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As officials from Europe’s most sensible clubs gather in Istanbul for the Champions League draw, this will be the first time many will be together in the same room since before Covid.
There will be tension and size. By far the biggest upsets will be football politics, which is any outdated concern about who they will face in the draw. This is due to a discussion that is now beyond the previous one, namely that the organization The level of the festival is boring and predictable. It is such a fait accompli that it is about to be completely completed, as this is the penultimate season of the old round-robin format. Enjoy the pompous spectacle of the draw while you can.
However, questionable adjustments to the “Swiss system” will solve many things. Just take a look at the entire continent to see how the level of organization follows a developing trend. Predictability is now the path of European football.
In France, Paris Saint-Germain have already scored 17 goals in 3 initial wins, to put them on a path to a ninth name in 11 years. In Germany, Bayern Munich have already scored 15 goals out of 3, to make an eleventh in a row. The name looks like a caravan. Such a feat would mean that only six clubs in the history of world football have experienced longer streaks than the German champions. They are:
Tafea FC Vanuatu : 15
Lincoln of Gibraltar (14)
Skonto Riga from Latvia (14)
Belarus BATE Barisov (13)
Jordan Al Faysali (13)
Norwegian Rosenborg (13)
So it would be two micro-nations and 4 small leagues, two of which have suffered the waves of post-communism. Needless to say, this won’t happen in one of Europe’s top leagues, where length makes competition enough. And while Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga have their own express challenges – the Qatari ownership of PSG, the economic power of Bayern – they all face a much bigger challenge for UEFA. The express challenges of those countries are also connected to the fact that PSG and Bayern are now the two driving forces of the European Club Association. They entered the void left by the Super League, but continued in the same vein. It’s lobbying for the interests of the bigger clubs, which have traditionally been concerned with advocating for a higher percentage of revenue and opposed further redistribution.
It also means that an overwhelming proportion of club football profits flow into seven major regions of Europe, all reaping benefits from what Joan Laporta would describe as a “virtuous circle”. This wealth has been maximised through the Premier League, fuelling their broadcast contracts. This means that they make up the maximum portions of these seven areas, which – according to Deloitte’s figures on the profit of the clubs – are the following:
North West England (more than €2 billion)
London (€2 billion)
Madrid (more than 1,000 million euros)
Northern Italy (EUR 950 million)
Munich (EUR 650 million)
Barcelona (650 million euros)
Paris (more than 550 million euros)
With around 8,000 million euros, that these seven urban spaces represent about a part of the 15,600 million euros of annual profit of the European football market. Therefore, they will also supply almost all of the 16 qualifiers of the champions league organization phase, which will make this draw so useless.
If a lot of people look at those numbers and say it’s evident because there are so many clubs in those areas, that’s the kind of point. There is something patently damaged in European football if the massive outdoor population centres of those seven countries cannot even wait. have clubs of such monetary size.
This poses a framework of European government that becomes existential, especially since it now arises in the pending judicial case processed by the Superliga.
Does UEFA have compatibility on purpose, if it has allowed much of football’s wealth to accumulate in so few areas?They shape a money supply that now weighs so heavily on the rest of the game that it can create a breaking point.
That is what is being discussed in Istanbul this week, because this case pending before the Court of Justice of the European Union weighs on the total game. Officials at Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus now feel positive rather than marginalized.
The feeling is that the initial hearing went well, and UEFA “should be worried. “on whether UEFA represents a monopoly in shaping competition. This is, it is said, what the Champions League represents. UEFA lawyers have responded that the so-called “monopoly” is mandatory because it is the entire ecosystem of European football, which has to be protected, which feeds arguments about how elements of the arts are protected through European legislation.
And that’s where they were left open.
It is correct to ask how accurately UEFA protects European football if it has become so financially unbalanced; If giant portions of their culture are now wastelands serving the most productive leagues?Look at how dead the Champions League is for so many big names, from PSV Eindhoven to Dinamo Tbilisi.
This is just a line of attack from The Super League lawyers, to move on with longer-term arguments about how UEFA is a regulator and an organiser, generating massive sums from a formula it claims to control.
The brazenness of this position is as remarkable as it is ironic. It was clubs like Juve and the two Clasicos that intimidated UEFA into this position in the first place, hanging the Super League, to now highlight the flaws of a landscape they have shaped. more than anyone else.
This is where you don’t have to have sympathy for the governing body. But this is also where there can be criticism.
UEFA has never been proactive. Almost all the normative elements similar to all those problems have been reactive, responding only to what is presented to them, which has only served to reinforce the prestige quo. Hence the big clubs, adding PSG and Bayern, who thus get away with it in terms of prizes in coins and source of income distribution. Hence the landscape that looks like this, with piles of coins in a few regions dominating the rest of Europe.
The most recent example of such responses is the upcoming transformation of the Champions League. The so-called “Swiss system” only dodges the real challenge, rather than addressing it. This does not solve the monetary disparity that made the level of the organization so boring, and may even worsen the challenge.
Nor did it appease. ” No one is satisfied with that,” a senior official said.
This is fueling growing discontent with Aleksander Ceferin throughout the game, and it’s not just from the forces of the Super League. Even those who oppose the assignment that the UEFA president has completely squandered the momentum and opportunity of that moment. They think their answers were superficial. It was also noted how he thanked Boris Johnson for the failure of the Super League, but did not convey the same gratitude to league leaders such as Javier Tebas and Richard Masters.
A widespread view in football’s legal circles is that UEFA presents “poor governance” and a lack of foresight. If that sounds harsh, at least it can be felt in the argument about a possible solution for everything. One of the reasons why clubs in giant urban centers, such as Ajax, Celtic or Club Brugge, cannot generate competitive profits because the league they play in is too small, which makes the TV market too small. They are too big for their own country but not big enough for champions. League, which leaves them in a football void.
UEFA can circumvent this challenge without delay by opening the door to regionalised leagues. This would soon benefit the users of many clubs, while maintaining the fundamental design of European football and distributing revenue.
Ceferin will simply agree with this, as he is too attached to traditionalist ideas. The most critical resources characterize it as “a lack of general control” and “protectionism. “
That is why the next step in the Super League is to seek to seduce those mid-level clubs. They would like a festival with Juventus, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Ajax, Porto, Celtic and a few others. That’s why anti-Super League voices now admit that “the game may be the subject of some kind of reboot. “
It’s just that, depending on who is responsible, it can get even worse. It is clear that European football wants a safeguard framework like UEFA’s, rather than simply being in the hands of the big clubs. The unified pyramid of football is also one of its wonderful assets, unlike the one by itself of cricket and boxing.
The December ruling, which will determine whether the CJEU’s case moves to the next stage, could begin to be resolved.
Personalities familiar with the procedure at the end expect one of the 3 results if the distance is maintained. The first is that the court takes a purely political interpretation and finds that a UEFA “monopoly” is justified. The timing is quite the opposite, and UEFA is dissolved. The third is a more centrist position, where UEFA is not divided, but it is claimed that it can be neither a regulator nor an organizer of festivals. Maybe just allow festivals, with thicker walls between them. its other parts.
Some say there may be an unforeseen “Baby Solomon Solution” that leaves no one happy. December 15 will be a key date as you will make a decision on the next step.
That says a lot that it is much more difficult to be expectant than the entire organization phase of the Champions League.