The piece of news that has stirred up the world of European football this week is the intention of a dozen high-profile football clubs to create their own alternative tournament, one that would run in parallel with UEFA’s own Champions League.
The decision would be sound from a financial point of view for the clubs involved, and would certainly offer more alternatives to soccer betting enthusiasts and everyday fans alike. Especially since the European Super League plans to play its matches on weekdays, leaving the weekends for UEFA games, offering bookmakers like Betway a more varied lineup of games to cover, not to mention more events to be broadcast by the sports media. And, of course, more potential revenue streams for the clubs themselves.
As you might expect, the UEFA was not very happy about this, and neither were some players, some club owners – even politicians chimed in on the matter, mostly condemning the move.
The current European Super League or ESL is not the first attempt to create an alternative football tournament, though. But every time the idea was put forth, it was met with resistance by the sport’s traditional governing bodies.
ESL throughout history
Most people have only heard about ESL this week – but in fact, the idea has been circulating for more than two decades. A superleague with the participation of some of the best clubs across Europe was first investigated seriously in 1998 by the Italian company Media Partners but the plan died after the UEFA expanded the Champions League and phased out the Cup Winners Cup, a tournament played by the clubs winning their respective national leagues each year.
The idea resurfaced in 2009, promoted especially by Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez who pointed out that in the Champions League, the best teams don’t always play the best, and proposed the idea of the Super League unless UEFA didn’t do more to ensure the best teams in Europe played with each other annually. The idea was later embraced by representatives of several Premier League clubs, Scottish Premiership clubs Celtic and Rangers. As a response, the UEFA once again amended the rules of the Champions League.
Atlantic League
Another alternative football league was proposed by Peter Fossen and Harry van Raaij, CEO and President of the Dutch club PSV Eindhoven. The proposed Atlantic League would’ve offered more competitive and exciting games to winners of national leagues, and most importantly, more revenue streams for the chance to attract high-profile players like some of the richest European clubs do. The proposal was embraced by several European clubs, including Ajax, Porto, Rangers, Celtic, and Feyenoord. The Atlantic League expected to reach a population of around 40 million, with an average attendance of around 30,000 for each match, becoming the third-largest European league at the time.
But UEFA opposed the idea, even threatening the clubs and players deciding to join the new league to ban them from European competitions like the Champions League, a lot like today.
Once again, the idea refused to dwindle – it returned to the table in 2002, 2003, 2008, and again in 2016, this time with representatives of the Netherlands, Belgium, Scotland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway football clubs – even if the discussions were not fruitful, they did point out to UEFA that there’s life beyond the top clubs in European football.
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