Well, heck. That was a big day in the world of football, eh?
Not only did a bunch of the biggest and most successful clubs come out with their plans to form a breakaway, closed-shop competition, but one of those teams, Tottenham Hotspur, sacked their manager Jose Mourinho. Today I'll be talking about the European Super League idea, but only because I can only take on one earth-shattering topic per post. Still, it'll come up again at some point in this post, if fleetingly.
So the clubs involved are Spanish (Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Real Madrid), Italian (AC Milan, Inter, Juventus) and English (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Spurs). For the most part, they're the most successful and storied clubs in their respective countries, and in the case of Real Madrid, the most successful club in European competition. Though this doesn't mean they're winning trophies all the time - Manchester United's last Premier League title was 2013, Arsenal's was 2004 and Spurs last won it in 1961. Neither Inter nor Milan have won Serie A in about 9 years, because of Juve's dominance, and Atletico Madrid last won La Liga in 2014.
They've won other stuff since then, but this is the first thing that's come up in a bunch of the commentary I've listened to or read today: Arsenal currently sit ninth in the Premier League, having struggled to land a 1-1 draw with local rivals Fulham, who are in 18th place and headed for relegation. Juve, meanwhile, lost 1-0 to Atalanta, one of the upstart clubs this European Super League idea is meant to exclude (fun fact: in a weekend rife with goals, Juventus were apparently the only team in Serie A not score a goal), and lie fourth.
The other thing that everyone mentions is how hard-hit these clubs have been by the coronavirus pandemic, being a billion dollars or so in the hole as a result of lost revenue from postponed matches, and from not admitting fans for over a year. The ESA aims to create a closed shop, or cartel, if you like, where participants will be guaranteed a certain amount of money each season, regardless of position or performance. They'd (presumably) have more control over TV rights deals, and would aim to leverage their worldwide fanbases to command more merchandising and ticket receipts.
I've been pretty much glued to the internet all day, and I've taken the unprecedented step of downloading both the Guardian Football Weekly and Totally Football podcasts, to get as much information as possible. The common reaction is revulsion at the money-grabbing air of this announcement, and at the "Americanization" of football. I don't disagree with either of these viewpoints, but I fear the good pundits of Britain are relying on emotional arguments that won't really register with the owners of the ESA clubs.
Reactions have talked about the meritocracy of football, and the theoretical ability of any club, no matter how humble, to rise up to the top tier and challenge in Europe. This is the dream I pursue every time I play FIFA on my PS3 or Switch, by guiding Southend United from the doldrums at the bottom of League 2 to the pinnacle of the Champions League. But in practical terms, the ability of Forest Green or Dulwich Hamlets or even Leicester to come from nowhere and win the Premier League does nothing for the coffers of Manchester City, or United.
(Though it should be noted that United's coffers are full enough, thanks to their sponsorship deals, such that actually winning the league feels incidental to the business of drumming up more business)
Another talking point that often comes up in discussions of the ESA is that one of those teams has to take home the wooden spoon - would Juventus, who has dominated nine seasons of Serie A but won exactly no Champions League titles, be content with that?
To which I point out that, with the money they'd be pulling down and the guarantee of continued participation in the ESA, they don't really give a crap. This is the point of a US-style league - the clubs control everything and the earnings are shared out in a more egalitarian manner than they are in the meritocratic European-style leagues.
The other big one is the reaction of the fans, and here again I fear that the pundits and critics of the ESA plan are missing a trick. For one thing, Jonathan Wilson implied on today's Football Weekly that NFL fans don't have as much connection to their teams as English fans do to their clubs. Except that people can and do swear lifelong allegiances to an NFL team, and on top of that the Green Bay Packers are actually owned by their fans - an ownership model that doesn't exist at the top level in England.
I also suspect they're wrong, or at least overly optimistic, about the fans' commitment in England. Soccernomics, by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski, argued that fans are much more casual than the popular perception holds - allegiances change over time, in line with performance on the field and other factors, so that for example die hard Chelsea fans are dwarfed by those who might have supported another club before Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea two decades ago.
Kuper and Szymanski also suggest that leagues dominated by one or two teams, like Spain, actually see more attendance than supposedly egalitarian leagues, because fans of other teams turn up in greater numbers when Real or Barcelona come to town. This suggests that the ESA's clubs are (probably correctly) banking on the excitement of regular heavyweight matchups to draw eyeballs - after all the group stage of the Champions League draws almost no viewers, but the knockout stage (dominated by the big four leagues of Spain, England, Germany and to a lesser extent Italy) is what draws viewers.
My point here is that, while I would prefer for football to become more egalitarian rather than less, it feels like any proposed sanction against the ESA clubs will lack teeth. If they get expelled from UEFA competitions, then their own super league will keep them going nicely. If their players are banned from the World Cup and other international duties, then the clubs will be delighted, because their most important asset won't be exhausted and at risk of injury.
The only thing I can see that might give the ESA clubs pause is the supply of players. It'll probably be easy for them to snap up the most promising players from around Europe, but there might be ways for FIFA and UEFA to stop players from signing; and from coming back to "regular" football once they leave the ESA clubs.
Personally, I hate the idea, especially when it's clear that the whole point is to remove the romance of a Leicester City escaping relegation one season, winning the Premier League the next, and getting to the knockouts of the Champions League the season after. But it also seems clear that the clubs involved can probably do whatever they want, and even if they lose this round, not only will they claw back more concessions to entrench their power in the existing Champions League, but they'll also trot out the threat of a breakaway league again someday.
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