Closed Shop - Is the European Super League concept really that “Dangerous” for the SPFL?

It’s been hard to miss Neil Doncaster’s strongman act of late. He’s been out in Europe standing up for Scottish rights without ever arguing the case very well. He may be aiming for Churchill, but he’s reaching only the levels of Groucho Marx in Duck Soup.

But are our Knights of Freedonia really that right in trying to prevent the concept of a European Super League? It’s time to answer the questions that Neil Doncaster hasn’t brought up.

1 - What actually is this European Super League thing anyway?

In competition speak, it’s a proposed system where the best (read: Most Marketable) sides in European football join together in a league where only the best enter.

In real talk, it’s a proposed system where meritocracy is replaced by the concept of marketocracy in terms of running the Champions League.

2 - Why has it come up now?

The obvious answer is to state that the power vacuum at the top of UEFA since the fall of Platini is being abused by clubs wanting to get their own way. That is part right although fails to note that Platini and his successor and now FIFA president Gianni Infantino were in the corner of clubs, have a fairly good record of being pro-clubs along with being meddlers of the highest and worst order - a bit like if someone let Michael Gove run football.

Realistically, it’s due to a few large issues. The first is the amount of football sides play. Big clubs don’t want an expanded World Cup (which Infantino has proposed) and they don’t want to have to play 70 games a season to win everything. That pushes up wage inflation and means that their players are less effective.

Even more realistically, it’s down to a specific set of toys being thrown out of the pram all at once. Barcelona’s statement that their main challenge is the EPL not Real Madrid was part of this narrative.

In Spain, Barca and Real have thrown their toys out of the pram over the introduction of collective TV rights bargaining. At its simplest, the advantage they have that has been built into the Spanish system over decades is about to be eroded in an effort to raise the standard of football at the lower end of La Liga. Using the “European Super League” bargaining chip is simply a form of blackmail to get what they want.

In England, where everyone is super loaded and about to get more so, the dissatisfaction is with the meritocracy of football. How can Manchester United, with their millions of fans and eye watering transfer fees be kept out of the Champions League by, ugh, Leicester? The bigger clubs in England fear that they could be locked out of Europe as everyone gets richer and, to do so, they have begun to treat the EPL like it’s their own personal version of a high school drama and they are the only ones in it who are so fetch.

In France, where the only compelling argument lies, PSG are so far ahead of the competition financially and quality wise as to make Ligue Un utterly redundant. While that is no guarantee of success, if any side had a competitive reason to jump up to a European Super League, it’s them.

In Italy, it’s the will for parity financially with the larger leagues, which the ESL would provide, as well as the English issue with meritocracy along with the normal level of prejudice you associate with Serie A (namely “why are those shitebags from Napoli in the CL yet our lovely Milan clubs aren’t?” is a common view in the North).

In Germany, it’s the wish for a larger audience given that, unlike England, France and Spain, it’s international appeal is limited by the fact that no-one sprachen sie deutsch.

That’s a very rough view of the issues but framing it as “visibly weak UEFA vs Clubs that are all a bit mothered for different reasons” pretty much covers it.

3 - Big Picture: is this a bad thing?

It’s a proposal that is based around making the rich richer and to hell with everyone else. It’s a proposal that takes the concept of merit out of football for the sake of money. It’s a proposal that will starve the have-nots and stifle youth systems throughout Europe as football becomes “Super League or bust”.

Yes, it’s pretty much the dictionary definition of a bad thing.

4 - Why push on with it?

Two key reasons - firstly, there is a metric fuckton of money to be made from it. This weekend it’s Barca vs Real, next weekend it’s Barca vs Juve, week after… You get the picture. Football fans whose sides are out of the tent would be like Adam Johnson with a university prospectus - watching while having the saddest wank in the world. Because it will be unavoidable and it will be nigh on unmissable. TV rights wouldn’t just challenge the EPL or the NFL, they would DWARF them. It would be a property worth, on my back of a fag packet estimates, about £5bn per season in global TV rights. On a 20 team league, that’s £250m per club per year. That’s before a single ticket or piece of merchandise is sold. If you’re Charlie Stillitano, the media chap behind the “International Champions Cup” series of friendly games across the world, you know what you have on your hands as you already have the contacts and also the venues.

