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April 20, 2021 Just as it seems to be trudging on the political front, with the announced departure of Angela Merkel and the uncertainty of re-election for Emmanuel Macron, the Franco-German axis has risen in a few days in defense of European football.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that the German and French teams are missing from the big clubs that should give life to the new Super League of continental football.
Above all, Bayern Munich and Paris St Germain, the richest and most famous, who would be members 'by right', according to the criteria adopted by the creators of the project, of the new very exclusive championship that should supplant the Champions League and beyond. And perhaps it is no coincidence that the two nations that hold one (France) the World title and the other (Germany), and with Bayern, the last Champions League.
To underline the French commitment against the new project, defined as a "threat" to the "principles of solidarity and sporting merit", was the same president Macron, who in the hours following the announcement of the launch of the Superlega issued a statement very tough, assuring that Paris "will support all the steps that will be taken by Uefa, Fifa, the French football league and federation to protect the integrity of federal competitions, both national and European". And it matters little that the French club that opposed the 'great refusal', PSG, is owned by a very wealthy Qatari entrepreneur, Nasser Al-Khelaïfi.
Angela Merkel, busy with the choice of her successor to the candidacy for the Chancellery (it will be Armin Laschet), has not spoken publicly for the moment. But it is clear that the clear opposition to the project of Bayern Munich, the battleship of German and European football, as well as of Borussia Dortmund, another candidate for the Super League, attest to the clear 'No' of Germany. For all, spoke Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, CEO of the Bavarian club, for whom the solution to the problems of European football (and its many debts) is not a super league of super rich, but "spending less". A little 'the re-proposition in a footballing key of Germany's pre-Covid rigorist policies.
This time, the Franco-German axis seems to have found in Europe, albeit outside the EU, an unprecedented ally: the United Kingdom. London, which has always thundered against a Europe in which in its opinion always and only Berlin and Paris decided, to the point of wanting to leave, immediately distinguished itself as a proud opponent of the Super League "for the rich only". Prime Minister Boris Johnson appears to be the most active among European political leaders in announcing reprisals against rebel clubs, to the point of calling for a "legislative bomb" to block the project.
English football is what most of all would have to lose from the launch of the Super League. The very rich Premier League, with six secessionist clubs, would be largely emptied of its meaning as a global brand. A loss not only of image, but above all of overall turnover, and therefore of tax revenues, as well as a distortion of the game invented in the mid-19th century by the British.
Another important European leader who took action against the splintering of the rich was Mario Draghi, who on Monday sided in support "of the Italian and European football authorities.
to preserve national competitions, meritocratic values and the social function of sport ". But, like England, Italy cannot boast the 'purity' of Germany and France. Three clubs (Juventus, Inter and Milan) of the new Superlega come from the ranks of Serie A, whose future now hangs a swollen cloud of uncertainty.
Great absent in the current debate is the Spanish Pedro Sánchez, another leader of a country strongly involved in the project that risks upsetting European football as we have known it so far. The Spanish premier has not yet pronounced himself. It is possible that in Spain the project, which involves Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético Madrid, has more appeal than in the rest of Europe. What is certain is that, as with the great political choices in the EU, Madrid will sooner or later have to take sides. And it is likely that it will do so, perhaps reluctantly,
following the example of Berlin and Paris.