It was announced on Sunday the 18th of April that 12 European football clubs would be forming their own league, modestly named, the European Super League. Understandably, the decision was met with fury from fans and rivals alike. Since then, several teams have either realized the error of their ways or been pressured by fans, into removing themselves from the Super League, causing a standby to be announced by the organizers. Here’s what we can learn from the imminent collapse of this elitist proposal.
When it was announced that 12 of Europe’s top clubs would form a breakaway league, the news spread throughout Europe like a shockwave, but it didn’t stop there. Across the world, including in India, the reporting on this league has been ceaseless. Many of the top clubs in the world were fully signed up to be part of the European Super League, or ESL, so it is understandable that the world was interested.
You only have to look back to 2013 to see a similar thing happening with the Indian Super League. With Indian football not receiving the attention that it deserved, largely down to a lack of advertising, the ISL was created. Its aim was to boost the popularity of football within India and it too had a slightly rocky start. After its launch in October 2013, the league had planned to hold its first game in January 2014, but this was held back until October that year. The rocky start didn’t dampen the spirits of the ISL organizers and the season went ahead as planned.
The big hurdle for the ISL to overcome was it’s lack of recognised accreditation from FIFA. Currently, the Indian Premier League was recognised by FIFA and they were refusing to recognise the ISL. Suggestions were made to knock the IPL down to League One and let the ISL take its place as the premier league team, but these were understandably met with distaste from fans and IPL members.
What followed next is exactly what should’ve happened before the ESL came into being, the two leagues got together and had a conversation about the options going forward. Both organisations wanted to further the profile of football in India, both wanted a chance to compete on a national and international level, so it was agreed that the two leagues would work with what they both had. After three years of being ignored by FIFA, the ISL were able to qualify for Asian Club competitions. Now, the format is so familiar to Indian fans that it doesn’t seem radical, but by combining two formidable forces they were able to achieve an outcome that was great for Indian football.
In the case of the ISL/IPL/FIFA conflict, everyone won, in the case of the ESL it won’t be so simple. So profound has the fallout been from this attempt at a breakaway league that sports betting sites in India have been offering odds on the various potential outcomes. Whilst people love to predict catastrophe, it seems that according to the odds, the people might have been right with this one. Sports betting websites across India, and indeed Europe, have the most common, shortest-priced bet being for neither Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea or Liverpool to play an ESL match before 2025. It looks like if we can rely on anyone as fortune tellers, it’s the bookmakers.
Much of the rhetoric surrounding the decision to create this league has been from working-class football supporters, who didn’t want to feel even more ostracized from their favourite sport. For fans, football is becoming increasingly more expensive to go and watch, and the ESL although not explicit in its intent, was likely to only make it more expensive. Of course, football is an expensive business to be in. In India, Bollywood stars and retired world-class sports stars tend to be the only people who own football teams, outside of huge corporations. In the UK and Europe it is much the same, with half of the clubs in the English Premier League being owned by rich, foreign owners.
Whilst Real Madrid president Florentino Perez said that the Super League was invented to save football, it seems that the reaction from devoted supporters has been able to achieve that saviour far more rapidly than any money-grabbing tournament could have foreseen.
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