On April 18, 2021, 12 of the biggest clubs in world football revealed a plan to launch a breakaway league, which they called the Super League.
The competition was meant to replace the existing continental competitions run by UEFA. The 12 clubs in question are the big six from England: Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur, along with Spanish giants Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid and Italy’s Juventus, Inter Milan and AC Milan.
These clubs highlighted the COVID-19 pandemic’s financial impact as a primary drive behind the idea. The idea was met by outrage from pundits, ex-players and fans alike. Social media erupted, angry fans protested outside stadiums and 48 hours later the idea was as good as dead. All clubs except Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus have announced that they are abandoning the project.
In a European framework, the Super League was an unfamiliar idea: a closed shop league in which the 12 founder clubs are guaranteed entry every year and will share all dividends among themselves. Basically, it’s an adoption of the American model of franchise leagues, albeit without the fundamentals that allow it to remain competitive such as salary caps and drafts.
It’s a betrayal of the basic principles that football has been built on over a century ago. A competition not based on sporting merit, doesn’t have the risk of relegation, the reward of promotion, or the prospect of missing out on a spot in continental competitions based on where teams finish in their domestic leagues. It’s greedy and disruptive to the football pyramid system.
A day after the announcement, Manchester City’s coach, Pep Guardiola, was quizzed about it. Even though he admitted that he needs more details before making a judgment, he expressed his discontent with the concept. “It is not a sport where the relation between effort and success does not exist,” Guardiola said while revealing that he only knew about the plan a few hours before it was announced. He added, “It is not a sport where success is already guaranteed, or it doesn’t matter if you lose. I said many times, I want the best competition. It is not fair when one team fight, fight, fight at the top and cannot be qualified because it is just for a few teams”.
If anything, this highlights how abruptly the plans have been made and announced in board rooms without even consulting the most important stakeholders, which are the players and managers. Managers were hung out to dry in their weekly press conferences, having to answer questions on something they had no clue would happen when it did.
(Adam Davy/PA via AP)
FIFA, UEFA, all domestic leagues, the British government and many football legends rallied out passionately against the idea. Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, vowed that the government will do everything possible to make sure that the Super League does not become a reality now or in the future.
He told the media: “I don’t think it’s good news for fans, I don’t think it’s good news for football in this country”. The other 14 Premier League clubs who are not among the super six held an emergency meeting and came out with a united statement that read: “The 14 clubs at the meeting unanimously and vigorously rejected the plans for the competition. The League will continue to work with key stakeholders including fan groups, government, UEFA, the FA, EFL, PFA, and LMA to protect the best interests of the game and call on those clubs involved in the proposed competition to cease their involvement immediately”.
The idea of stacking all the big clubs together in one league might sound good in theory, nevertheless, it’s very likely that it wouldn’t be exciting. The Champions League is considered as the pinnacle of club competition, the holy grail for big clubs. Players and managers dream of winning it. Part of its excitement is the unpredictability it brings — fans look forward to the draw to see which big teams are paired together and it becomes a memorable occasion when two European giants collide.
If these match-ups then become recurrent every other week it would eventually become meaningless, wouldn’t it?
For years, there were rumours that clubs’ rich owners were discussing this idea behind closed doors, however, the timing of its announcement is no coincidence. Like any other business, European football was hit hard by COVID-19. The financial hardship suffered by clubs from top to bottom of the football pyramid was the main factor that turned the Super League from rumours to reality.
A report prepared by Deloitte found that the 20 clubs that generate the highest revenue in European football would suffer over €2 billion loss in revenue by the end of 2020/21 season. The assessment highlighted a 17 per cent drop in matchday income – resulting from the absence of fans during games – and a 23 per cent fall of broadcast deals as the major factors behind the huge loss.
According to European Club Association (ECA), football clubs in 55 countries around Europe are estimated to lose over €3.7 billion in revenue over 2020 andamp; 2021. This means that the 20 biggest clubs alone are set to lose more than all the other clubs combined, hence the eagerness of some of them to create a breakaway league.
(Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
The Super League’s launching statement maintained that “the global pandemic has accelerated the instability in the existing European football economic model” and added later in the statement that “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”.
