Football war: a schism between UEFA and Europe's big clubs

Why is this happening? Who is right? Is it true that the powerful clubs show no solidarity? The arguments of those in charge of this project are:

• Football, the product, is deteriorating.
• The fans are losing interest.
• We have to adapt football to reality so that it remains the most demanded content.
• The calendar is saturated and this affects on the health of players.
• The economic distribution is inadequate.

Solutions proposed:

"We are giving fans and amateur players a dream and top-quality matches that will fuel their passion for football."

"We will meet the quality requirements demanded by the spectators."

All games before the final will still be played midweek, recognising the importance of the domestic calendar of games across Europe.

There are 2.04 billion euros up for grabs, split between the 32 participating teams competing in the Champions League. The last two winners of the competition earned around 100 million. Namely, 111 million for Liverpool and 118 million for Bayern.

European Super League claims to have multiplied all these figures. So much so that "in exchange for their commitment, Founding Clubs will receive an amount of €3.5 billion solely to support their infrastructure investment plans and to offset the impact of the COVID pandemic." Not only that. The organisers plan to offer more than 10 billion euros in so-called solidarity payments over the commitment period of the clubs involved. The financing will be provided by the investment bank JP Morgan.

In Spain, LaLiga (Javier Tebas) and the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF -Luis Rubiales) are in direct conflict with major Spanish clubs.

• The appointment of referees and the management of the VAR. A disaster.
• The drawing up of the calendar. It couldn't be any tighter.
• The designation of the schedules for each matchday. The televisions are in charge, not the clubs.
• TV rights money distribution system.

There are rumours that Florentino Pérez stepped on the accelerator for the organisation of the Superliga after Real Madrid felt clearly harmed in their trip to Pamplona in the middle of a storm. They were not allowed to postpone or bring the match forward. They had to be blocked there and travel directly to Malaga to play the Spanish Super Cup. They were totally helpless by La Liga and the RFEF.

Real Madrid CF and FC Barcelona earned just over 150 million euros in television rights last season, the same as a mid-table English club such as Wolverhampton.

Bartomeu was the first to join the initiative, followed by Florentino. Atlético de Madrid were very unhappy after their team was eliminated in the Copa del Rey against Cornellá on an artificial turf pitch in a one-off match. This looks very nice for the press: the revolution of the little ones, great excitement for one match, but the ones at risk of injury are players who earn millions of euros and the two Spanish bodies don't take any responsibility for anything. Insurance for international players has already cost enough.

A clear example is Robert Lewandowski's injury in a Poland-Andorra match. It takes him out of competition for two months when his team was playing in the Champions League. The club loses money because of the elimination, but it also has to pay the striker's salary of more than 10 million. The fans cannot enjoy watching one of the best strikers in the world in his match against one of the best teams, PSG. All of this with all due respect to Andorra, but that Poland-Andorra match was hardly followed in Europe, let alone in the world.

Comparisons are odious, but it would be unthinkable that Lebron James could not play in the NBA playoffs because he was injured playing a USA-Costa Rica game (with all due respect to the Central American country).

FIFA initially supported this proposal to reshape football and this led to a number of clubs joining the project.

For this reason, the world body has not been very drastic in its condemnation of the new project, but UEFA feels threatened.

"FIFA always stands for unity in world football and calls on all parties involved in heated discussions to engage in calm, constructive and balanced dialogue for the good of the game and in the spirit of solidarity and fair play".

The European Super League would kill the Champions League and Ceferin (UEFA) does not want the same thing to happen as with Euroleague basketball, which is controlled by the European clubs and not FIBA.

LaLiga's reaction, from its president Tebas, has been extremely forceful: "The new European competition proposal is nothing more than a selfish approach, designed to further enrich the wealthiest. It will undermine the appeal of the entire game and have a profoundly damaging impact on the immediate future of LaLiga, the clubs that comprise it and the entire football ecosystem".

“As already announced by FIFA and the six federations, the clubs in question will not be able to play in any other competition at national, European or world level, and their players could be deprived of the opportunity to represent their national teams," read the statement with which UEFA manifested its public complaint against the pulse raised by the twelve signatory teams.

This is not viable for TV channels, for sports brands, for commercial brands, etc. A World Cup without Messi, without Cristiano would be unthinkable.

It is clear that the big European clubs think that the Champions League is not well managed, that interest has been lost and that the pandemic has come to precipitate events. They want to manage it themselves.

FIFA's position will have to prevail: "Calm, constructive and balanced dialogue for the good of the game". This is difficult, positions are more than at odds and it is now becoming a state issue.