The National Backlash Against the European Super League
The gentrification of football is killing the sport
Twelve major football clubs recently announced the creation of a European Super League (ESL). The plans immediately drew a fierce backlash from UEFA, domestic leagues, governments, and football fans in general which accuse the proposal of undermining soccer's meritocracy. The UEFA’s response was swift — any players that would participate in the ESL would be excluded from all international competitions, World Cup included.
On April 18, three Spanish clubs (Real Madrid, Atlético de Madrid, FC Barcelona), three Italians clubs (Juventus Turin, AC Milan, Inter Milan), and six English clubs (Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham) declared their intention to no longer participate in the Champions League — a flagship European competition organized by the UEFA — to launch a competing "Super League". The initiative will pit the continent's most prestigious clubs against each other in an almost closed championship made up of fifteen permanent member clubs (regardless of their performance in their national championships) and five pre-selected teams each season.
The secessionists claimed that they were motivated by the desire “to revive football and please the fans”. However, according to UEFA, the Superleague initiative is a maneuver intended to push the "sole interest" of selected rich clubs with the ultimate goal to share the entire spoils of TV rights among themselves. In a scathing press release published this Sunday, UEFA called on "football lovers, supporters, and politicians, to join [her] to fight against such a project, would it materializes".
Fans of clubs involved in the ESL initiative started showing their opposition towards their respective club, by hanging banners outside of stadiums on Monday. A spokesperson for the group told the Athletic:
"We feel we can no longer give our support to a club that puts financial greed above the integrity of the game. It's disgraceful and absolutely disgusting what the owners have done. We don't know how it got this far without fans being consulted. They have sold their soul. No Liverpool fan could get on board with this Super League. It would be good to hear the manager and the players come out and back the fans on this."
Facing an unexpected backlash, the multibillion-dollar plans for a European Super League of top soccer clubs quickly collapsed after the six English clubs, half of the league’s members, withdrew from the project. The Italian club Inter Milan pulled out as well, and a top official of the league later confirmed that the entire project had been suspended.
The ESL announcement exposed the shameless hypocrisy of UEFA
Many of those who spent Sunday spitting fury at the greed of the conspirators have been complicit, over the last 30 years or so, in giving birth to the ESL. It is true, perhaps most of all, of UEFA, which has grown rich on the proceeds of the Champions League by bowing to the demands of its most powerful constituent clubs — giving more and more power away just to keep the show on the road. It is true, even, for the rest of us — the news media and the fans — who celebrated the multimillion-dollar transfers and the massive television deals and turned a blind eye on the increasing “commodification” of football.
Make no mistake, the reason UEFA is angered at the ESL has absolutely nothing to do with the threat to the so-calling “meritocratic” nature of European football — that ship sailed long ago. No, UEFA is fighting back because the ESL threatens its cash cow that is the Champions League. The timing of the ESL announcement (Sunday 18th April) was specifically designed to kneecap the proposed extension to the Champions League, in which UEFA was supposed to announce that each year, two elite clubs (based on their UEFA Coefficient) that failed to qualify for the Champions League, would be invited to join the competition regardless of their national performance.
What it means is that if one year, Real Madrid had a shocker and finished 15th in the Spanish La Liga, by virtue of its rich history (but mostly because UEFA cannot afford to have a Champions League without them in it), Real Madrid would still qualify for the Champions League. Meritocratic? No. Honest? Hardly. The spirit of the new version of the Champion’s League is very close to the ESL’s aristocratic nature. In reality, the European national leagues already play second-fiddle to the Champions League commercially.
The nation counter-attacks
The ESL organizers were certainly taken off guard by the strong nationalistic resistances. Locked in their internationalist Ivory Tower, the congregation of billionaires who own Europe’s most iconic clubs failed to realize that Europe is not the US — and consequently that an “NBA of football” made no sense in the context of a continent composed of strong national identities.
The ESL announcement has struck a sensible cord in Europe where right-wing-populist parties have seen their vote share increase steadily and consistently since the 1990s. Because of the vaccine blunder, opposition to the European Union is at an all-time high. For millions, the European project is nothing but a Neo-Feudal Kleptocracy serving its Corporate Lords — an entity whose sole purpose is to facilitate the extraction of the wealth of 500 million people via the EU's central governance machinery.
As such, for many European citizens, the ESL represents the transnational elites’ latest attempt to create a supranational entity that will further undermine already weaken national sovereignties. This is the reason why the backlash against the ESL was so vigorous in the post-Brexit United Kingdom.
Football no longer has a working-class soul
From roaring stadiums to communities in the local boozers of post-industrial towns—football has been the bedrock of European working-class culture for generations. Now, like many things, the sport is being hijacked by the upper class—billionaire club owners and executives who live far from where the sport began.
The ESL is a stupid idea that has no value other than to line the pockets of club owners. But make no mistake, this is just the Champions League without the possibility to get kicked out at the Group Stages every year — simply the “best bits” of the Champions League without the filler. People complaining about the impact to good, old-fashioned working-class fans having to shell out to crisscross Europe each week should have raised this concern 25 years ago, now is too late.
Football fans like myself slept-walked into the trap when UEFA started allowing 2nd, 3rd and 4th placed teams to qualify for the Champion’s League. And we collectively watched the competition in droves, filling it with cash and fuelling it to the point where the participating clubs became so wealthy that they finally realized they did not need UEFA at all.
Football fans in larger European countries are starting to experience what the smaller country fans (Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Scotland…) have gone through 25–30 years ago… The corporatization eats up and kills the joy of the game. All you are left with is a commercial enterprise called football when one can decide which brand to choose and “support”. Football’s biggest strength was its unpredictability but gone are the days when Porto could win the Champion’s League. I recently reflected on the fact that — apart from the World Cup — I am no longer excited to watch football games. As national leagues gradually lose every aspect of excitement, I would rather spend my evening watching a movie or playing video games.
In any case, RIP Football.