“Before all of us became footballers, we were all at one stage football fans, that’s where everything starts in football” commented Patrick Bamford, striker and player with Leeds United in the English Premier League.

This simple but revealing quote epitomises the reaction to the proposal made on 18 April by 12 top European football clubs to create a new breakaway football league – the European Super League (ESL) – from the 2022 season onwards.

This proposal has drawn unprecedented and unanimous criticism from players, football fans and clubs- as well as European political leaders with questions being raised about the fairness, governance, and merit of this competition.  72  hours after the announcement, the project was dead with  9  of the 12 teams having withdrawn and the UK government stressing, “it is very important that we don’t see this as the end of the process.”

On the other side, proponents of the project, such as Florentino Perez, President of Real Madrid and the ESL, call for a remodelling of the project. Perez has long argued that this reform was long overdue to guarantee the economic survival of professional football, stressing that “by carrying this reform, our objective is to save football. Some say the rich (clubs) will become richer, and the poor (clubs) poorer. But it is all the contrary.”  Despite the evolution of football into a global sport and business, the financial situations of these clubs have been a different story, with players’ wages and debt repayments on the rise. Indeed, in 2020, many clubs reported debts exceeding €100 million according to accountancy firm KPMG and Deloitte stated that the top 20 clubs have suffered a €2 billion hit from the pandemic. A situation, which according to President Perez, has been exacerbated by less income from broadcasting rights and empty stadiums.

With the breakaway proposal drawing political condemnation from all corners of Europe, there is serious doubt if the proposal will see the light of day in its current format. Several vital communication ingredients, which logos regularly crafts with its association clients, went missing. This could have yielded a different result.

So what went wrong?

• Communication: Firstly, the announcement of the breakaway league seems to have caught the wider football community by surprise, and perhaps came too soon after last week’s UEFA’s proposal to revamp its prime club competition (the Champions League) into the UEFA Club Competitions (UCC) with more games in 2024.
• Timing: The timing of the announcement (be it the UEFA or the European Sports League) came at the wrong time, particularly for fans who feel increasingly disconnected. Local fans love open competitions and have long complained about the soaring price of season tickets while supporting their clubs unconditionally, with no hope of attending games, and while paying for TV subscriptions to watch games held in empty stadiums.
• Lack of transparency and support: Allegations concerning the transparency of footballing organisations like UEFA and FIFA over the years have also thrown into question fans trust in football’s governing bodies. Some will say fans are the most important people in football, and the question deserves to be asked whether they were consulted at any stage of the creation of the future ECC or European Super League? Polling by YouGov found a massive 79% of football fans oppose the creation of the Super League, while almost three-quarters want to see club owners punished if they sign up. The same applies to players and players’ unions which also seem to have been left out of the reform of the Champions League and the ESL. With players and fans left on the side-lines of such essential reforms, the lack of accountability and credibility of these sports associations remains a burning question.

What can the EU do?

Political action is often called for in these situations. Though the EU has limited legislative power in sport (though over €50 million is to be allocated to sports funding between 2021-27 under the revamped Erasmus + program), the attempt to create a breakaway league reopens debate on the governance of sport.

At the national level, the French government said it was working on a push for European legislation: “We will try, even through EU law, to reinforce the financing systems of small clubs and entrench at last this European model of football, sports and popular celebration” said Clément Beaune, Junior Minister for European Affairs.

At EU level, Brussels has shied away thus far from using its competition powers against sports organisations- preferring to leave the matters to national courts or trusting sports organisations to change their governance structure. The large majority of complaints to the European Commission against sports organisations have remained unresolved over the years (see comment from Tommaso Valletti, former Chief Competition Economist, European Commission). The European Commission prefers to insist on the need for sports organisations to self-regulate and have “clearly defined, transparent, non-discriminatory rules” which “defends the European model of sport based on diversity and inclusion”.

Large sport organisations (FIFA, UEFA, IOC) and smaller ones enjoy a significant degree of autonomy in how they govern themselves. Indeed, football is not like any other economic activity and. In light of many cases of corruption, bribery, match-fixing, the likes of UEFA have made positive commitments to good governance.

However, today’s failure around creating the ESL shows the need for better-supervised football (by governments) that is more respectful of players and fans’ needs and yearns for more openness, fair remuneration, grassroots participation, and transparent governance.

While the EU has no right to regulate sports at this stage, Member States now have the opportunity to learn from today’s mistakes and empower the EU to steer the debate on sports governance.