You remember the European Super League, don’t you? When 12 of football’s biggest clubs decided to cut themselves off from the world and proposed a hopelessly dull, commercial bout of mutual masturbation where they play each other until the end of time? How we were told this was a brilliant idea because this dirty dozen represented the best of the best and we’d be treated to games between elite sides? Well three of those “elite” teams were eliminated from the Champions League this week, in a karmic occurrence that proves exactly why the European Super League is such a horrendous idea.
Barcelona, Atletico Madrid and Juventus all exited the Champions League after five games of the group stage. Manchester United and Arsenal, two more of the ESL founders, didn’t even make it that far. The two Premier League outfits are playing Europa League football this season. We were promised a competition showcasing the best of the best. Having collapsed in the group stage, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid and Juventus would struggle to argue they are even the worst of the best.
READ MORE:
This sort of competitive nuance and excitement is exactly what the ESL was structured to avoid. The breakaway competition was devised with just the slightest nod to competitive aspirations. While five clubs would be allowed to join the eventual 20-team competition based on performance in their domestic league, the other 15 would be codified as “founders”. These teams would be permanent members, unable to be relegated, and would also steer competition rules and decisions. These European giants wanted to live like sulky children, taking the ball and going home to make their own self-serving modifications to the sport.
But this season’s Champions League has made a mockery of the very concept upon which the ESL was built. Two founder members aren’t even in the competition. Another three have just been unceremoniously dumped out of it, and AC Milan and Tottenham Hotspur could yet join them depending on their final group result. But really, for all its marketing spin about offering exciting clashes pitting the best teams against one another, football supremacy is not the reason the ESL was formed.
Sadio Mané with the cool finish 👌
#UCL
The 12 clubs initially linked with the scheme could all be found in the Forbes list of the 16 richest football clubs in the world at the time of the proposal. Which makes sense. That can be the only reason for including clubs like United (last league title: 2013), Arsenal (last league title: 2004) and Spurs (last league title: King Henry VIII presented the trophy). AC Milan won last season’s Scudetto but, at the time of the ESL announcement, they were without a title for a decade. These clubs were selected on their financial and commercial merits, not their sporting ones.
It is a lack of sporting merit that has exposed the plan for the flagrant money-grab that it is once again. Fans rejected a series of stakes-less ties between these teams once before. Very little that we have seen in the intervening year will have changed their minds. The idea of a cordoned-off competition for the rich to make themselves richer rankled at the time. This closed-shop seems even more ridiculous now considering that some of these teams that feel like they warrant this VIP treatment are not particularly good. The ESL concept is not going away but, little by little, any sense behind it is.
