponsorship potential would hopefully attract a cream of quality players for a short stint who could then return to Europe/North America/South America to complete their domestic season.
There could be two teams in Japan, a team in Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Bangkok, Kula Lumpur, Singapore and one in Australia (dependent on time of year the competition would be played).
Suddenly the fans in Thailand and Malaysia would have a quality team of their own to support. You can’t replicate years of tradition overnight but hopefully the buzz of having a world class team in your own backyard will make up for it and eventually the competition will generate it’s own history and heroes.
In a country like Japan where their own league is already internationally recognised, the two franchises could be based on existing teams with Urawa supplying their team aided by a few more Japanese or international stars.
As for Australia’s role I wouldn’t be sure. Perhaps it would have to be a team from North Queensland or Perth because of travel, but it would depend on logistics. Certainly a team in Sydney or Melbourne would be preferred.
There would be a lot of organizational hurdles to overcome but I think cricket and rugby have shown it could work in sports with already crowded calendars and the Curie Cup and the NPC are still alive and well.
Sorry if this was a bit rough and reads like a draft. I did lose my focus a bit at the end but I was keen to get some input so I could apply some polish to the idea.
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