The Origin Of The European Super League Idea - Naptu2

The origin of the European football super league idea - by Naptu2.

The idea of a European Super League is not new. It has been discussed since the 1990s. In fact a super league was almost established in 1998. The underlying factor behind this idea is an ideological struggle between football’s governing bodies and the major football clubs and countries.


Ideological battle

FIFA believes that football is a global game that has a pyramid structure. You have the rich and powerful nations and clubs at the top of the pyramid and the smaller and developing nations and clubs at the bottom of the pyramid. It believes that in order for football to grow, the smaller clubs (including academies) and developing nations (including African countries) need to have a share of the massive football revenues (because they develop the players) and that the small nations and clubs need to be able to play against the big nations and clubs.

However, the big football nations and clubs believe that they make the money and so they should get a massive share of the revenue. They hate the financial uncertainty that comes with not qualifying for major tournaments and they want to be in those tournaments all the time. For example, European nations hated the idea that a small country like Morocco could qualify for the 1994 World Cup while power houses like France and England failed to qualify. The big European clubs hated the idea that small clubs from small countries like Czechoslovakia could qualify for the European Cup, while big teams like Liverpool and Manchester United were left out.


1) European Super League: The European Super League was originally proposed in the mid-1990s. It had begun as a rumour and some clubs had made demands of UEFA. The big clubs did not like playing against small clubs and they wanted more money and guaranteed incomes. At that time clubs like Steaua Bucharest and Red Star Belgrade could win the Champions Cup. Then in 1997 an Italian company, Media Partners investigated the idea. However, the idea collapsed when UEFA expanded the Champions League. It was in order to placate these big clubs and leagues that UEFA allowed more clubs from these countries to play in the Champions League. Previously only league winners played in the Champions League. The Champions League (previously known as the European Cup) was only for league winners, the Cup Winners Cup was for FA Cup winners and the UEFA Cup was for the top 3 teams (in each league) that did not qualify for the Champions League or the Cup Winners Cup. UEFA scrapped the Cup Winners Cup in 1999.

The idea of a European Super League died down and resurfaced in the early 2000s, then in the late 2000s. Every time UEFA placated the clubs with more money and more spaces in the Champions League. COVID 19 has meant that even the big clubs are suffering (look at what's happening to Barcelona) and so they believe this is the best opportunity to finally implement the Super League.

It has now become almost impossible for clubs like Red Star Belgrade and Steaua Bucharest to win the Champions League as the competition is now dominated by teams from Spain, England, Italy and Germany.

2) American influence: It’s not surprising that the latest attempt to launch a super league was bankrolled by an American company, J.P. Morgan and that it had the support of the American owners of Liverpool and Manchester United. The model that was proposed is the model that is used in the major American sports leagues. There are no promotions or relegations in the NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL. The clubs know that they are going to play in the same league every season and so their main revenue is guaranteed. These clubs also don’t have to share revenue with smaller or poorer clubs from Mexico, Central America or the Caribbean for example. This is unlike what happens in European football where big clubs like Manchester United and Arsenal can fail to qualify for the Champions League and thus lose out on Champions League revenue. A club like Leeds United could play in the semi-final of the Champions League and then fail to qualify for the competition the next 2 seasons and almost go bankrupt because they had expected to earn Champions League revenue. Leeds were eventually relegated and it took many years before they were able to return to the Premier League. The big clubs really do not like this uncertainty.

Furthermore, the American leagues are global brands. There is no basketball league anywhere in the world that comes close to rivalling the NBA. The winners of the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB) and the National Hockey League (NHL) are dubbed “world champions”, even those these leagues are North American leagues. League matches sometimes take place in Europe and Asia and thus the entire world is their market. The major European clubs envy this situation and want to replicate it.

3) FIFA Club World Cup: There used to be a tournament called the Intercontinental Cup or Toyota Cup. It was contested by the winners of the European Cup/European Champions League and the winners of the Copa Libertadores (the South American equivalent). The winner of the competition was recognised as the best club in the world. This was because it was believed that Europe and South America had the best football clubs in the world and therefore a match between their best teams should produce the best team in the world. The Intercontinental Cup ran from 1960 till 2004.

FIFA began its own competition, called the Club World Cup, in 2000 because it felt that it needed to make it a truly global competition and also to ensure that clubs from Africa, Asia, North America and Oceania also benefit from the competition. However, in order to attract the big European and South American clubs, FIFA gave them a bye directly into the semi-finals. There’s a lot of scepticism about the Club World Cup in Europe. Many Europeans believe that the winner of the Champions League is the best team in the world and they believe that the Champions League is a superior competition to the Club World Cup.

Furthermore, European clubs do not like the idea of releasing players for competitions like the African Nations Cup and the World Cup. They believe that they own the players and pay their wages and so they cannot understand why they should lose the players to the African Nations Cup in the middle of the season. They also hate the idea that the players might return from international duties with injuries which would negatively affect the clubs. FIFA has started paying the clubs compensation for injuries suffered by players while on international duty.

4) The Fans: The biggest opposition to the idea of the European Super League came from the fans. The fans realised that they would have to spend more money travelling because the distances they would need to cover in order to attend a game every week were greater. Furthermore, most of these clubs began as organisations that had strong links with their local communities and the fans believe that the interests of these communities should be paramount and they believe that the current owners see the clubs as global brands whose main purpose is to make money, rather than organisations that serve the interests of the communities in which they are based. The fans also believe that the benefits that small clubs gain from being able to play against the big clubs are very important to the game of football and they believe that many small clubs will die if they lose those benefits and this does not serve the interest of football.

5) The FIFA World Cup: Something similar is playing out in international football. The big European nations do not like the fact that smaller nations from Africa, Asia. North America and Oceania get equal opportunities with them at the World Cup. Some Europeans talk about Germany’s 8-0 defeat of Saudi Arabia at the 2002 World Cup and Russia’s 6-1 defeat of Cameroon at the 1994 World Cup and they say that the tournament would have been better if some of the European teams that failed to qualify had been in the tournament instead. In order to placate them FIFA has proposed a change to the tournament that will see some countries receiving a bye into the second round while other countries play a qualifying stage to join them.

6) Bossman Ruling: This is the second major challenge to FIFA's welfare policy (although the big clubs have promised to continue supporting the policy). When FIFA and the clubs mention a "pyramid", they are basically referring to FIFA's welfare policy. FIFA believes that players are usually developed by small clubs and some players come from developing nations. They believe that these small clubs and developing nations must also get a share of the revenue that football earns and that it shouldn't all go to the big clubs and rich nations.

The first major challenge to this idea was the Bosman ruling in 1995.

Previously it was an established rule that the club that developed a player could determine which clubs the player moved to in subsequent years and that these small clubs would also get a share of the transfer fees. For example, Bosman joined Standard Liege in 1983 and then moved to RFC Liege in 1988. He wanted to move to a French club in 1992, but his first club (Standard Liege) blocked the move. Bosman then sued the 2 clubs, UEFA and FIFA and the European Court of Justice ruled that a feeder team could not block a player from moving from one club to the other.

This ruling also made it illegal to limit the movement of European players within the European Union. Previously most leagues had limits on the number of foreign players that could play in a match or be signed by a team. For example, Serie A teams could only sign 3 non-Italians. The ruling abolished such limits.