The European Super League was an ambitious project that would have, among others, offered viewers a chance to follow more high-quality football games outside the established European tournament circuit, and the involved clubs a chance to avoid bankruptcy.
Apparently, though, it was a plan too ambitious for UEFA and FIFA, the organizations that hold the reins of European and global football, respectively, and for the fans of several of its founding clubs.
The project “lived” just for a few days after it was announced, apparently crumbling under the pressure of the widespread criticism and the resistance of governing bodies.
But, according to ESL president Florentino Pérez, the project is “not dead” just yet.
Predictable
If you take a look at the previews at Betway Insider and the odds posted by Betway, you’ll see that many games in Europe’s top-level football tournament have become pretty predictable.
High-profile teams – the clear favourites in every game they play – routinely plow through their smaller counterparts, with just a few names earning the title one after another.
Real Madrid, for example, presided by ESL head Florentino Pérez, has won the title 13 times – six times in the last two decades.
The ESL would’ve changed all that by allowing high-profile teams to play each other.
A precarious situation
According to Pérez, European football is in a precarious financial situation that the UEFA’s proposed changes to the Champions League will not solve.
Especially because they come too late – by 2024, he says, several clubs may go bankrupt.
The only teams that will likely survive are those financed by their respective states, and those with “multimillionaire owners who are willing, for their own entertainment, to lose hundreds of millions each season”.
The finances of several clubs were down even before the COVID crisis hit, and the pandemic turned a hard situation into one that’s dire, to say the least.
According to Pérez, the 12 founding members of the ESL lost a collective €2 billion last year ($2.4 billion).
The ESL is ‘not dead’
In an interview with Spanish publication as.com, Pérez made it clear that he doesn’t consider abandoning the ESL project.
“The entity exists and the members who make up the Super League are there too,” he told the reporters.
“What we’ve done is given ourselves a few weeks to reflect on the hostility with which certain people who don’t want to lose their privileges have manipulated the project.”
He claims that the proposed Super League has been deliberately misinterpreted as something detrimental to national football leagues, which it is not.
Instead, it is a solution to help football get out of the crisis, and to reignite the interest of younger generations, especially those aged 14 to 24, in this amazing sport.