European football has been experiencing hot events since last Sunday, when 12 of the biggest clubs in the old continent announced the establishment of the "separatist" Super League, which will surpass the European Champions League in terms of participating clubs and huge financial returns.
Away from the controversies between supporters and opponents of the new tournament, we monitor all the facts related to it, which the international media called "separatism" because it is tantamount to a separation or even a coup against the tournaments that are held under the umbrella of the European Football Association "UEFA".
1- Announcing the championship
April 18, 2021
The idea began to take shape in 2019, and reappeared in October of last year, when Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu at the time said that the club had approved a proposal to join the fledgling competition.
Last January, media reports revealed a document detailing plans to launch the European Super League, and FIFA and UEFA responded with a warning that it would prevent any player participating in a separatist competition from playing in the World Cup and the European Teams Championship.
12 top European teams announce their participation in the European Super League.
Juventus Club, one of the tournament's founders.
pic.twitter.com/QhGUT6bV5g
- JuventusFC (@Juventusfcar) April 18, 2021
2- Founding clubs
12 European clubs, and the organizing body for the tournament plans to increase it to 15 clubs, as follows:
3 Spanish clubs (Real Madrid - Barcelona - Atlético de Madrid)
6 English clubs (Manchester United - Liverpool - Manchester City - Chelsea - Arsenal - Tottenham).
3 Italian clubs (Milan - Inter Milan - Juventus).
Top European football clubs announce new European Super League competition.
Liverpool FC (@LFC_Arabic) April 18, 2021
3- Head of the tournament
Florentino Perez, president of Real Madrid
4- The reason for its establishment
The desire of the major clubs for a greater share of the proceeds of the European Champions League, to compensate for their financial losses that doubled after the Corona pandemic, until some of them, including Barcelona, were borrowed.
5- The date of the tournament and the days of the matches
Perez revealed the plans for the European Super League, saying, "If we reach an agreement with UEFA, we want to start in August. If not, we can wait a year."
The tournament matches are held in the middle of the week to avoid the local league matches, which usually take place the first and last week.
6- Tournament system
The Super League system provides for the permanent participation of the fifteen clubs established in the tournament, and 5 clubs are selected each year based on their achievements in previous seasons.
The twenty teams are divided into two groups, each group comprising 10 teams, and the matches are played in the back and forth league system, provided that the first 3 teams from each group qualify for the quarter-finals.
Decisive confrontations will be held between the fourth and fifth place teams in the two groups, to complete the quarter-finals teams.
7- The main funder:
American investment bank JP Morgan
American investment bank JP Morgan, Ed Woodward's former employers, have confirmed they are financing the 'European #SuperLeague.'
(Source: Various) pic.twitter.com/I75ERmKrWG
- Football News & Transfers (@ Scorpio55442671) April 19, 2021
8- Financial System:
The founding clubs will receive 3.5 billion euros (4.19 billion dollars) to support infrastructure investment plans and face the repercussions of the Coronavirus pandemic.
The champion will get about 400 million euros, a huge sum that is more than 3 times the 120 million euros that UEFA grants to winners of the Champions League every year.
1.95 billion euros will be distributed to the European Super League team, with 488 million (25%) initial payments and 585 million to be delivered based on the results.
Another 30% of the payments will go based on what the club has achieved over the past 10 years.
It will leave 292 million euros (15%) to be spent on additional disbursements.
9- Television broadcasting
The TV broadcast revenue of the tournament amounts to 10 billion euros, a record compared to the 4 billion that UEFA achieved in 2020 from television broadcasts of all its competitions.
10- Is it possible to achieve these astronomical profits?
Given the overwhelming global popularity of the teams participating in the tournament, and the number of their matches, which will amount to about 100, which will be played on a home-and-away system, they can be marketed with unprecedented huge contracts, especially since the heads of the founding clubs of the tournament are mostly businessmen and have a wide network of relationships that can be invested in exceptional marketing of the tournament That will generate huge.
