Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne celebrates after scoring his team’s fifth goal with teammates Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez during the Premier League match between Manchester City and Southampton at the Etihad Stadium on March 10, 2021 in Manchester, England.
Clive Brunskill | Getty Images Sports | Getty Images
LONDON – As the football community celebrated the failed start of the European Super League last week, the motivational factors behind the proposal haven’t gone away.
Now known as the “dirty dozen”, 12 powerful European football clubs attempted to form their own closed league, which failed just days later due to pressure from fans, authorities and governments.
These teams, particularly in Spain, are still in pandemic-related debt, while revenues were hit in many clubs around the world after virus restrictions forced games to be played behind closed doors – which evaporated matchday revenues.
What’s next?
Florentino Perez, the president of Real Madrid who was one of the clubs involved, has told the Spanish media that this or a very similar project will continue.
His counterpart in Barcelona, Joan Laporta, has emphasized that the ESL clubs are open to dialogue with UEFA, the European governing body, to revitalize the project.
Simon Chadwick, director of Eurasian Sport at Emlyon Business School, believes suggestions that the Super League has fallen apart are naive and tells CNBC that Europe will have a “Super League with a different name” and adds that it ” a case of “is when, not when.” ”
Chadwick argues that the coming years will bring more polarization and industrial concentration, with the big clubs gaining more power and widening the gap between them and the smaller clubs.
American inspiration
This will be shown by how big clubs want to develop new sources of income, with over-the-top broadcasting playing a prominent role.
He compares the NFL’s most recent TV rights deal, valued at around $ 110 billion over 11 years, to the English Premier League’s current domestic broadcast deal, valued at £ 4.7 billion (£ 6.6 billion) Billion US dollars), which was completed in 2018 and is expected to expire this year.
While the NFL has grown in popularity outside the US in recent years, the English Premier League still dwarfs it worldwide, and the UEFA Champions League has an enthusiastic global audience too.
Tech companies have joined the bidding wars for the broadcasting rights of the Premier League in recent auctions, thereby removing the logistical obstacles to global distribution.
New owners
Due to the impact of the Super League proposals, some fans also called for new club owners.
Spotify CEO and Founder Daniel Ek has expressed an interest in acquiring Arsenal and has told CNBC that he has secured funding for a potential offer for the club in north London.
However, current owner Stan Kroenke, who also owns the NFL LA Rams franchise, has ruled out any sale and stressed that he would not make an offer.
Meanwhile, Jim O’Neill, chairman of UK think tank Chatham House and former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and hedge fund manager Paul Marshall have urged Manchester United’s owners, the Glazer family, to cut their controlling stake to a a maximum of 49.9%, in order to give a broader group of investors the opportunity to participate in the running of the club.
Chadwick downplayed the prospect of current owners looking to sell, adding that “if this is such an unprofitable, difficult business that is not getting the returns the owners want,” then Manchester United owners, the Glazers, would have , moved out a long time ago.