All Things Sports

I’d like to take you back to the year 2021: a time of great happiness and joy for many. As we all sat in our homes and did well, not much as for most people around the world, quarantines were still very much in place and we spent most of our days worrying about the dangers of the next Covid variant. 

However, during this period the owner of football(soccer) club Real Madrid Florentino Perez, after coming to agreements with the heads of other major clubs including FC Barcelona and Juventus, announced the creation of the European Super League. It is a proposed competition that has been created with the intention of rivaling the Champions League. It would involve 64 teams for the men’s competition and 32 in the women’s competition with each competition having 3 and 2 divisions respectively. There will be a league-phase where teams try to advance out of their group to the knockout-phase, starting with quarterfinals. 

However, the actual competition is not the main point of discussion, rather it is the motivations surrounding the competition as well as the reactions of the football world. When it was originally announced, fans were livid, labeling it greed at its finest. In fact protests broke out across Europe with fans showing their disapproval of the new competition(although in Manchester they blended in with the protest of the Glazer family owning Manchester United). It got to the point where almost every major club that was originally supposed to be a part of the proposed league(which was originally 12 teams) pulled out. After the dust cleared from its demolition, only 3 teams remained: Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, and Juventus. It got so bad that FIFA and UEFA actually did something that the fans agreed with: they threatened punishment, sanctions, and bans for players and teams that participated. However, on Thursday, a court in Europe ruled that UEFA and FIFA could not punish teams for joining the league. Thus, the league was given new life and an announcement by Florentino Perez confirmed that the intent to create it, although with the new format mentioned above, was very much present. 

Now let’s see why he is pushing for it, and why some fans are in support. The easiest answer for clubs is money. They stand to make a much larger share of revenue than they did under UEFA, and Barcelona and Real Madrid have even received 1 billion euros already in damages as a result of the ruling. Now as a Barcelona fan, I am happy that my club will no longer be broke, but the methods are questionable no doubt. Also, the fans benefit as games would be televised for free to the fans, who get to see their favorite teams and the world’s biggest players compete a lot more than they did with the Champions League. The amount of memes about not having to use illegal sites has been slightly concerning to say the least. However, many are also against, labeling it “anti-football” to erase one of the most prestigious competitions in the UEFA Champions League, something with insane amounts of history, pedigree, and entertainment just because of greed. For once, FIFA and UEFA have the support of their fans, however they themselves are not in the right because of one thing that is surprisingly being left out of the conversation: the new UCL format. 

You see the Champions League, starting next season, will have a completely different format. It will have 36 teams in one division. It will have a group phase where the top 8 will automatically advance to the knockout phase while teams 9-24 fight it out for the remaining 8 spots in the knockout phase. It will be in a league format with all teams being in the same group and 8 games being played to determine the positioning. So a league phase and then a knockout phase with more games and more teams? This sounds very similar to the Super League. Furthermore, it is being done with the intention of MORE MONEY. Sounding familiar? 

That’s exactly my point: there isn’t much of a change going on here. If someone asks me what do I prefer between this new UCL format and the Super League my answer will be “What’s the difference”. If I am being 100% honest, I don’t think there is any significant difference and honestly, the ESL may be necessary in showing FIFA and UEFA that getting greedy has its consequences. They can in fact be held accountable. Now does that mean I am in 100% support of this? Absolutely not, but it is impossible to deny that it’s really a situation of two evils and you have to pick which one is better. Now it is very important to mention that most clubs have rejected even the new format, vowing to stay with the UEFA and FIFA on this, and for that reason, the new UCL format is likely the competition that is here to stay. Is that a good thing? Probably not because players are more likely to get injured because of the increased games, it reduces some of the prestige by letting some more teams compete and not even increasing compensation, and more games also means quality of play may be reduced. But, at the end of the day it is what we are probably going to get. If it was up to me, I would keep the current UCL format that has produced so many memorable moments, but unfortunately it isn’t. Still, when I am watching whichever competition from my couch in the future, I am still gonna support my FC Barcelona as they get embarrassed in some way. The most that you can do is support your club as well because this kind of thing, is as Thanos would say, inevitable.