The Rise and Fall of The Super League
By: Andrew Rodriguez
On April 18th, 12 of Europe's leading soccer clubs formed a new soccer league named "The Super League" which will be a mid-week competition that separates the Union of European Football Associations Champions and European leagues. The Super League were set to play to play midweek matches with 16 soccer clubs and four qualifiers from domestic competitions. The top four teams in each group would qualify for the knockout stages before reaching the weekend finals. The teams that were included in the Super League were AC Milan, Arsenal, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Juventus, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Tottenham Hotspur.
The President of Real Madrid CF and the first chairman of the Super League, Florentino Pérez had this to say:
"We will help football at every level and take it to its rightful place in the world. Football is the only global sport in the world with more than four billion fans and our responsibility as big clubs is to respond to their desires."
The goal of The Super League was to improve the quality and intensity of existing European competitions throughout each season as well as creating a format for top clubs and players to compete on a regular basis. This new annual tournament would have provided greater economical growth and support for European leagues due to a long-term commitment to uncapped solidarity payments. These solidarity payments would be higher than the ones generated by the current European competition.
The UEFA released a statement regarding the new league stating:
"We will consider all measures available to us, at all levels, both judicial and sporting in order to prevent this happening. Football is based on open competitions and sporting merit; it cannot be any other way."
The Premier League also issued a statement saying:
"The Premier League condemns any proposal that attacks the principles of open competition and sporting merit which are at the heart of the domestic and European football pyramid."
Following the announcement, fans began protesting the teams participating in the league which caused six English teams to back out of the league. Atletico Madrid and Inter Milan also announced their decision to exit the league on April 20.
Since half of the teams withdrew from the league and the English government placing regulation on the newly formed league, a statement was put out by the league itself stating:
"We are reconsidering the appropriate steps, in order to reshape the project. "We're proposing a new competition, because the current one isn't working. English clubs have been forced to leave due to outside pressure."
The fall of the Super League demonstrates how vocal the fans and the other associations are when it comes to a new league that restricts smaller clubs from participating and gaining revenue. This is something that is unprecedented not only in the soccer world but sports in general. It may not be the last time that a club organization tries to start their own league or competition because there is obviously teams that would like to participate, if not for the restrictions and threats made to them by other major organizations.