Twelve major football clubs from England, Spain and Italy announced a new European Super League on Monday. As they are wanting to break away from the biggest European competition UEFA Champions League.
Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur from Premier League. Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, and Real Madrid from La Liga. And from Serie A Inter Milan, AC Milan, and Juventus. They are looking to create a new European football competition and trying to break up the football pyramid.
Three more teams will join as founding members, which guarantees participation each year. However, another five teams will qualify annually, which will make it a 20-team competition. The games will occur in midweeks. This means they can play in domestic leagues but not in the Champions League.
What will be the format of the European Super League?
The inaugural edition will take place “as soon as practicable”, the announcement says. The competition will start in August and it will feature two groups of 10 playing home and away. The top three teams from each group will qualify for the quarter-finals.
The fourth and fifth-placed teams will play off for the remaining quarter-final spots. The quarter and semifinals will be played over two legs and the final is a single game at a neutral venue.
What do clubs get from playing in the European Super League?
MONEY. Europe’s top clubs are looking to create a guaranteed income annually from a guaranteed European competition. Currently, they have to qualify for the Champions League by placing high in their domestic competitions, and then make it through the season-long tournament to reach the high-profile latter stages.
The clubs have suffered a huge loss during this pandemic. Which also accelerated the creation of this competition by the clubs. In recent years Arsenal, AC Milan, and Inter Milan have struggled to qualify for the Champions League. However, this competition will give them a guaranteed qualification whatever their league position will be.
The Super League will bring them far more money than the Champions League. The founding clubs are expected to receive more than 10 billion euros in uncapped “solidarity payments” during their initial commitment period. They will also receive 3.5 billion euros for infrastructure investment and to offset their losses from the pandemic.
By comparison, UEFA competitions generated 3.2 billion euros in TV earnings in the pre-pandemic 2018-2019 season.
Fans and Pundits respond to the news:
The news of this competition spread like a fire and the reactions were especially negative. UEFA, Premier League, La Liga, and Serie A issued a joint statement threatening to ban participating clubs from “any other competition at domestic, European or world level”.
Fans also expressed their voice, with the Chelsea and Tottenham supporters’ trusts calling it a “betrayal”, and the Arsenal Supporters Trust said it as the “death of Arsenal as a sporting institution”.
Former Manchester United defender Gary Neville also expressed his anger at the clubs involved in this competition.
Conclusion:
The new European Super League is not going to start any time soon. They face a huge hurdle from the football governing body. The clubs won’t get any support on this occasion from their fans and ex-players either.
The notable absentees are German heavyweights like Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig. PSG are also among the teams who decided not to join the competition.
The biggest money-grabbing ownerships are the Glazer family of Manchester United. The Glazer has taken the most amount of money from the club than any other ownership in Premier League. The other two Americans-owned clubs in English football are Liverpool and Arsenal.
This competition will serve them perfectly and they won’t care about their clubs’ progress in terms of football and they will not grow as a football club as long as the owners can get money and the guaranteed place in European Super League.
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