2023-11-13 12:05:49
Real Madrid player Jude Bellingham scores a goal against FC Barcelona, two of the founding clubs of the Super League, on October 28, 2023, in Barcelona. ALBERT GEA / REUTERS
She’s back, and so is he: the Super League and Florentino Perez, president of Real Madrid, promoter of this private and semi-closed European competition, the first launch of which suffered a bitter disavowal in April 2021. On Saturday, he again mounted his hobby horse with a telling speech on the nature of the project.
Read also: “Football will not survive”: the president of Real Madrid reaffirms his wish to create a Super League
It is, in fact, a matter of re-dressing the latter, whose intentions have nevertheless remained unchanged since its very first versions, at the end of the 1990s: the secession of the “big” clubs within a reserved competition, with the aim to share bigger pieces of a bigger pie.
It was long believed that this would remain a state of threat, as it was so effective: each time it was agitated, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) gave in by agreeing to adjustments to its League of Nations. champions increasingly favorable to these clubs, this “premium” European cup having contributed to the enrichment of the richest and being increasingly reserved for them. Not enough, however.
Florentino Perez sounds the alarm: “ Either we react now or football will not survive. » Two and a half years ago, it was already necessary “save football”. This statement does not engage in any reflection on the governance of large clubs, which, despite their monopolization of a growing portion of economic and sporting resources, would be fragile. Does this mean that they are very poorly managed?
Gloomy economic outlook
The Madrilenian must also return to the front without his friend from Juventus Turin, Andrea Agnelli, suspended for ten months by the Italian Federation in January. His club was sentenced last season to a withdrawal of 10 points for various accounting frauds, and recorded a deficit of 110.5 million euros in 2022-2023.
Far from having been too well understood, our “superleagues” would have been victims of “relentless disinformation campaigns”. The approach would even be philanthropic, since Florentino Perez is worried about the cost of subscriptions to pay channels, citing the level of the Spanish minimum wage. However, the current economic model of football is based on broadcasting rights and their continued inflation. How to believe that a Super League would “cheaper access to televised football” by giving up on maximizing this income?
Mr. Perez specifically deplores the gloomy economic outlook for the rights to the new Champions League formula next season, despite 189 matches, instead of 125. “The Super League will be fully meritocratic”he promises however, “without privileges and without anyone being excluded”. He doesn’t say more. At the start of the year, the company responsible for promoting the competition suggested that it would expand to a larger number of teams and countries.
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