Uefa fell asleep - and gave away football in the process

Paul Macdonald

• Updated: 10 Jul 2023 11:25 BST
• 6 min read

Fifa, Uefa, and football in general, have had well over a decade to sort out their concerns over the future of the game. But they've waited too long.

Players have been earning way too much money. Agents have been syphoning huge amounts from the game. Young players have been taken advantage of. State ownership has been sanctioned. Fan ownership has been marginalised, or made impossible. Financial disparities between leagues haven’t been addressed. No attempt at a workable salary cap has been employed. Players are playing more than ever, diluting the quality in sub-standard competitions. Talent hoarding is commonplace. Leagues are hopelessly imbalanced. And while there’s ‘concern’ expressed at this highest levels, it’s far, far, far too late.

The train has left the station. The lawyers are in place. Uefa, in particular, have let this happen. And the European game will be paying for it forever more.

There are some that might say that the launch of the Saudi Pro League (SPL) - which is merely the cherry on top of the desire of the middle East to buy into a fandom that they themselves could never create organically in their wildest dreams - creates broader competition and truly opens up a new market, where so many have failed before (China being the most recent example).

But that’s only the case if the SPL has to adhere to the same competition rules as Uefa teams need to. As rough and challengeable as Financial Fair Play is, it does represent a moderate leash that keeps teams somewhat in check. Punishments have been handed out and its threat is one that club accountants bear in mind, even if they are creative in getting around it.

No, the Saudis have no interest in playing fairly and their only bargaining chip is the absolute unshakeable greed of the modern footballer, one which means they will ditch literally anything in order to earn that sweet tax-free cash. Competition, ambition, heritage, history, living conditions, moral conditions - even the tax you contribute to the economy.

The footballer isn’t unique - there’s greedy people everywhere - but outside of LIV Golf it’s never been quite so obvious; playing what was a working-class game for £10m a year and deciding that isn’t enough for you.

And so when the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia decide that they’ve found £20 billion down the back of the couch to fund the relaunch of their league, it’s inevitable that players will go.

But the longevity of this project is what should be frightening to Uefa; this is no fad, no summer splurge. This is a medium to long term attempt to wrestle control of the entirety of the sport. £20 Billion goes a long way, particularly when the four main clubs - Al Nassr, Al Ahli, Al Ittihad and Al Hilal - are now essentially state-owned - and the government itself can move the players between the clubs as it sees fit.

This isn’t just a closed shop playing by its own rules, this is a series of glorified friendlies designed to please their Saudi masters, and the players are lining up to go.

But Uefa’s warnings were all signposted, all entirely visible, and also entirely avoidable, and it’s a total absence of leadership which has led to this point.

As Alexander Ceferin decided to take on Gianni Infantino in the age-old Uefa-Fifa battle, launching the Nations League and also the Uefa Conference league. Infantino focused on expanding the World Cup and introducing a barely-desirable Club World Cup. And all the while, the Saudi’s just waited to make the right moves.

The first one was Newcastle, a deal actively encouraged by the UK government to maintain relations between the nations. The next was the courting of the 2030 World Cup, which has become a more serious target with each passing success. Next were CVC offers, looking to buy percentages of major leagues - something still on the table. And finally, it’s this SPL revamp with, in comparison to football at large, an unlimited cheque book with which to lure players - many of whom, it seems, don’t need much persuading to sign for ludicrous sums and contribute nothing to society in the process.

This is not the scenario that Uefa wanted as they try to control the game from within their own borders. Now they have an outlier who doesn’t have to comply with anything they do, or say, and the only ally who potentially could - Fifa - have been made an enemy of by Ceferin.

And now we’re in a situation where the sport at large appears to be irrevocably broken. The issues are so ensconced, the answers now so far out of reach, that football itself as a European institution may have peaked.

These things never end with a crash, more with a whimper. Ligue 1, beyond PSG, are now priced into irrelevance. Serie A’s steady decline as a competition could well continue (just look at the shockingly low financial offers for domestic TV rights for further evidence of that decline). The Bundesliga’s ownersip structure will restrict what it can do, and what it can spend. La Liga is suffering from a severe lack of star power, and that will only get worse.

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And then there’s the Premier League. There’s little chance that the SPL will ever reach the level to compete with their level of prestige, but the homogeneous blob that is the EPL has already distorted the market for so long that what is happening here appears normal, when it is in fact anything but. And the spectre of the state-owned clubs - Manchester City, Newcastle and potentially Manchester United - means the competition within their own league is about to become hopelessly skewed.

Uefa held all the cards, had the option to offset this threat, and build the game for good. Instead, they allowed states that care nothing of the sport itself, rather the influence it provides them, to run rampant. And they’ve put football’s long-term future in severe jeopardy in the process.

Don’t believe me? Just wait and see.