A Top Secret European Super League
By: Bob | April 2nd, 2007
In the past few weeks we’ve seen a lot of mummers about how UEFA wants to change the Champions League and how FIFA is concerned with the money and power of football clubs. It should come as no surprise that those rich and powerful football clubs who litter the Champions League have allowed discussion of a top secret European Super League to be declassified.
Doing the declassifying today is the Guardian, which is reporting that the big clubs and European Union politicians held a secret meeting last month to discuss forming a super league in the event that UEFA and FIFA intrude too much on their money making plans.
Among the politicians present were Toine Manders, a Dutch MEP who is a long-standing advocate of free-market principles for football, and Ivo Belet, the Belgian MEP who drafted the European parliament’s input into the white paper. Speaking on the BBC Parliament channel’s Record Europe, Belet said: “We could have in five or 10 years a European Union super league; combined with collective selling of television rights that would be the perfect solution.”
Manders explained on the same programme: “If we have a real internal market for the economic activities of professional football clubs, at the end you can have an EU league. If you have an internal market, that is feasible.”
This kind of talk is nothing new, of course. The collection of uber rich clubs that call themselves the G14 have been dreaming of this for a while and if you look at it from their very selfish point of views you can understand why. A super league would mean super money and that would be super for everyone involved.
From my perspective there would be little that is super about it. The Champions League already serves the purpose of bringing the big clubs together. It generates tons of interest and massive money for the clubs. It might intrude on the domestic leagues, but it still allows them to operate with the best clubs participating. It rewards play in the domestic leagues.
A proposed super league that would see teams like Manchester United and AC Milan leave the Premiership and Serie A might be good for the big clubs, but is it really good for the sport and for the fans? I don’t think it would be.
What do you think?
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Comments
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I think it would be a terrible idea, for all concerned in the long run. The big clubs might gain some control over their TV broadcasts, etc, since it sounds like they’d essentially be partners in the super league. But they’d lose their identities as domestic teams. Domestic rivalries are a huge part of football, and they’d be all but lost in this plan. The big teams would give up some of their most important rivalries, and essentially all the leagues would give up their biggest clubs. The small clubs would lose their chance for the occasional upset. We’d never see a West Ham over Man United surprise victory again. This is a short-sighted plan by a couple of money-grubbing executives that care nothing for the game. Bad for clubs, bad for fans, bad for football.
Posted from
United States
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Not while I live. It that were to happen, or if UEFA started talking about it, I would turn into Petition Sam.
Posted from
Canada -
im not sure…it definately has its flaws but there is a certain appeal about it….especially if they used a system where teams could be relegated back to the domestic leages and promoted into the ’super league’
overall though it will probably never happen
Posted from
United States -
Horrible idea without a lot of thought beyond the $$s that could be made; I completely agree with what Ian said. No Merseyside or Manchester derbies? No Southend knocking Man U out of the cup?
Not to mention if it is the G14, then Chelski will be winning the league until the next millenium with Man U, Liverpool and Arsenal gone. Who wants that?
Besides, if they sold out and went to a Superleague, all three clubs would be trashing proud traditions and a hundred or so years of history and makes them — what? — the EU of football? Bad news for fans, even if it feeds the fat cats. In the long run, what is the price of the integrity of this game worth? (Might not want to answer that.)
Posted from
United States -
Good Points:
- Best players in world in one league
- Very glamorous idea
- erm…Bad Points
- Potential threat to international tournaments as clubs become more powerful than national FA’s
- Death of “smaller” football clubs (unless clubs become feeder clubs…urgh)
- Restriction of potential growth of “smaller” clubs
- Money not spread equally to all areas of ground level clubs
- Rich clubs rule TV exposure
- History of the game destroyed due to Greed (almost getting that way with ECL teams dominating national leagues)
- Fans get forgotton
- Fans get financially squeezed out of gameSo, good idea or bad idea?
Posted from
Ireland
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