European Super League, Morality And Hindsight

I have a raging apathy for the fortunes of the 'big' teams in Europe. That's not to say that I don’t enjoy watching them on TV, it’s just that I can’t get excited over who wins what. They all look the same to me, a bit like the Old Firm without the religion crap.

Actually, it’s more like one Arabic multi-billionaire's Showbiz XI versus some USA investment group’s Football Globetrotters.

But, it’s often said, it’s good TV and anyway it doesn’t impact on the game in Scotland. So why does the whole thing bother me and why shouldn’t we support their march to global dominance, including their oft-stated ambitions for a European Super League? Morality and hindsight, that’s why.

The big teams that dominate in Europe have been organised for some time and have often stated an ambition to form a European League. Funnily enough, in all their deliberations they are unanimous in one thing and that is in choosing which teams will definitely be in it… themselves, of course. As in all these commercially-driven ventures, the main issue is 'exclusion', i.e. the basic business principle of cutting down or eliminating the competition rather than encouraging competition - one of the central tenets of sport.  

So who are these teams, the Euroteams? Well, it’s a self-elected group who, for the moment, have no formal affiliation. From 2000-2008 there was a group of big European teams called G14, who became G18, and they lobbied UEFA on their own behalf including the threat of a breakaway Super League on various occasions. UEFA objected to their elitist constitution and in 2008 the G18 agreed to disband, having won some concessions on the format of the Champions League, and went on to form the European Clubs association (ECA) that has 201 members including Aberdeen,  Rangers (slot available soon?), Celtic and Hearts.

The ECA has some clout; it has recently negotiated better compensation cover for players in internationals and agreements to play WC/Euro qualifiers in batches of two (Wednesday/Saturday for example) thus getting  rid of those pesky one-day international break weekends.

Since disbanding in 2008 however, representatives of Arsenal, Liverpool, Barcelona and Real Madrid, for example, have all independently raised the spectre of a Super League so it would be reasonable to expect it back on the table soon.

The easiest way to identify who the Euroteams who will form the Super League might be is by revenue; that is, take the top money-earners from across Europe and form the league; that would probably be the criteria that any group would use to self select, just like the SPL.

This is where we come to one of the problems with the exclusion principle so loved by the big clubs. In business the dominant issue is the current year’s financial result - that’s what pay, bonuses and reputations rely on - not the long-term view. In fact, a lot of businesses, especially those that are listed, live or die by the quarterly results. Businesses and boards that have a sense of responsibility (hello RFC!) do, of course, look at long term planning but this is 3 to 5 years at best.

Football is not normal business; clubs have roots in the community that have been built up over many years. The clubs need this 'history' of course, because crowds still make up a large part of their revenue and, more importantly, they need the 'atmosphere' to sell the product as they call it.

In addition, and contrary to the current SPL headline story, very few clubs go out of business, most UK professional league clubs founded around the turn of the 19th/20th century, for example, still exist which is not the case in other businesses. Twenty years is nothing in football history.
 
So if you pick the top 20 now it’s a completely arbitrary selection. Try some hindsight, go back twenty years and look at who would and wouldn’t be in. Chelsea, Milan, Inter, Real Madrid, Man Utd? Don’t think so, if you look at the last eight in the European Cup in 1992 as an example. Sampdoria, Red Star, Sparta Prague, Anderlecht? Probably. Bit of a trick question of course because 91-92 was one of the old-style competitions where only the Champions of each country were selected, the very fact that a bunch of the 'big' teams saw fair competition depriving them of their god-given right is the reason they contrived to get it converted to the closed shop is it is today.

Have no delusions, it may be quite right and proper in someone’s opinion that the 'big' countries get four teams each and the diddies one OR LESS but it’s not a fair, open championship is it? It’s about protecting the status quo, no ambitious clubs are supposed to attempt to enter the fray. So, picking the top teams under any measure in 2012 would mean that it is fixed forever, no development or failure of any one to match the changes of the last 20, 30, 40 or whatever years. That’s not sport either is it?

For the record here are the top 10 teams in Deloitte rich list 2012 with their respective positions ranked by league attendances and by UEFA rating on performance over the last 5 years. By the way, Aberdeen are 133rd in rankings, Rangers 33rd, Celtic 54th and Hearts and Motherwell 177th equal! Celtic are also 12th in the attendance list and Rangers 22nd. I’ve added Dortmund, Hamburg, Marseille and Porto because they are in the top 10 by attendance or the UEFA rankings. So we end up with 14 teams who are rated as top 10 in any one of three criteria; wealth, crowds and UEFA 5 year ranking. Just to show how arbitrary these self-elected bodies are, I’ve indicated if they were in the G18 or not; you can see that eleven of those listed were but Chelsea, Schalke and Hamburg weren’t. However, seven of the G18 don’t make the top 14 listed and, if the Super League had got off the ground anytime between 2000 and 2008, they would have been in it to the exclusion of all others except perhaps that current season’s diddy team of the year. The arbitrary seven who were in G18 and would be in the Super League are Juventus, PSG, Ajax, PSV, Bayer Leverkusen, Lyon and Valencia. That’s all right then.

And that’s the morality and hindsight issue - the big teams are only the big teams at the moment and exclusion based on that arbitrary ranking goes against any sporting ethos.

Does this have any impact on Scottish Fitba? Well there is a shed load of money pouring into the game and the gap between the Euroteams and the rest of us is getting huge, they are getting richer and we are getting poorer in actual and comparative terms. Of course it impacts us. Deloitte points out in their annual report, for example, that Real and Barca are so far ahead of the rest of the Spanish teams that even a major shift in revenue distribution in Spain would still not impact on their positions as richest two teams in the world.

In England they have a bit of a quandary; the EPL makes so much money that no one really wants to upset the apple cart, however they are settling down to a regular two-horse race (that may be at best 3 or 4) and most of the clubs are not making money and that will eventually lead to unrest.

If the money that comes into football was more evenly distributed there would be a direct impact on the SPL qualifiers and the benefit would also filter down, for example, via the EPL and the Championship and the effect on the SPL would be real. It’s in the interests of all the smaller clubs that competition remains open so that we can get a wee shottie now and then. In addition there’s the fact that the more the Euroteams closed shop, the more cable and subscription TV will pay for and cover only that elite competition and that devalues every other cup and league.

Just to make it worse, very few of these rich clubs actually makes any money and none of them make anything serious. That’s the really stupid thing about it all, the clubs stack up debt and only the players, managers and the odd owner gets rich as well as the TV companies of course.

It’s a cash cow and the money is getting sucked out of football.

Earning huge TV payments that are just spent on equally huge wages for a select group of mercenary players and managers does nothing to progress the game by anyone’s criteria. It’s also very bad for any sport to build an elite group that keeps on playing each other using basically the same pool of players (and managers now); it’s like wind-tunnel testing cars, eventually they’ll all be the same except for the badge. And they will take us to this cliff edge and probably right over because, as stated earlier, businesses need to get rid of competition, sport encourages it, and the Euroteams are all about business.

Anyway, my apathy has turned to dislike in writing this. Don’t let them suck all the money out of football to make a few rich guys richer; don’t let them kill our game, get back to having a competitive European competition and a competitive SPL.

And while I’m on the soapbox; the Euroteams and their supporters hate International Fitba, it’s the very antithesis of their aspirations. Teams selected by anything other than who’s got the biggest wedge? An alternative game for the TV audience to buy, i.e. competition?  Absolutely not on, where’s the dosh in that?

So, bring on Euro 2012 as well!

ErnieErnie