The numbers actually back these claims up. For example, Real Madrid and Barcelona, arguably the biggest two clubs in the world, reportedly have a gross debt of €901 million and €1.173 billion respectively. The Real Madrid president, Florentino Perez, has been and still is the biggest advocate for the Super League. To his credit, he’s the only chairman out of all clubs involved who has had the courage to publicly address the issue and has since refused to back down.
Speaking to Spanish TV, he said: “The pandemic has changed everything; it has made us all more vulnerable and also football. Football needs formulas that make it more competitive and exciting”. Perez argued that UEFA is failing the clubs and insisted that changes need to happen. He genuinely believes that the Super League is the answer going forward. He added: “Football reform cannot wait and must be faced. We have a responsibility to fight for this change”.
Indeed, there’s always room for improvement in any industry and football is no different, however, the way the big clubs approached it was wrong. FIFA and UEFA are by no means angels; they too are entities that are driven by money and greed. UEFA along with the domestic leagues reacted strongly to condemn the idea and threatened with sanctions and bans, but make no mistake, they reacted that way in fear of losing their cash cows, not for the good of the fans and grassroots football.
The 12 clubs’ seemingly amateur, abrupt approach didn’t gain them any supporters and allowed UEFA to vilify them and claim the football saviour role. Yes, changes can be made but these clubs came up with a plan that serves themselves only. What if instead of the Super League, they had come up with a competition that replaces the Champions League for all European clubs? If they created a new competition format and a long-term plan backed by numbers that prove that UEFA is failing to maximise the potential of the product, then they would have had the backing of all the clubs on different levels and fans would have listened with an open mind.
This would have highlighted UEFA’s shortcomings and pushed towards real changes for the good of all parties involved. Choosing to simply break away rather than offering an alternative for everyone was simply selfish, greedy, and deserved the reactions it got.
The pandemic’s impact made the Super League seem like a possibility. It brought up the major problems that have been mounting in the beautiful game for decades and made it reach a boiling point. All those problems such as the wealth disparity, fans’ helplessness, rich owners’ greed and a lack of effective communication still exist.
The Super League might be dead for now, but this story is far from over. Yesterday, retired footballers in England launched a parliamentary petition, calling for the appointment of an independent football regulator. The petition already has more than 100,000 signings. Tensions are building and drastic changes are inevitable in the next few years.
Whether those will be for better or for worse remains to be seen.
Punter
Roar Rookie
According to who?
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
The MLS is rubbish.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
JB - we don't have as many now as we once did though. European Cup, European Cup Winners Cup and UEFA Cup. We used to have the anglo/italian cup - pre-season from memory and you have mentioned the old inter cities fairs cup and a few more at times!
Buddy
Roar Rookie
Chris - I recall about 3 attempts in the 1980's - at the time it was the 2 big spanish clubs, a few Italians, Liverpool and maybe Ajax - before Liverpool got banned after Heysel. Everyone said it wouldn't come back but people forget and new ideas or regurgitated ones appear on the horizon periodically. I expect we'll see a move again in some form or another.
Marcel
Guest
...and whilst all the table thumping about the moral purity of the game continues.....Citeh's plan to remove the first 3 rows of seating from their stadium, solely for the purpose of making the advertising hoardings twice as high...has gone pretty much unnoticed.
