About the beautiful game / Feizal Rahman / 23 August 2009 / Leave a comment

Feizal Rahmann makes a case for the concept of a European Super League where the biggest and best clubs benefit financially from facing each other and the smaller clubs get a chance to actually win something.

"While in theory there's presently nothing to stop a club from Division Two rising up to eventually win the Premier League title, in practice it's virtually impossible. It's no different from telling a child brought up on a council estate that he has the same chances in life as one brought up on a country estate."

Karl Marx opened his Communist Manifesto with the line, "A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of communism." While that particular ghost has been well and truly exorcised, in 2009 a different vision of the future, specifically that of European football, is once again appearing before our eyes.

Having spent the best part of £200m on the world's finest players this summer, Real Madrid president, Florentino Perez, stated his desire for the continent's biggest clubs to "agree a new European Super League which guarantees that the best always play the best." This was supplemented earlier this week when Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, suggested that there are "some voices behind the scenes, coming up to do something about that" and that it may well happen within the next ten years.

Reaction to a proposed European Super League has been mixed but the main arguments against it - that it would destroy the domestic game and is simply an attempt by the rich to get even richer at the expense of the poor - seem to ignore what is already going on now. A glance at the current system would indicate that we're already half-way to achieving a continental elite league and, far from waiting another decade for it to happen, it would be in everyone's interests to speed the transition up.

The biggest leagues in Europe have for some time been operating on a two-tier basis, with a small conglomerate of teams at the top dominating championships, domestic cups and the European competitions. Only four clubs have ever won the Premier League with Manchester United champions eleven times out of seventeen ([4.2] to retain title). Meanwhile Barcelona and Real Madrid combined have won 16 of the last 20 La Liga titles ([1.89] the former and [2.32] the latter to win La Liga 2009/10) while over the last two decades in Serie A, AC Milan, Inter and Juventus have claimed the Scudetto 80 percent of the time (Inter [1.81] to win 5th consecutive title this season). In France and Germany, the competitiveness is even more lacking as Olympique Lyonnais and Bayern Munich, respectively, have picked up the majority of championships since the turn of the century.

Given the current procedures whereby TV money and competition payments are shared amongst clubs, there can be no surprise that those clubs winning everything might want to increase their revenue and, as is with all businesses, banding together to look after each other's interests is the obvious option. Perez had a point when he said that the biggest clubs don't play each other enough. It's only at the latter end of the Champions League competition that the heavyweights go toe-to-toe, with run-of-the-mill group games against relative no-hopers taking up much of the early stages. Playing more fixtures against the likes of AC Milan and Manchester United rather than CFR Cluj or Aalborg EK would obviously benefit a club like Real Madrid far more commercially but it would also offer most fans from all walks what they really want - the best pitted against the best.

How a Super League would function seems to be the biggest obstacle to setting it up. A system of promotion and relegation from domestic competitions would be hugely complicated and heavily biased towards the larger nations. So it would seem that the most drastic change - to a closed-shop league along the lines of the NFL or NBA - would be the simplest. That Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United are now predominantly owned and run by US businessmen with a history in American sports franchise methods is perhaps no coincidence. With a guaranteed bumper audience in Asia, the Middle East and increasingly in North America itself, the prospect of a conference system of Europe's biggest and best clubs would be too appetizing for the moneymen to resist.

Yet, there's no reason why domestic leagues should suffer were the biggest clubs to opt out completely. Indeed the standards should improve, with greater competition for honours among those left behind. While in theory there's presently nothing to stop a club from Division Two rising up to eventually win the Premier League title, in practice it's virtually impossible. It's no different from telling a child brought up on a council estate that he has the same chances in life as one brought up on a country estate. The only way to break into the established elite it seems, is to try buy your way in - as Manchester City are attempting to do ([2.9] to finish Top 4) - but that doesn't necessarily guarantee success and not everyone has that luxury.

So given the lack of a billionaire-backed cash injection, the likes of Aston Villa, Everton and Tottenham would surely prefer battling each other for a championship, rather than merely duking it out for fifth spot at best. Indeed, those who long for a return to the pre-Premier League days would be more likely to see the title change hands on a frequent basis, with several clubs challenging for honours on all fronts rather than the same four dictating.

Just as the days of small family-run businesses thriving are over, with huge multinational corporations now ruling the market place, so football must also accept the structural economic realities of the world today. Football at the highest level has thus far appeared immune to the financial crisis that has enveloped much of the free-market but for the biggest boom there inevitably has to be an equally large bust. So perhaps it's another line from Marx - that "capitalism will dig its own grave" - which may give hope to those opposed to the monopoly of the footballing elite. But like many of his predictions, it's probably not advised to hold your breath.