Twelve European football clubs announced on Monday that they wanted to create their own competition to compete in the Champions League.
After decades of shaking the specter of a potential dissension, Real Madrid, Liverpool, Manchester United and Juventus of Turin have taken the plunge by creating a commercial company, called "Super League".
According to Didier Primault, economist specializing in sport and managing director of CDES Progesport, "the objective of the Super League for the twelve clubs which are its bearers, is clearly to improve their economic model".
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But in dissension with the UEFA and the Champions League, this project of “Super League” could lead to a European football without “territorial anchoring”, estimates the expert. “I've been hearing about the Super League for thirty years, and until now it was used as a leverage for the big clubs to have a bigger slice of the pie in the negotiations with UEFA. "But since then, European football teams have seen their owners change," Didier Primault recalls. “For English clubs, for example, most of the owners are Americans, or even pension funds. Monday morning, an American bank, JPMorgan, announced that it was going to finance the project. “Today, between 4 and 5 billion euros will potentially be on the table,” adds Didier Primault.“The link between its owners and the territories concerned is much stronger, and their interest in the European model is quite low,” said the expert.
The Super League could also have an impact on the holding of national competitions. “There is a great risk on the calendars of the national teams, notes Didier Primault. Because systems which are on a purely economic approach are going to want to organize more profitable matches and that means taking a few more dates and colliding with national team matches at some point, as has already been the case in the basketball. Finally, this new competition made up of twelve big clubs could also have the effect of excluding smaller teams and consequently a number of European countries. “The right to dream that even a small club can fit into a final phase of the Champions League, there is. But in the system to come, it no longer exists ”,deplores the CEO of CDES Progesport.