And it will double the importance of the tournament in terms of marketing that it will cover all major sporting events at the club level, especially the European Champions League, which the giant advertisers are expected to leave to join the ranks of the strongest league.
11- Rulers
If an agreement is reached between the founding clubs of the Super League and UEFA, the referees of the tournament will be appointed by the UEFA Referees Committee.
Since 10 matches will be played a week in the two groups' league in the tournament, the organizers will need at least 70 referees, including 20 referees for the field, 20 assistant referees and 30 video assistant referees.
Physically, it is not permissible for the referee to run two matches in two consecutive days, in light of the great effort made by the referees of the arena currently, as some of them reach to run at a rate of 14 km in the match so that he is close to the ball and events to make the correct decisions.
Jamal al-Sharif, a former international referee and an analyst for "BN Sports" channels previously - to Al-Jazeera Net - says that in the event of an agreement, any referee participating in the management of the new tournament matches will be subjected to heavy penalties, including exclusion from the management of any match that belongs to the International and European Federations, and that is why he will not be in front of a league. The super solution was to contract with a group of distinguished referees in exchange for fictional sums to compensate them and push them to give up the international badge and devote themselves to arbitration in this tournament only.
12- Will repeated confrontations bored the masses?
Football-loving fans are not tired of the beautiful ball that can only be achieved in major team matches that include the most prominent stars of the round witch, and it is expected that the huge revenues will revive the treasuries of established clubs, which will stimulate the process of new contracts with the most prominent stars of the world.
In a few years, it is expected that the founding clubs of the European Super League will be the best destination for the world's most prominent stars because they will be the only ones able to pay their huge salaries, as it is also expected that the revenue boom will be accompanied by a significant rise in contracts and salaries of future stars, most notably Frenchman Kylian Mbappe and Norwegian Erling Haaland.
13- Legal position
British legal expert Mark Orth explained that if UEFA decided to prevent the championship by suing the clubs of this league to prevent the competition from moving forward, then this move may be doomed to failure, stressing that "the Super League teams have a strong argument and their strongest opportunity if the matter reaches the courts." .
"If a monopolist (UEFA) is allowed to ban competition, you don't need competition law at all," Orth said. "If it allows, it compromises the fundamentals of competition law. There should be an opportunity to open up the market (the sport)."
He added, "What if Amazon said to merchants: If you offer your goods on any other platform over the Internet, you are excluded from our platform. In other words, the exclusive offer of goods is on Amazon only."
14- FIFA position
FIFA issued a statement describing the new Super League as a "separatist tournament" and affirming its refusal to establish any closed European league outside the framework of international football.
UEFA, the English Football Association, the Premier League, the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), LaLiga, the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) and Lega Serie A have today released a statement.
Read it in full here: 👇
- UEFA (@UEFA) April 18, 2021
15- UEFA position
UEFA issued a joint statement with the federations and league leagues in Spain, England and Italy saying, “If this happens, we would like to emphasize that we - UEFA, the English, Spanish, Italian, English Premier League, La Liga League, Serie A, as well as FIFA as well as all member federations - are united in Efforts to stop this flawed project, which is based on the personal interest of a few clubs, at a time when society needs solidarity more than ever before.
"We will consider all measures available to us at all levels, be it judicial or sporting, in order to prevent this from happening," the statement concluded.
16- They said about "the separatist"
Infantino
FIFA President Gianni Infantino said, "We cannot but firmly reject the establishment of the Super League, which is a closed tournament separate from the current institutions. There is no doubt in FIFA's rejection of the order. Our full support for UEFA."
Ceferin
"The tournament is a slap in the face for football fans, and the players participating in it will not be allowed to participate in international competitions with their national teams," said UEFA President Alexander Ceferin.
"Selfishness has replaced solidarity, money is more important than glory, greed is more important than loyalty, profits are more important than passion. For some, the masses have become consumers and customers, and tournaments have become mere commodities."
