European Super League: Is soccer making the right decision?

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

It is hard to get soccer fans to agree on anything, but the dramatic move toward a renegade, breakaway league featuring the world’s biggest clubs that emerged last weekend has united supporters around the world.

Apart from those who dreamed up the idea and connected with it, it seems everyone hates the European Super League, with opinions ranging from anger to disdain to bemusement to utter loathing.

The lowdown: A collection of European giants threw a grenade into their ongoing battle to receive greater revenues by revealing a new competition, to start in 2023, featuring 20 teams and for which the 15 core members would be guaranteed entry every year.

It was intended as a direct shot at European governing body UEFA and its flagship event, the Champions League, and is an attempted arm-twisting, seeking a sweetheart deal even sweeter than the current arrangement.

Let’s be clear here. European soccer is not particularly fair. There is no level playing field. The way things are set up ensures that the rich get richer. Take a look at the top leagues on the continent. With only a few recent exceptions that can be dismissed as magical flukes, the same teams win, time and again.

Unlike in American sports, there is no draft to try to provide some competitive balance. There is no salary cap to curb the muscle-flexing tactics of the wealthy. There is limited sharing of revenue that might even things out.

But what soccer does have in most parts of the world is the expectation of having to continue to prove your worth, year in, year out. Promotion and relegation make sure that smaller clubs have something to aspire to and that underperforming squads have to earn their way back.

The Champions League, featuring Europe’s top teams each season, has a qualification system in which clubs must finish high enough in their domestic leagues to be reinvited.

That’s the part that the breakaway group – featuring bluebloods such as England’s Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham, Spain’s Atletico Madrid, Barcelona and Real Madrid, and Italy’s AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus – don’t like.

There are few direct comparisons to be made here to the North American pro leagues, which operate under a different, closed model. Perhaps the best example would be to imagine if a group of the top college football programs set up their own bowl system, which they would be assured participation in each season, regardless of performance, while graciously allowing a handful of others to sometimes join the party.

The United States — perhaps surprisingly, given that this is a European argument — has been drawn into the backlash against the ESL idea. It would be challenging to find an article discussing (mostly lambasting) the ESL in the past couple of days that has not used the word "Americanized."

Although Real Madrid president Florentino Perez was named chairman of the ESL, the owners of Arsenal (Stan Kroenke), Manchester United (the Glazer family) and Liverpool (John W. Henry) are all American. The project is being fiscally backed by J.P. Morgan bank. The concept of a closed entity is a hallmark of American sports and far less common everywhere else.

UEFA responded with fire and fury, with president Aleksander Ceferin threatening to ban players in the ESL from participating in international events such as the European Championships and the World Cup.

"UEFA and the football world stand united against [the] disgraceful and self-serving proposal we have seen in the last 24 hours for a select few clubs in Europe motivated by greed," Ceferin said. "We are all united against this nonsense of a project."

It is possible that, from the clubs’ perspective, it could all be a ruse. No one is quite sure. Could it be just a strong-armed power play aimed at giving the leading teams a bigger portion of the monumental revenues that come from the Champions League? If so, it is a mightily elaborate one. The statements put out by each ESL club contained, in essence, a fully fledged proposal that had clearly been months in the making.

For its part, UEFA backed up Ceferin’s statement by announcing a Champions League revamp involving an expansion to 36 teams, with more matches and a greater likelihood of profit. No one is quite sure who is going to blink first.

Yet public opinion is squarely against the rebel clubs, and the ferocity of the backlash provides a test as to whether the organizations actually care about the wishes of the supporters who follow them.

"I’m disgusted with Manchester United and Liverpool the most," former United defender Gary Neville told Sky Sports. "They’re breaking away to a competition they can’t be relegated from? It’s an absolute disgrace. We have to wrestle back power in this country from the clubs at the top of this league – and that includes my club."

The media has been unimpressed, too, largely eviscerating the ESL.

In the Guardian, Jonathan Liew described the ESL as further evidence of how "the world’s most popular sport managed to hand over so much of its power and wealth and influence to people who despise it."

"Make no mistake: This is an idea that could only have been devised by someone who truly hates football to its bones," Liew added.

If the ESL does go ahead, it would be the ultimate and final proof that soccer has sold its soul. While the die-hards might turn their backs, there is no doubt that the competition would be watched by millions around the world and would probably bring the clubs the kind of revenue they are looking for — at the tiny, insignificant cost of ripping up more than a century of history, culling soccer’s inherent principles of (relative) equality and sabotaging the competitions that made those clubs famous.

Right now, it doesn’t seem like there is anything particularly beautiful about the beautiful game. Hopefully, the uproar that has spilled over the past few days might throw the ESL off course.

But this is modern soccer, 21st-century style. And there is money at stake. So while we might wish for common sense to prevail, it is just as likely that the mightiest and richest teams will get their way.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.