The power that corrupts

Today marks a remarkable day for the football fans around the globe, for all the wrong reasons. The 12 European football giants have signed an MOU to break-away from the football pyramid. For days and months forwards, this is going to be hot controversial topics.

We are going to have numerous developments, how the European Super League (ESL) would work, what happens to the domestic competitions, most importantly what it means for the football as a whole? This piece focuses on the motivation behind the stupid idea, the greed surrounding the entire business and why running after the money basically corrupts the individuals.

The break-away league

Unlike cricket, the football around the world works on pyramid league system that means, winner, promotion and relegation system. In cricket it is impossible that a franchisee named ‘Kanyakumari’ would ever win compete in a domestic championship, let alone compete in the competition. In football however, there’s every chance that a team from Leicester could win the championship against all odds[1]. And then if you prove yourself at the domestic front, the riches and eminence of European football follows.

This system has been in place for half a century, the merit system, you step in or you step aside. And because of the system, it gives hope to a 5 year old, that someday he would go on and score the winner for his boyhood team in the Champions League (UCL) Final or secure an Aguer0000000 moment. More than that it gives the hope to an Asian growing up, that someday he might made it.

But now the 12 European clubs [the Big 6 from England, the Big 3 from Spain and Italy] have decided that they will form a separate closed competition – ESL, disrupting the whole merit system. For what? Money. The very idea of this is disgusting, the die-hard fans literally hate their respective clubs today, it’s like we have only two political parties in the world and nobody wants to vote. It’s just so toxic.

Let’s elaborate on the motive

The media reports suggest that the new competition would bring in huge cash kitty for the clubs, for the starters €3.5bn [split in 15 clubs] just to compete in the league. The money is the obvious reason for such embarrassing embarkment. Ultimately who pays for, us the fans, the crazy idiots who love the sport, not the flashlights.

The stark contrast between a fan and the owners. Let’s talk about a hypothetical Madrid-Barcelona contest in a cup final. The Barcelona fan places bet of €10 (hypothetically, his whole day earning) on Madrid to win. Now if Madrid wins, he gets €15 and eat jam along with the bread, but if Barcelona wins, he sleeps in starvation. Believe he would pray that the second scenario happens! Regardless of the results, the owners, however get an appropriate pie of €100m.

It’s not that money is there today, the clubs [and the stakeholders] even today earn millions and millions of dollars! It’s almost ludicrous that amidst the pandemic, ~100mn people lost their jobs, while the top 10 clubs in Europe reported annual revenues of ~€6bn in 19-20.

The signs were there, we got a trailer of this jaw dropping idea last year, when the Juventus FC insisted upon the idea of a semi-closed competition where the already established clubs would get a bye into the annual UCL regardless of where they finish in the league [Project Big picture]. That idea though was less ridiculous as the current ESL, but still it forced UEFA to re-think about an expanded version of the competition, to an extent according to the automatic qualification.

In 1977, the owner of Nine Network, Kerry Packer brought to the front a similar break-away competition in cricket, the motivation, again the money. At that time, the regulators resolved that the competition is un-recognized and all players were banned from participating the ICC competition. Years later, the Indian Premier League (IPL) basically carried the idea, but with more money. Why the regulators didn’t bothered this time, again the money. Yes IPL has given something to us, but it has taken more from us as well. Today we are seeing comments from Boris Johnson, Aleksander Ceferin condemning the competition, but who knows, they might change their mind if the fair share of the revenue goes into their pocket as well.

The point is not that people shouldn’t earn money out of the sport, they’ve been doing it for some years now, and of course it has helped the community as well. Money is probably the motivation for it, but its consequence are disastrous. The beautiful game, created by the poor, stolen by the rich.

Why the merit matters

The automatic qualification de hors the merits is the biggest flaw behind the breakaway league. It’s like a franchisee thing, more like the American way/ IPL way. For the cute sports like rugby, the NFL, cricket, the franchise system works, but for football, this system takes the very appeal of the sport. Why would you compete, if there is nothing to lose?

Would there be any Leicester City [2015-16 PL] kind of story ever again? Would there be any 4-1 against all odds triumph by the Ajax’s of the world against the Madrid’s of the world? What about Sevilla FC, the second city conquerors of Europa League? Who’s the bigger team out of Chelsea beating Atletico Madrid 3-0, but getting humbled by West Brom 5-2?

It’s just the wonders of the merit system that keeps the fans of all clubs excited, hopeful and inspired. As a Chelsea fan, the night in Munich in 2012 kept me going against all let downs in career, as fan of the club a part of me dies today.

The merit system also gave us cult heroes Paulo Di Canio, Darren Bent, Marcel Desailly, Grant Holt, Miguel Michu, Joey Barton. These cult heroes belonged to the grandest stage, it made the world feel better and balanced. With all those rich clubs and rich players, there won’t be cult heroes. Nor there would be any rags to riches stories. This whole shift from merit system to automatic qualification corrupts the system.

Something we got to do

The UEFA/ FIFA/ Premier League have already stated that heavy sanctions would be imposed on the teams competing in ESL, the players would be banned from all UEFA/ FIFA/ domestic competitions.

But the fans will have a bigger role to play, in case this thing is to stop. The football fans around the world need to come together, and for what it’s worth, make all efforts to stop the non-sense. If you are cable guy, stop operating the channel, if you are a reporter, stop reporting the match, if you are player outside of the ESL, stop selling your players to them, if you are a legal advisor/ tax consultant to these clubs, terminate your contract (rather file a suit against them).Simply Boycott! For all it’s worth, we got to make all efforts to suppress this thing.

Manish Sachdeva

The Vice

[email protected]

[1] That’s like Afghanistan wining the cricket world up