Nick Symonds
Guest
ON A SIMILAR THEME: - Explaining the 2021 MLS regular season schedule structure March 24, 2021 Major League Soccer released its schedule for the 2021 season on Wednesday with each of the league's 27 clubs set to play 34 games, 17 home and 17 away, over the course of the regular season. Here are all the details on how the two conferences will be aligned and how the schedule has been constructed for the coming season. Schedule Construction Eastern Conference The 14 Eastern Conference teams will play each of six regional Eastern Conference opponents three times (18 games) and the seven remaining Eastern Conference opponents twice (14 games) Eastern Conference teams will play two cross-conference games, facing a different Western Conference opponent for each of those matches (2 games) Western Conference Eleven of the 13 Western Conference teams will play eight regional Western Conference opponents three times (24 games) and the remaining four Western Conference opponents twice (8 games) Those 11 Western Conference teams will play two cross-conference games, facing a different Eastern Conference opponent for each of those matches (2 games) Due to the odd number of clubs in the Western Conference, two Western Conference teams will have a slightly different schedule construction: o Those two Western Conference teams will play seven Western Conference opponents three times (21 games), and the five remaining Western Conference opponents twice (10 games) o They will play three cross-conference matches against three different Eastern Conference opponents (3 games) - https://www.sportingkc.com/post/2021/03/24/explaining-2021-mls-regular-season-schedule-structure
chris
Guest
Buddy of course it will come around again but I think we've seen the end of the elites only league idea. Sure make it virtually impossible for the smaller clubs to ever win it but never ever make it completely impossible. Then you will indeed have a revolution of the masses (as per the recent SL), and club owners get turfed out.
chris
Guest
You may not think its based on sporting merit but at least its an open system and not closed like the doomed Super League. Man City was a basket case in reality up until the Saudis came along and they poured money in. This could happen to a Burnley or Brighton or Wolves. Not on the same scale as City but still possible. The point remains that its an open league, even allowing for the fact its (nearly) always the big teams that progress, end up playing each other and ultimately winning it.
jbinnie
Guest
Amer - your observations are not without some backing from the past. In 1955 a "new" competition was set up to allow the champions of each European league to participate in a European Cup. At first there was hue and cry with only a few "champions" taking part. Meanwhile, while this was all happening, the winners of national cups began to agitate as to why there was not a European Cup winners cup and so it came to pass, we had clubs all over Europe striving to win the league or the national trophy. Then came the magic bullet ,127,000 people in Glasgow turned up to watch a team from Germany and one from Spain play in the European Cup Final, on a Wednesday afternoon. All hell broke loose and the agitation began immediately ,why were only 2 clubs from each country allowed to participate.??? The upper management saw the writing on the wall and immediately set in motion various ideas to increase the number of participants "in Europe" Today we have a plethora of competitions involving European clubs and when this Super League idea came forth one could be forgiven for thinking "here we go again". Cheers jb
Amer Shoman
Roar Rookie
Exactly, UEFA & FIFA's answer to anything is more games. In an already congested schedule, it just doesn't make sense. They did it in the EURO and only made the group stage boring and overall fewer quality matches. Sadly, it seems like any change number one goal is more TV money rather than real development of the game.
Amer Shoman
Roar Rookie
Thanks, Vas. Appreciate your feedback. The sad thing is that because of this ridiculous plan, UEFA's new Champions League format went under the radar. They too never consulted players or managers, and most fans don't like this idea either. UEFA & FIFA's answer to any changes is always more games, which brings more money but is no guarantee to success. They did it in the EURO and it only dropped the competition's quality. As you said if they were smart enough to bring stakeholders on board, the pressure would have been on UEFA. The big clubs should have acted big by leading everyone through necessary changes forced by the pandemic. Do you think adopting the German ownership model of 50%+1 rule is the way going forward? I still have mixed feelings about it. Would love to know your opinion.
