Barcelona and Real Madrid have sold football’s soul for Super League dream

Robin Bairner

21 Dec 2023 12:20 GMT
4 min read

Barcelona and Real Madrid are two of the teams who have sold themselves out at the cost of football’s soul as the new iteration of the European Super League has effectively been announced.

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The European Court’s ruling on Thursday that sides competing in the competition should be able to compete without fear of punishment by UEFA or domestic leagues has broken the monopoly they once held upon football.

Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has hailed the decision as opening a “new era”, which undoubtedly it does.

The Premier League’s hegemony as the world’s leading competition is suddenly under threat once again. Financially, traditional European giants such as Barca and Madrid were unable to compete with even modest top-flight teams in England.

In saving themselves, though, the 60 participants threaten to sell out those further down the food chain. LaLiga has already moved to brand the model “selfish and elitist”.

For a raft of traditional giants, the benefits are clear. Juventus, Milan, Inter, Benfica, Porto, Sporting, Ajax, Celtic and Rangers are just some of the clubs that stand a chance of re-emerging as European forces once again, yet it is the Spanish sides who will reap the biggest benefit.

Real Madrid and Barcelona, who had been forced to sell the family silver such was their miserable financial mismanagement over the last decade or more, each stand to scoop a loyalty bonus that could amount to €1 billion each should the Super League become a reality.

Now they are tempting others with a series of promises it is unclear how can be kept. How, for example, can the Super League guarantee free to air football for all when the prize money is so astronomical? What about their claims that players will play less football, despite guaranteeing at least 14 midweek games in this new competition?

It all sounds great, of course, but as with everything shiny, there is a dark side.

The collateral damage of the Super League

Levelling the playing field in Europe comes at a cost, though. Financial inequalities in domestic leagues, already a problem in many countries, promise to become so significant as to streamline these competitions into stratified competitions.

Speaking earlier this week, Bayern Munich board member Karl-Heinz Rummenigge argued:” Serie A would become Serie B and the Bundesliga the second division. And do you know why all this? To damage the Premier League which earns more simply because it is better.

“Especially the Spanish clubs - they wanted to damage the Premier League so they invented this tournament. We would then say goodbye to Juve-Cagliari, goodbye to Bayern-Bielefeld.”

© ProShots - Harry Kane's Bayern Munich continue to reject the Super League

He is not alone in being a Super League sceptic, with the impact in smaller leagues arguably more profound to the grassroots game.

Chairman of Aberdeen Dave Cormack, whose side were Conference League participants this season, used Scotland as a practical example.

“This will be the Trojan horse towards a European Super League and ultimately cross-border leagues, because when the biggest clubs leave their National Leagues the commercial value for the remaining teams will plunge,” he said via X.

“Your board at Aberdeen FC has been expecting this decision for some time. Throughout our history, including this season’s group stages, the appetite for European football if anything has grown significantly.

“We are working with like-minded clubs across Europe to make sure we do our utmost to deliver European club competition with similarly competitive clubs, the absence of which will lead to double the current gap in finances versus Celtic and Rangers, who will be included in those 60 ranked teams. As usual, in Scotland, we have slept-walked our way into this without any discussion.”

This is football’s Animal Farm moment. A handful of clubs, spearheaded by Barcelona and Real Madrid, stand to benefit but at the cost of risking the fabric of the game across Europe.