Perez
Real Madrid president Florentino Perez said, "Whenever there is a change, there are always people who oppose it. We do it to save football at this decisive moment. The masses are decreasing, the rights are diminishing, something had to be done ... We were all destroyed. We lost together 5." Billions (euros). In two seasons, Real Madrid lost 400 million. "
The English Confederation
"Certainly, this harms English and European football in all respects and attacks the principles of open competition and sporting merit that are essential to competitive sport."
English Premier League
"Fans of any team in England and Europe can now dream of their team advancing to the top and playing against the best teams. We believe that the principle of the European Super League will destroy this dream."
Javier Tebas, president of the Spanish League
"Florentino Perez was very ignorant, but now I say he is a loser. Football has not been completely destroyed, as he says, and the Super League will not be the solution either. Rather, it will be among the problems .. it will represent the death of football."
Gabriele Gravina, President of the Italian Federation
"We have always been against the Super League. The only viable project is the changes to the UEFA Champions League that are being promoted by UEFA."
Christian Seifert, CEO of the German Confederation
"The DFB is against any idea of a European Super League. The economic interests of a few top clubs in England, Italy and Spain should not lead to the abolition of the existing structures in European football as a result."
Enrique Bunia is President of the Mexican League and President of the Forum of Championships for more than 40 leagues around the world
"All leagues around the world fully support the European domestic leagues against the European Super League project. Football should be based on solidarity and sporting merit."
British Prime Minister Johnson
"Plans to establish a European Super League will be very damaging to football and we are supporting the football authorities in their actions."
"They will strike the heart of local football, and worry fans across the country. Joint clubs must speak to their fans and the wider football community before taking any additional steps."
The clubs involved must answer to their fans and the wider footballing community before taking any further steps.
(2/2)
- Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) April 18, 2021
British Prince William
"Now more than ever we must protect the entire football community from the top level to the grassroots, upholding the values of competition and fairness. I share with the fans their concerns about the proposed European Super League and the damage it might cause to the game we love."
French President Macron
"The President of the Republic welcomes the stance of French clubs refusing to participate in the European Super League project that threatens the principle of solidarity and sporting merit," he said in a statement issued by the Presidency of the Republic.
British Minister of Culture Dowden
"Football fans are the beating heart of our national sport and any fateful decision must be taken with their support."
"With so many fans we are concerned that this plan could turn into a closed market at the pinnacle of our national sport."
European Audiences Association with members from 48 countries
"This is illegitimate, irresponsible and anti-competitive. More importantly, it is something only motivated by greed. The only beneficiaries who can profit from this are investment funds and a few clubs that are already rich, many of which perform poorly in local leagues despite their preferences."
Klopp, coach of Liverpool
"We discovered that the club was involved in the plans to establish the European Super League Soccer yesterday only. The angry fans should not blame the players. My opinion has not changed since 2019 and I hope this new competition will never be held."
Neville, former Manchester United captain
"I feel more disgusted than Manchester United and Liverpool. They establish a tournament from which they cannot be relegated? It is an absolute shame. We have to restore the balance of power in this country from the clubs that lead the league, and this includes my team."
"This is pure greed, they are fraudsters. The owners of Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City have nothing to do with football in this country."
"Manchester United, Arsenal and Tottenham are not even in the Champions League. Do they have the right to participate there? It's a joke."
Ferguson is the former Manchester United coach
"A separate European Super League would be a departure from 70 years of football history and fans love the Champions League the way it is. During my time at United, we played in the Champions League Final 4 times and these were the most memorable moments."
Football is nothing without its fans.
We've seen that clearly over the last 12 months.
If fans stand as one against this anti-football pyramid scheme, it can be stopped in its tracks.
- Gary Lineker @ (@GaryLineker) April 19, 2021
Linker, former England striker
"I feel like the Super League plot will end up on its ridiculous and greedy ass."