How Europe can beat the Premier League
As money floods into England, the league pyramids of Europe are in peril; this is how they can fight back.
The recent purchase of Newcastle United means another supercharged Premier League team is about to crash the Champions League party. While England’s success in Europe’s top tier is not absolute, in financial terms, it’s been game over for a while.
When the Champions League teams of the Bundesliga get outbid by Wolves, you can see the problem, the gulf is getting bigger.
On the continent, the pressure to keep up has lead to the kind of risky decision making that could jeopardise clubs for decades — Barca selling future TV rights (and anything else bar the seats).
Even the most well-disciplined, fan-owned enterprises are becoming feeder clubs for the Premier League, and there is a growing aspiration by English teams to buy and use continental rivals for exactly this purpose.
The pendulum is swinging hard against the elite clubs of Europe. Real Madrid might seem to defy all convention in winning old big ears right now, but every season this levitation becomes more unlikely.
Internationally, Europe has always had the highest accumulated attendances, the highest aggregate views (outside of the World Cup), and produced its finest teams (River Plate, Palmeiras and São Paulo aside).
If the future of the top of European competition is in the Premier League then the cultural and sporting landscape would be worse off — the San Siro, the Santiago Bernabéu — these are footballs true cathedrals. There won’t be some decisive moment when the lights of Europe go out — but you’re already seeing the casualties:
The Premier League is now making approximately 10 times as much money from the sale of international TV rights. The writing is on the wall.
What can Europe do to styme this atrophy and be the future of football?
The Solution — The European League
A top tier league formed of the greatest 20 teams from across Europe — excluding the Premier League.
This would have relegation and promotion coming from the current leagues: Serie A, the Bundesliga, Ligue 1, the SPL and many more. Using the current UEFA club co-efficient you start to get a picture of what this might look like…
The previous barriers to this competition have now largely been eliminated. Travel’s not a consideration when even games between Manchester and Leicester are taken by private jet.
Meanwhile the growth in fanatics willing to slog it around the edges of Europe for even the most low-key fixtures appears relentless.
The trickiest obstacle to this idea is in relegation. Left to a co-efficient alone, the potential to drift too heavily toward one of the national leagues could make a European League just a reformatted Bundesliga or La Liga.
This is a similar dilemma faced by the geographical limitations of lower leagues, in England this begins at National League relegation (England League Level 5), with the supporting leagues, the National North and South respectively taking two of the spots each (as of the 2022/23 season).
Indeed, at county level it is the kind of logistical nightmare that has caused all sorts of convoluted solutions.
Thankfully, in terms of Europe, this is exactly the kind of mental gymnastics the Champions League has wrestled with over the last decade, balancing a broad range of national champions against far better financed runners up.
RELEGATION:
The solution that would be most resilient to drift would be driven down the fault-lines of European football. The lowest placed team in the league from each of three regions would be relegated.
Southern: Spanish, Portuguese, Croatia, Czech
Northern: Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Scotland, Netherlands, Switzerland
Central: Italy, France, Belgium, Austria, Ukraine, Serbia
Unlike the traditional bottom three team, the lowest placed team from each of these would be relegated. For reference, if we took the table above the relegated teams could be:
Olympique Lyon would escape the drop by virtue of Shakhtar Donetsk taking the hit for the Central Region.
It might not look neat, but it creates a double jeopardy, or leagues within leagues, firing up domestic rivalries while ensuring that each region is equitably represented.
Under this regimen, one thing would still never change — bottom place is guaranteed an exit.
PROMOTION:
What is the most valuable game in the world? The Championship Play-Off Final. A game played in front of 80,000 between two teams ranked between 23rd and 26th in England’s football pyramid.
The European League would mimic this by having a summer mini-cup competition between the winners of the domestic leagues from each region.
Each of the three cup competitions would be independent, each producing their own champion to be promoted into The European League. Taking just one example, a potential knock-out game between the winners of La Liga and the Primeira Liga would be simply unmissable.
But the greatest leagues have more to play for than three positions, and there are two final pieces of the jigsaw that would define this as the greatest league in the world…
The European League Cup
When introduced to domestic leagues, European Cup Competition places added interest beyond the question of who came top. At first it was only relevant to the top two teams in England, then to three, now positions up to 9th in the Premier League are filled with the reward of European football of some form (domestic cup results dependant).
This can be replicated in the European League with final standings buying you a place in the Coveted European League Cup next season.
This cup format would consist of 32 teams in total, and not all from the European League.
The top 4 teams from the European League would enter at a later stage in the competition. Teams positioned 5th-8th would also qualify at an earlier stage.
A remaining 24 positions would be fought for by teams in the original national leagues, playing preceding rounds, similar to England’s FA cup or the Coupe De France.
It would restore the balance between cup and league format, while allowing smaller teams to benefit from increased exposure and opportunity.
The FIFA Club World Cup
Finally, the most successful teams in the league would qualify for the Club World Cup, a final carrot to ensure competition levels that matter.
How to reduce success becoming entrenched?
The failure of the Premier League, and the Champions League, is how much of a closed shop it has become. The riches of the game fail to support challenger teams.
To that end the Premier League introduced parachute payments but also made sure that the cut of the revenue was distributed more equitably than viewing figures would dictate. This has allowed a broader church that has kept the game not only alive, but thriving. It’s a model followed across Europe:
But to ensure a diverse competitive mix, all league media revenue should be divided equally.
To gain edge, teams could raise revenue via tickets, licensing and merchandise, but essentially, the prize, the real value, is in the trophy, where it always should be.
Why this has to happen now — The calculus is changing
As alluded to at the top, another giant is to emerge from the Premier League. Newcastle is a guided missile of Saudi control that cares less about the game and more about washing cash and enhancing reputation.
When the ill-fated European Super League was originally mooted, the resolution of the Premier League was surprisingly strong, with a clear majority of members opposing the move.
With Newcastle United one more domino falls. The idea of a new league format is gaining momentum, and the plutocrat owners of the Premier League know it.
While some European clubs may indeed be invited into the new game, it will be dominated by English teams and the money at the top of the game. A format devised for financial benefit alone will look to the USA — closed leagues, franchises. It’s a bad model there, it’s a worse model here.
A return to glory
There was a time when Maradona would never have countenanced a move to England — he already played in Italy, and played with giants of the game.
If Europe is serious about returning to the pinnacle of the game. If they want to keep tomorrow’s Haaland on the continent, they have to leverage the tools at their disposal.
As the world gets smaller it’s becoming a winner takes all for viewers. More than ever, we’re watching the same leagues and the same games — all together.
Are European teams prepared to grasp the mantel and be the biggest game in town? Because their window is closing rapidly.
