The story of how football supporters forced big-shot club-owners into an embarrassing U-turn within 48 hours of the Super League's controversial unveiling.
Why was there a need for the European Super League?
If you follow football, you must surely be aware that Top 4 teams from the Top 5 leagues (Premiere League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1) and generally 1-2 teams from other leagues across Europe make it to the UEFA Champions League (UCL), for which they get UCL revenue as well as revenue from National League standings. Simply put, the first gets more revenue than the second, second more than the third and so on. If a club doesn’t make it to the Top 4, they get to compete in the UEFA Europa League, the funding for which is much lesser than the UCL not only in terms of absolute revenue but also TV revenue, etc. since not a lot of people watch the Europa League.
So, a grand total of 32 teams participate in the UCL; and UEFA more or less splits the revenue across these teams by their National League standings. But amidst the pandemic, UEFA proposed a slight change in the format to now include 36 teams instead of 32 which would result in more games and potentially more TV revenue starting from the year 2024.
But here’s the catch, the addition of 4 new teams would imply more division of revenue and the “big clubs” are already on thin ice. Some top football clubs have revealed debts in hundreds of millions of dollars, which have only doubled over the past year owing to the COVID crisis. Barcelona is under a gross debt of $1.2 billion and Real Madrid stands a close second with $901 million in debt. One of the most obvious and evident explanations for this situation is zero stadium revenue and ticket sales since March 2020 whereas the stadium maintenance and other variable costs have remained unchanged.
The European Super League (ESL), which was backed by JP Morgan Chase with a staggering funding of $4.2 billion, was nothing short of a desperate attempt for these clubs to keep their heads above water.
European Super League Format
The ESL was supposed to consist of 15 permanent teams immune to relegation and 5 guest teams who would be selected each season based on their performance in the previous domestic season. Europe’s most elite clubs, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur from Premier League; Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid from La Liga; and Inter Milan, Juventus, AC Milan from Serie A were the founding 12 members of the ESL. The other 3 rumored teams were believed to be Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.
The tournament would follow a knockout format involving 2 groups of 10 teams playing in home and away matches mid-week.
Where did it all go wrong?
For decades, fans have associated football for being more than just a franchise sport. Football has been a huge part of the culture of innumerable European countries. The stories of legends of the sport have inspired community spirit, tradition and inculcated a sense of immense passion in the youth. The very reason fans love and adore this game globally is because of the fact that anyone can beat anyone on "their day". Fans love an underdog, it’s a modern day David vs Goliath story for them, with every nail-biting match and that gives them hope. That narrative would be killed with the implementation of the ESL.
Fans did not hesitate to express their disdain towards the ESL calling it a “greedy pursuit of money” and the “death of football” or even “America’s desperate attempt to invade European football”. UEFA also commented that there would be a possibility to boycott the clubs participating in the ESL in the future. Following the instant heat from fans, clubs were quick to withdraw from the ESL, presidents of multiple clubs resigned, then came the apologies and widespread backpedaling.
A JP Morgan spokesperson said, “We clearly misjudged how this deal would be viewed by the wider football community and how it might affect them in the future. We will learn from this.”
Would football really be football without relegation? Could an elitist league ever compare to and live up to the traditions, heart and soul of football? The answer is a firm NO.
“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I can assure them, it is much more serious than that.” - Bill Shankly
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