Vas Venkatramani
Roar Guru
Roberto, there was good enough incentive for the EPL clubs to abandon it, insofar that instead of having to play Brighton, Burnley or Wolves, they could play blockbusters against Barca and Juventus every week. No doubt the Super League, if it did go through, would be commercially successful. You're right in that the other clubs would get substantially more benefit, but at some point, even that would assume that there wouldn't be an ecosystem within the Super League which made some clubs more commercially appealing than others. And when that happened, what would the solution be? Weekly Barca v Real matches, because they can't stomach lower revenues when playing Liverpool or Arsenal? If this idea does come to pass again, it will be because it is an inclusive league, not an exclusive one as the first design was intended to create.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
As stated on the thread, the idea isn’t exactly new. The potential players may be different but that is all. It will come back again in some guise or another. After all, the EPL itself is a breakaway from the old football league running 92 clubs in the uk. There is a world of difference though between the aspirations of club owners and fans and it is amazing how often that is forgotten. We all understand the tribalism in football and we recognize that there are international rivals; but no rivalry is as fierce as the ones t]you get on the domestic front and that is what fans clamour for. In the uk at least, if you ask fans to choose between winning the EPL title and the champions League, it is the domestic trophy by a huge majority. Whilst it may be prestigious to be “champions of Europe” by far the majority of fans I have ever discussed the subject or read up on desperately want the title of English champions and the kudos that comes with it. Winning a derby game or a game against a team from a nearby team is very close to the heart – beating another European team just doesn’t have the same flavour and definitely not home and away for a season. If clubs find another set of fans such that they can dispense with the services of the more traditional types that have been supporting the game since the late 19th century, then the aspirations may merge and we’ll see change and a whole new horizon.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
You cant say the UEFA champions league is based on sporting merit, its about giving every country a piece of the financial action no matter how small their league is. Its a bit of joke to bring up promotion and relegation, because the champions league money is what gives teams the advantage in smaller leagues and they use that to constantly win the league, and is of no benefit to the teams getting promoted and relegated. The big teams anyway when was the last time any were relegated , the super league is about the big teams from big leagues which usually win their league and play champions league and win it anyway, playing other big teams and taking all the money.
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
The basic idea has been around for about 40 years now. Each time it gets raised, it's a step closer to becoming reality. The biggest flaw is that the Premier League generates so much cash, there is not a huge incentive for the six English clubs to abandon it. But for Real, Barca and Juve, who are stuck in stagnant leagues (in terms of revenue), the incentive to abandon them is huge. Might be the same for PSG (not sure on that one), the other big Northern Italian clubs would definitely see the benefit of abandoning the stagnant Serie A. Maybe even clubs like Celtic and Ajax would see the benefit as well.
Vas Venkatramani
Roar Guru
Good article Amer - you've hit some salient points around how the declining revenues, largely forced on by the pandemic, have possibly accelerated the speed in which this ridiculous decision was taken. There is a fundamental rule around change theory that is ubiquitous: know your customers, and know how to bring stakeholders onside. It is here the 12 clubs involved spectacularly failed. Their customers, or should I say, the fans of football, are not atypical consumerists of a product. They are avowed fanatics of a club, a sport, a cause, all of whom buy football jerseys courtesy of an organic affiliation they have. Trying to commoditise football was only going to be successful insofar as fans were willing to continue lining the pockets of their football clubs. But instead, the ownership of their clubs betrayed them. How did they betray them? Because by using the term "legacy fans", this gig was up. It was clear at that moment that owners of football clubs do not want passionate people in their stands, but people who will pay to come, consume a product, and leave. For those "legacy fans" living in the streets of London, Manchester, Liverpool, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan and Turin, they spend little more than the price of a season ticket and maybe one football shirt. That is a market of only 1 or 2 million at best. Compare that to catering for a worldwide audience that can fly in, buy all the merch from the gift shop, watch the game, and fly out. That's a market of multimillions, where the rate of return is far superior. That is why owners prefer customers over legacy fans. Second problem is they failed to bring the stakeholders onside - who were they? They were the likes of Leicester and West Ham, who occupied the UCL places at the time of this announcement. They were Everton, rich in history and heritage. They were the FA, UEFA and FIFA: all careful to look after their own product. The Premier League break up of 1992 only worked because it had enough clubs to form an effective coalition against the Football League, and it never closed the door on the clubs that weren't originally included in the deal. Do well, get promoted, you're in. The Super League failed because it designed itself to be a closed shop, where mediocrity (as all sporting teams are likely to face at some point) does not get punished.
Nick Symonds
Guest
IN OTHER NEWS: World Cup every two years just not on but with FIFA you never know Saudi Arabia's preposterous proposal for FIFA to stage the World Cup every two years is yet another clear demonstration of the game's penchant for self-destruction. As if a 48-team competition from 2026 is not enough to dilute its exclusivity. The Saudis' proposal of a feasibility study is on the agenda for discussion at the 71st FIFA Congress which will be held online at the weekend. - https://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/world-cup-every-two-years-just-not-on-but-with-fifa-you-never-know