Outrage alone won’t thwart the rebels

UEFA’s Aleksander Ceferin has lashed out at ‘liars and snakes’ in the rebel clubs

What started with fury at plans for a European Super League breakaway (”how dare they?”), and went through anxiety (”shit, these rogues really think they can get away with this”), has edged towards some sort of spirited but very uncertain resolve, like fighting off a dangerous and armed mugger with a saucepan.

That, at least, was the rollercoaster 24 hours of emotions described by one senior administrator in English football — and an accurate reflection of the extraordinary turbulence felt by millions who love the game as it is, and certainly a lot more than the abomination proposed by a dozen wealthy club owners and an US investment bank.

There was hope that the old structures of the European game will not yet be smashed to pieces and replaced with an American-style shopping mall that we will all be locked inside for ever, but there was little certainty.

After checking in with notable figures at UEFA and the Premier League, as well as sports lawyers, no one was willing to call how this plays out. The only consensus was that this was undoubtedly the gravest escalation of the breakaway threat since the words “Super League” were first banded around in the 1980s and 1990s.

We know the driving forces behind this wretched idea in the projections of billions of guaranteed income for the 15 permanent members — starting with a €350m ($540m) sweetener; the removal of competitive jeopardy; the easing of debts that have grown scarily huge for some clubs, notably Real Madrid and Barcelona, during the pandemic.

Heated emotion is not hard to find in response, with UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin launching a remarkably outspoken attack on the “liars and snakes” who told him right up to the weekend that they were backing Champions League reforms while plotting to replace the entire competition.

“Greed allows all human values to evaporate,” he said in a blistering take on men like Ed Woodward, the executive vice-chairman of Manchester United, and Andrea Agnelli, chairman of Juventus. And, yes, Ceferin is godfather to Agnelli’s daughter, which could make for an interesting gathering.

Outrage is understandable and may help to unite many disparate forces of opposition, but is that going to win the argument or will it be lawyers and regulators? In this unprecedented stand-off, who wields the power?

The usual way of things is that the elite clubs make a threat and end up forcing through changes (more European places, greater share of revenues) to buy them off for a few years.

But the rebels have never appeared so recalcitrant, which is not simply because of the heavy US influence — including “vulture capitalists” running AC Milan — though that is undoubtedly a significant factor.

“At least half of these clubs genuinely do think this is the answer to their worries and worth any amount of short-term aggravation,” one administrator said.

The Glazers at United and John W Henry at Liverpool, he said, really do feel that the present system is robbing them of vast riches due to them.

Without a committed broadcast partner, lacking the support of some notable clubs, including Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain, and with a logo that appeared to have been created by a teenage child on his iPhone a few minutes before the launch, this breakaway appears half-baked in some ways, but it has already gone too far not to have shaken the game from top to bottom.

Among many emergency meetings, the “other” 14 Premier League clubs meet on Tuesday to discuss next moves. It seems unthinkable that the “big six” can play in the ESL and remain in the Premier League given the damage that a breakaway would do to broadcast income and competitiveness.

But much as the idea of kicking out the rebels is appealing, it raises its own complications of whether they could even try to start their own league here. One source said that, for now, the 14 were more likely to reiterate the L9 rule — stating that a club cannot enter competitions beyond those recognised without written approval of the board — and seek further legal advice until the breakaway clubs make their next move.

“We have to reason,” Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish told the BBC, even if that will stick in the throat given the sense of “betrayal” by the “big six” clubs.

UEFA is consulting lawyers on whether it can suspend the breakaway clubs from European competition and ban players from international tournaments. FIFA president Gianni Infantino is due to reinforce that message, but could such moves and UEFA statutes be contested? Will it be through national courts or the European Commission? How does this work across borders?

The breakaway clubs insist that they have filed legal papers designed to protect their interests and to ward off any possible injunctions or expulsions — and the more lawyers you speak to, the more it becomes clear that we are venturing into unpredictable new ground.

Looking for precedents, perhaps the nearest is European basketball. History appears to be repeating itself given how the top clubs, including Real Madrid and Barcelona, wanted to take the European Champions Cup away from FIBA Europe, the governing body in 2000. For one season there were two European competitions which, inevitably, proved unworkable and the two merged — on terms that suited the big-name clubs, who ended up with more control than ever.

The outrage at these proposals, not least from fan groups, persuades many that football is different and that power does rest with customers — but only if they act in unison, not just in Britain and Europe but the world. How does that work?

It seems more likely that a combination of regulatory/legal pain for the rebels and/or UEFA concessions have a better chance of averting a split — but in Ceferin’s fury was a fear of just how far these owners are going to push this and, whoever emerges victorious from the bitter disputes that lie ahead, the destruction that will be done.

The Times