I don’t think anyone has missed the recent story of a so-called ‘European super league’ being in the process of creation. It’s an exciting prospect at first glance, especially for Arsenal fans. Watching big games every single weekend sounds fun right? Why then, is it that the masses have turned against this project?
Let’s start by getting the basics straight. The European Super League would be a coalition of the English ‘big 6’, three Italian teams as well as three Spanish teams. Notably, there are no German nor French teams involved in this. Although the reason behind the lack of German teams is unknown, there are obvious reasons why PSG isn’t involved in this. But sure, before sowing this new league completely apart, let’s look at some possible positives.
This new super league would consist of 12 teams playing each other week in, week out. Arsenal fans might be the big winners in this scenario as it is a free ticket to a sort of Champions League without the threat of relegation. No way to screw it up this time. This also reflects the actual best teams in the world (with the exceptions of us) much better than the current European competitions. With all due respect, many English teams that miss out on European football because they play in a competitive league would absolutely smash most of the Spanish and smaller European teams qualifying for Europa League and even Champions League football.
It just doesn’t feel right that teams like Dynamo Kyiv, Shakhtar Donetsk, Lokomotiv Moskva, and Zenit Sankt Petersburg all play Champions League football every single year and benefit from the financial benefits yet teams like Arsenal, Everton, and Leicester need to work their socks off to qualify for the Europa League. The Super League still doesn’t have a way for teams to qualify in but at least Arsenal are qualified so what the hell ey.
That’s about where the fun ends, however. The real reason why the teams involved are so interested is the money at stake. A reported figure of over 350 million pounds just as a participation reward is obviously attractive. The second reward of around 230 million depending on results just adds cream to the top of the cake. You don’t need to be a genius to see why Stan Kroenke has spoken so highly of this prospect. “It would be the best way to make Arsenal the biggest club in the world”, Stan said.
He also ensured fans that it would be “in the best interests of the club” to make this super league a reality. Let’s help Stan out a bit and correct him by saying it would be in HIS best interest to make hundreds of millions of pounds each year. To add a bit of spice to this story, UEFA, the FA, and several other European football federations have come out with the following statement: All participating clubs would be banned from their domestic leagues, domestic cups as well as all UEFA-run European tournaments, including the Europa- and Champions League.
On top of that, all players of the participating teams would be banned from playing for their respective national teams. Jeez, we must be done now, right? Nope. Reports have also come out that UEFA is preparing a SIXTY BILLION EURO lawsuit against the clubs in question. Sixty (60) BILLION (with a B) euros. Don’t even try figuring out how we would survive that. But why?
Firstly, the money that these clubs would have at their disposal would give them an unprecedented financial advantage, totally sinking all other leagues. The broadcasting revenue for the Premier League, La Liga, and Serie A would completely plummet. The Champions League would be uninteresting, and the general public would lose all interest in domestic football. Would you watch the Premier League if the title race were to be decided between Spurs, Everton, Leicester, and West Ham? I know I wouldn’t.
And what if you were a young prospect, say Erling Haaland. Would you consider joining any team that doesn’t play in the super league? I wouldn’t. The top teams outside of the super league would have a tenth of the wage budget of even the worst super league team. The economic difference would be woeful. The dominance of 12 teams with no way to get relegated would be unprecedented. It would be the end of football as we know it and the end of a long history of domestic competition.
Why? Because greedy owners want to make money. Not only that but it would mean the end of global competitions such as the world cup. All of the best players in the world would have to choose between playing for a club in the super league or having the opportunity to represent their country. As always, money talks, and the money definitely wouldn’t come from the national team.
So here we are. Arsenal is playing Juventus and Real Madrid every week, sorry, LOSING to Real Madrid and Juventus every week and every national team would be stripped of all their star players. The Euros and the world cup are now as interesting as the Russian third division. But hey! At least Mikel Arteta has a transfer budget of 300 million pounds, right? This European super league is the result of big-club owners getting greedier and greedier, slowly killing football to get money.
It would be fun for two seasons before becoming the new normal. Fans would realize the consequences and boycott their teams. The teams involved would be forced to return to their former competitions and in the meantime, we’ve left a massive hole in the history books and clubs would have a hard time cutting down their pay bills. We would have caused a massive earthquake to European football, deleting much of the progress we’ve made during the past 30 years. Domestic leagues would be a wasteland. The top 6 would come back to a poor English division that has had to shuffle up 6 new teams with Southampton in a title charge.
It would be a shame for humanity to see this get successfully completed and I’m truly sad that our club is a part of it. This is not the way for Arsenal to ‘get big again’ and as UEFA has stated, it must be stopped at all costs. Every football fan needs to make their opinion clear on this matter. Six selfish teams abandoning football for their own good is against football’s own DNA.
At the end of the day, I don’t think these plans will by any stretch of the imagination become reality. There are so many possible outcomes of this story as well as a lot of ways for this to go wrong. Players could boycott clubs, fans could boycott TV licensing, etc. Clubs need to make that equation and leave these plans as quickly as possible, including Arsenal. Stan Kroenke talks about his wish to make Arsenal the best team in the world yet hadn’t invested a single British pound into our club until last summer. Perhaps start there, Stan?
The European super league needs to be stopped. End of discussion.