With the courts giving European clubs the green light to form a would-be European Super League, UEFA has condemned its formation, but if they are serious about putting it to an end, they need to do the following.
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On Thursday morning, news broke that the European Court of Justice had ruled in favour of A22, the company behind the proposed new Super League, regarding the sanctions FIFA and UEFA had tried to put in place to deter clubs from forming this new competition. The Luxemburg-based court essentially told the football governing bodies that their attempts to try and stop the formation of the Super League were infringing on competition law.
While the verdict is a win for A22 and the clubs that have been advocates for the tournament, such as Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus, the news has been met with massive criticism from across Europe. FIFA, UEFA, LALIGA, Manchester United, Atletico Madrid and many more have all denounced the mooted competition as they want to uphold the prominence of competitions such as the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League.
It is great that some of European football's biggest institutions, for the most part, are putting up a united front in condemning the ESL, but UEFA can really put an end to all of this by just offering the top European clubs more money for their participation in the Champions League.
A system currently being utilised to distribute wealth by European football's governing body is the coefficient payments. It essentially rewards teams who have done well in European competitions over a specific period of time. That coupled with broadcast market payout as well as performance-based prize money make up the amount that teams get when they play in European competition, but the ringleaders of the ESL, Real and Barca, seem to want a bigger slice of the cake.
Understandably so, given that most of the world tunes into tournaments such as the UCL to view them. In last year July, UEFA released a financial statement pertaining to the 2022/23 edition of Europe's premier club competition and the Swiss based body revealed that they generated €2 billion (R40 billion) to pay out to all the clubs involved. However, the winners from the season before, Real, only received €85 million (R1.7 billion).
That is only a fraction of what UEFA makes from the whole tournament, so it seems that teams such as Los Blancos would be better off financially if they were in charge of their own destiny, so to speak. Premier League teams are getting richer, and it looks as though the giants of LALIGA, Bundesliga and Serie A are struggling to keep up with the English sides as far as making money is concerned, and it is because of that we now find ourselves in this position.
UEFA are in a tricky position as they are not only responsible for looking after the big teams, but the smaller ones as well, making it a tough balancing act. The institution is revamping the Champions League from next season, which will include more games and more teams, and according to UEFA competitions director Giorgio Marchetti, they project to make €4.8 billion (R96 billion) and share that money more evenly.
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Whether the money made by the big teams in the next edition of the UCL will appease them enough remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure: If UEFA want to halt the genesis of the Super League entirely, they will need to give the bigger teams more money.
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