The biggest football teams in Europe are already part of an exclusive club and they easily have the money to form their own league, without promotion-relegation.
While this might not be in the spirit of open sporting competition teams, teams outside this group are only there to make up the numbers anyway.
You only have to look at Forbes’ list of the most valuable football clubs to see this.
All of the world’s top 20 largest clubs are based in Europe, and have a combined value of $US28.3 billion ($AU37.5 billion).
The top 20 largest clubs are actually worth double the value of the NFL in America, which is the world’s most valuable sports league.
But even within this group, there is a large disparity in wealth between the highest and lowest teams.
Real Madrid are worth $3.6 billion while Newcastle United are only worth $383 million. So the largest team has about ten times the wealth of the smallest team in the top 20. The smaller teams don’t stand a chance.
If that’s the case, there’s no point in promotion-relegation, so a closed league should be nothing to worry about.
But many comments about an ESL are negative, calling it elitist and exclusive. So even if you have a league with only the very best players and teams, people won’t necessarily want to watch it if it’s seen as an oligarchy.
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Another criticism was that it would quickly get boring, with the same teams playing each other year after year.
It’s amazing to think that people would be put off watching a European Super League that’s full of big stars because it’s a closed competition – why would you expect Australian fans to be any different and watch a closed A-League?
If football is a form of escapism, then people still want to be able to dream that their own team can make it, no matter how unlikely.
Few clubs will ever do a Leicester City, but everyone who supports a smaller club hopes that their team can. That’s the magic that keeps people watching.
If bringing in promotion-relegation gets more people to watch and in turn drives up the value of the league then there’s definitely an incentive to do so.
In Australia, if you scrap the salary cap, then current A-League teams that have broader community appeal will be more marketable and could attract more money. Then you would have bids from Brisbane Strikers, Southern Expansion, Dandenong, Tasmania, Wollongong, Sunshine Coast and Geelong.
Of course, there are still big financial and logistical differences between Australia and Europe that would have to be overcome.
But there is one thing that can be said of the wealth of clubs in Europe: it certainly puts the A-League’s issues around expansion and promotion-relegation into perspective.
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