European Super League may be dead, but the dispute will continue
A few weeks ago, after the announcement of the European Super League (ESL), distinguished attorney Walter Scott, QC, penned an article published by this newspaper and on his online discussion publication Public Opinion looking at the fact that football is much more than sport, it is big business.
That is a view we share with Mr Scott, and we have so argued in this space repeatedly over many years.
The ESL, for those who came in late, basically sought to guarantee top-level European football for 15 founder members every season without the need to qualify on the pitch.
Six English Premier League teams — Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, and Tottenham Hotspur — joined forces with Spanish giants Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Atletico Madrid, as well as Italian trio Juventus, Inter Milan, and AC Milan to launch the competition.
The breakaway league, as it was called, was being financed by US investment bank Jpmorgan Chase, which was offering the founding clubs an initial pot of 3.5 billion euros (US$4 billion) for infrastructure investment and to offset costs associated with the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The founding clubs were also to receive a further 10 billion euros in what was termed “solidarity payments” over the life of the initial commitment — much more than in the current Champions League.
However, furious backlash by fans and threats of legal action from football authorities and politicians resulted in the collapse of the ESL within 48 hours. Indeed, UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin had described the ESL as a “disgraceful, self-serving proposal from a select few clubs purely fuelled by greed”.
Mr Ceferin, though, should know that football has been heading in this direction for years, despite the pyramid structures established by UEFA and Fifa that incorporates promotions and relegations.
Mr Scott, in his piece, asks a very pertinent question: “Why should an owner invest billions of dollars in a team to risk it being wiped away after one bad season and the team is relegated to a lower division, where basic costs cannot even be met?”
He also argued that if professional football does not create a business model that minimises the inherent investment risk — specifically relegation — and maximises value inclusive of profits, football will become an also-ran in professional sports.
The move to launch the ESL was grounded in the belief that professional football’s present business model is flawed, as the Goliaths of the game are the only ones with enough cash to buy the best players and resources, thereby crushing any semblance of a level playing field.
But some football analysts have argued that the ESL, as announced, would simply be a rubber stamp of the current business model.
It’s a discussion that, we expect, will continue for some time, as there are strong views on either side, just as there were when Mr Kerry Packer shook the cricketing world in 1977 with the announcement of his World Series Cricket.
The debate is fascinating and we welcome it as much was we look forward to improvements in the game on and off the pitch.
Except for the views expressed in the column above, the articles published on this page do not necessarily represent the views of the Jamaica Observer.