Colleague Bucchioni on TMW:
The idea of the Super League is back and the world of football, regardless of a real war unfortunately taking place in Ukraine, ignites as and more than a year ago. The rags fly, the words are heavy during the “Financial Times Forum” dedicated to football on stage yesterday in London which was attended by all the top European leaders from UEFA president Ceferin to great rival Andrea Agnelli.
According to rumors, Agnelli himself should have presented at the Forum a new revised and corrected project of “Superlega 2.0”, but something must have happened to stop it, perhaps precisely the war, because the Juventus president, perhaps for opportunity in this difficult moment, is not went into detail, but nevertheless reiterated his intention to move forward on the idea together with eleven clubs that at the time “signed a 120-page contract that is still binding”.
As if to say that sooner or later the Superlega will be made.
And how will it be?
If Agnelli did not go into details, in the morning the German media “Wirtschaftswoche” had thought of revealing how the idea of the first Super League set aside due to the violent reaction of the football establishment could have been corrected.
According to what has filtered out, it would no longer be aimed at a closed competition between the twenty most important European companies, but the concept of meritocracy would return with promotions and relegations. To do this, of course, we need two championships, so here is the Super league A and the Super league B with twenty teams each, according to this “tip”.
There would be forty large European clubs called to participate in the new competition that Juve, Real, Barcelona and others would like to organize as soon as possible, as soon as there is clarity on the civil cases in progress and on the appeal to the European Court of Justice which I will write about later. Also in Super League B there should be relegations with promotion mechanisms from the presumed national championships not revealed by the German media.
On the other hand, it is certain that in Superlega A there will be no places reserved for historic clubs or for the richest, but the selection will only take place on a merit-based basis. And this, the closed championship, was one of the most contested things in the first project, now clearly outdated.
As mentioned, Agnelli did not enter into the merits, but he did not hide the desire to move forward, he did not use the mask, indeed, arguing that football in these conditions is no longer sustainable and “there is a desperate need for reforms” .
We should all agree on this, but unfortunately this is not the case.
How to do?
According to Agnelli, the Uefa monopoly needs to be demolished and he was very clear on this. According to the Juventus president, the system does not work because it is unable to manage a 75 billion euro industry under today’s monopoly regime. An appeal to the European Court of Justice is pending and should rule shortly. A historic ruling is expected, a bit like the one on Bosman in 1995. If the judges were to say that the monopoly is illegal and the football system should be liberalized, perhaps it would be the end of UEFA and the immediate green light to other subjects and to other competitions such as the Superlega.
Agnelli, in fact, when asked “if Juve will play in the Champions League in five years?”, He answered significantly: “He will play in the main European competition”.
Those who want to understand have understood and those who want the Super League are convinced that Uefa is a bandwagon managed on a non-economic basis, with timeless methods, bureaucratized and patronizing, and that instead a different, more modern organization would be able to produce more profits by increasing interest, selling the product better, and therefore ensuring sustainability for the whole system.
The reaction was not long in coming.
The toughest, as always, was the president of the Spanish League Tebas who defined the presidents of Juve, Real and Barca as “liars like Putin”. Agnelli did not want to reply to these words.
But just as tough was the historic enemy of the Juventus manager, namely the UEFA president Ceferin who underlined how, “Whoever wants the Super League lives in a parallel world and naturally will not be able to play in our tournaments”.
Then the low blow: “Last year they used the pandemic, now they are using the war for their interests.”
Real blows. But, as explained, with the stamped papers out of the way, the future of Uefa is even at stake in this fight, and the contenders give it to each other in no uncertain terms. All, unfortunately, in a very delicate moment for everything. And this is true.
It is also true that the idea of the Super League, based on the revised and corrected NBA model, cannot be demonized a priori and should instead be cultivated and analyzed to find a common synthesis.
Ceferin, on the other hand, responds with the new UEFA Champions League which will start from 2024-25 and will be even more open to medium-sized league teams and smaller clubs, going from 32 to 36 teams. Without any ranking, at least it seems. A little bit the opposite of what the market is asking, especially that of television rights, which in the world would like to sell the great challenges between big clubs, precisely a Supercampionato where the most spectacular football is played, at the highest levels to obtain more resources.
Ceferin’s populism, not surprisingly supported by Gravina, instead looks only to the votes and the support of the small federations which at the time of the elections count (obviously) as the big ones. It is a football that thinks about the management of power and not about reforms for innovation and sustainability. And we are not fooled by clichés such as “football belongs to the children who play in the oratory” because that football has not existed there for decades. It was the lords of Fifa and Uefa who transformed it into a great global business and now that they are struggling to support it they would like to go back. At least in words.
The truth, as always, perhaps lies in the middle, but as things are progressing it seems impossible to find a meeting point and a mediation between the parties.
By now the clash is total and perhaps we will return to reason after the ruling of the European Court of Justice.
The future of this football in debt and sick of gigantism will not be decided by members and practitioners unable to manage their movement in the best possible way, but it is in the hands of the European judges. The earthquake is in the air.