Secondly, clubs know that this is a valuable bargaining chip to push UEFA to get what they want - more big clubs in the Champions League, fewer (if any) slots for smaller sides. Liverpool may be consistently useless, but they are worth more money than sides such as this season’s Champions League knockout stage combatants Gent. They want the Champions League to simply be less Gent and more bent, no matter who Gent beat to get through.

5 - Will it work?

To an extent. While UEFA aren’t likely to endorse a European Super League nor are they about to shut out champions of nations like Portugal, Netherlands and Russia out of the Champions League completely, they may consume the International Champions Cup and make it an official competition in some manner. They may also consider moving games such as the Champions League final out of Europe and into showpiece world stadiums such as the Beijing Bird’s Nest or Cowboys Stadium. The Champions League may also be expanded to allow big sides who don’t qualify a chance to get in at the expense of smaller sides - this is likely to mean an expansion of the qualification phase to allow bigger leagues an extra spot in the League Route playoffs and also seed based on country co-efficient rather than club co-efficient (meaning that a side like Ajax could get to the final of the Europa League, come third in the Eredivisie and still be unseeded in the League Route playoffs in spite of a great coefficient). They can rightly point to the fact that all qualifiers through the Champions qualification route were bottom of their group in the CL this season and last - two more group stage spots going to the League route away from the Champions route isn’t that hard to justify. And that’s before one gets into the third continental competition that was mooted earlier this season.

In short, there is zero chance the clubs pushing this will get everything they want, but they will get something.

6 - So what about Scotland, then?

Neil Doncaster “fighting to keep Scotland in the Champions League” is only half right. Again, we must assume the most likely compromise and that has to include the fact that Scotland are relative minnows. It will not become impossible for the Champions to get to the CL Group Stage, but it will become far more difficult and one may see that Champions of countries below a certain co-efficient drop into the Europa League automatically. That’s the most likely practical issue before one looks at knock-on effects.

7 - Knock on effects?

In the case of a European Super League, domestic TV rights for domestic teams will drop like a stone. No longer the prime property they were, they no longer become valued as highly. That’s before one gets into the solidarity payments clubs get for their champions reaching the CL group stage - it’s small dough, but for a side like Hamilton or Thistle, it’s an amount that you could well do with.

8 - So it’s not just bad for Celtic?

It’s bad for everyone for numerous reasons (less likely to get solidarity payments, less likely to get a chance at increasing co-efficient) but it’s utterly catastrophic for Celtic given that CL group stage participation is worth well over £20m, it changes the club’s financial outlook for the worse.

Obviously, however, this is not as bad for Scotland as it is for, say, Belarus or Sweden whose Champions always end up having to qualify and always end up doing so (unlike Scotland), but it’s still really bad.

9 - When Neil Doncaster calls it “Dangerous”, is it?

This is the key dividing point. If you support, say, Arsenal, you are in the tent and, therefore, this is amazing - best case scenario is that you play Barca, Real et al every week and that season ticket that cost you £1k looks value. Worst case scenario, Arsene could totally balls up a season and you’d still have Champions League. This isn’t dangerous, it’s brilliant and any moaning about sporting integrity would end as soon as you benefit.

If you support, say, Stoke, then if an ESL happened, it’d be awful. Your income would disappear. You’d get visited by Hull instead of Man U. Quite simply, that’d be awful and dangerous. But if there’s a compromise then it’ll make European football more accessible, so that’s great. It’s dangerous but in the way you worry about getting hit by a bus crossing the road - it’s a concern but not really all that rational a one.

If you support Celtic, then it’s a disaster unless Neil Doncaster rides back into Scotland carrying the head of Roman Abramovich and getting head from Karren Brady. He won’t so it’s pretty bloody bad.

If you support a Scottish team not called Celtic, it’s a mild inconvenience.

So yes, it’s dangerous enough even before you make a single argument about “sporting integrity”, “meritocracy” or “franchise football”.

10 - What do I really think?

It’s a bad idea that will annoy a lot of people, kill a lot of smaller clubs in big nations (your Bury’s and Rochdales forced to share a market with clubs bigger than the domestic league stand no chance) and it cheapens the entire game of football. So, yes, bad but it requires us to know what the compromise will be before we truly define the collateral damage.