– Only someone who really hates football can be behind the Super League – British “The Guardian” wrote on Sunday. It’s hard to disagree with that. Europe’s leading teams have decided to make a revolution for greater profits. They don’t want to share them with anyone: neither UEFA, nor smaller clubs.
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What do we know about the emerging Super League?
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Killing unpredictability
This is not a big surprise. Money has been ruling football for years. It determines its development. Increasingly higher transfers, increasing clubs ‘income, footballers’ earnings. Superliga is a logical consequence of what has been going on for a long time. It was speculated about its creation, but it seemed that this moment would not come so soon, that it was just such a scare. And here bam: on Sunday night, 12 European clubs confirmed their plans for a new competition. There is even a date to start them – in August, after the European Championships.
There is no surprise, there is a sadness in which direction football is going. The Super League will deprive us of the most valuable element of sports rivalry – unpredictability. You will be able to forget about the pictures that we have seen in recent years in the Champions League: the semi-finals with Ajax Amsterdam, Monaco or Lyon, the Porto-Monaco final, two finals with Valencia.
In what direction is football going
Superliga is another way to make football fans feel bad. There have been plenty of these recently. From 2026, as many as 48 teams will play at the World Cup, which will be divided into 16 groups. Next year’s World Cup will be the last one with only 32 teams. Everything for more profits. The European Championship, extended from 16 to 24 national teams, underwent a similar change. Today it is more difficult not to be promoted to the Euro than to be promoted.
The next World Cup will be held in Qatar. In stadiums built by mercenaries from Asia and Africa, whose passports are taken away and treated like modern slaves. International organizations led by Amnesty International have been alarming about this for months, and the only thing the football community can do are words of indignation from a few. – It is bad that this tournament was awarded to Qatar. Many workers are migrant workers from other countries and work continuously up to 50 degrees in the heat. They suffer from inadequate nutrition and a lack of drinking water, which is crazy at these temperatures, said Toni Kroos, footballer for Real Madrid recently.
The coach, Kazimierz Górski, said that if money played football, Qatar would be the world champion. For now, he will organize the world championship, but who knows if he will not buy a medal at the World Cup in the future. Just like six years ago in handball, when the hosts, full of stars from other countries, took second place at the world championship in Doha, beating, among others, on the way. white and red in the semi-finals.
Middle East investors are increasingly influencing European football. The Arab Emirates Sheikh has recently even invested in Beitar Jerusalem, a club that has for years been considered the most anti-Arab club in Israel. In a moment, in the Champions League semi-final, we will have a petrodollar derby of clubs managed by Arab owners: PSG – Manchester City.
UEFA intends to abandon the Financial Fair Play in the near future, which was supposed to level the playing field in football, but everyone tried to circumvent them with longer loans and creative accounting. The fate of the Superleague is in the balance, and on Monday the European federation voted to change the Champions League. This has been expanded to 36 teams in a new controversial format that is also expected to guarantee more money.
How to earn more
Domestic competitions are also changing. A year ago, the Spaniards organized the Super Cup in Saudi Arabia. And it is in the new format of Final Four, where the teams of Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid played alongside the national champion (Barcelona) and the winner of the Spanish Cup (Valencia). Effect? The last two fought in the final, and the “Królewski” won, which was a mockery of the competition. LaLiga boss Javier Tebas has long dreamed of playing matches in the USA. There have been discussions to organize league matches at times that are favorable to Asian viewers, such as El Clasico at 12:00 noon. Barcelona uses the slogan “More than a club” for advertising. But how to reconcile this motto with the performance in the elite Super League? How will he explain the break with tradition to fans?
A peculiar paradox: football, which allows you to break out of extreme poverty and the most dangerous streets of Africa or South America, has become a cynical business that strips fans of the remnants of dreams of romanticism, and players from weaker teams with a chance to compete with the best. – Created by the poor, stolen by the rich – such a football banner appeared four years ago at the Tunisian Club Africain stadium before the match against PSG managed by the Qatar.
The war between the guilty and the guilty
UEFA and FIFA are threatening clubs joining the Super League that they will be excluded from European and national competitions, and their players from national team appearances at championship tournaments. At the same time, both football federations are calling for solidarity and referring to morality. Total hypocrisy. Activists of the same federations are among the main responsible for the commercialization of football. In this war, because such a term is used in foreign media, it was also used by, among others PZPN secretary Maciej Sawicki in an interview with Polsat Sport, there is not only good and only bad. Top clubs, FIFA and UEFA, only think about profits.
– I fell in love with popular football, football fans, I dreamed of seeing how the team of my heart competes with the best. If the European Superleague develops, these dreams will end, the illusions of fans of teams that are not giants that they can win on the pitch in the best competitions will end. I love football and I can’t keep silent about it, I believe in an improved Champions League, but not in the rich stealing what people have created, which is nothing but the most beautiful sport in the world, wrote Ander Herrera of PSG. Beautiful words that sound quite funny, though, from a footballer belonging to a club sponsored by human rights abusers, the impossibly rich Qatar.
Do Super League German clubs have not entered at the moment. “It’s a football killing,” says Rudi Voeller, sporting director of Bayer Leverkusen, of the new competition. There are more similar voices in Germany. Voeller also refers directly to Liverpool, one of the 12 teams joining the Super League: “It’s a shame for teams whose fans sing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. You’ll Never Walk Alone” is Liverpool’s anthem and the first fans protested in front of Anfield Road Stadium, no one even asked them and their players for their opinion.
Real Madrid president Florentino Perez, who became the first Superliga boss, argued in an overnight interview on “EL Chiringuito” that the new project would also benefit these smaller clubs. It seems that it will kill competition in the national leagues if their authorities do not finally throw out the rebels. Already today, Atletico, Barcelona and Real have a gigantic advantage over the rest of the teams in LaLiga. The profits from the Super League will only increase these disparities. It will be the end of not only football romance, but also real competition.
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