The European Super League: How Greed And Ambition Killed It
The voice of the customer matters
The never-to-be European Super League (ESL) was a business plan gone rogue.
It lasted only 48 hours. What a farce?
Florentino Perez, the Spanish politician and successful investor, played the role of Judas Iscariot. He reached out to twelve clubs to start their own league.
They would lock in the rights and get the biggest clubs in Europe to sign up. He promised they will make tons of money.
This was the incentive they needed. The Americans–Fenway Group and the Glazers loved this idea. Billionaires follow the money. They bought the idea immediately.
Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur joined from the UK. The Spanish trio comprised Atlético Madrid, Barcelona and Real Madrid. AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus completed the Italian trio.
Angry fans aptly tagged them the Dirty Dozen of football.
There was a problem, though. The twelve teams fell short of the twenty teams required to start the ESL. Paris St Germain and Bayern Munich refused to join. Other teams treaded with caution. It was all too good to be real.
On realizing the futility of the project, clubs pulled out immediately. Chelsea and Manchester City led the way, and others followed in quick succession. The ESL was a recipe for disaster.
With all its promises of big money and fanfare, the ESL collapsed like a pack of cards. Fans, players, managers, politicians, FIFA, UEFA and governments universally opposed it.
Only Florentino Perez and Andrea Agnelli believed in the project’s viability. It shocked that a plan that took three years in the making crashed in two days.
It was dead on arrival.
Big money, selfish ideas
Why did the ESL fail woefully?
As a case study, the concept drew the attention of business transformation and football experts. A thorough analysis into the project initiation showed a flawed business case right from the beginning.
The creation of the new ESL began in 1998. It remained unsuccessful and never progressed beyond the planning stage. UEFA opposed it and checkmated the move by expanding the Champions League format.
Undaunted, Florentino Perez continued the fight. He believed that football in Europe was obsolete, problematic and stunted the growth of clubs and infrastructure development. Good business analysis.
Discussions continued, albeit secretly, to promote the idea of a breakaway competition with strong financial potential. However, the billionaires promised to drop the ESL idea if UEFA began new reforms for the Champions League.
In 2020, COVID-19 struck, football clubs suffered serious financial losses; some incurred enormous debts. Florentino Perez suffered the most and started advancing the concept into realization.
JP Morgan Chase, the American investment bank, was on standby and immediately pledged $5 billion towards the formation of the ESL. This was an enormous war chest to rock any boat.
Perez and his co-travelers developed a unique motto captioned, “the best clubs. The best players. Every week”. Everything seemed ready, except that they overlooked too many aspects of business transformation.
This notwithstanding, the worst coup attempt jolted the football world on 18th April 2021.
Business model gone awry
Business models create value by engaging customers, deliver better value to customers and ultimately make money.
If this was the motivation behind the ESL, it did not show in their planning.
The business model lacked competitiveness and was elitist.
In his narration on the ESL, famous Actor Morgan Freeman said the only motive was to make more money. And here is why. Participation is by invitation only; teams cannot be relegated, and the clubs will referee matches.
Although five teams from the lower leagues could qualify to join the ESL every year, it was not by competition. Grass root and development football will ultimately suffer.
The two justifications provided by the clubs involved pointed to money. According to them, first was to make profit and second, ensure the welfare of the game of football.
Barcelona opined that, “we spend all our money on Messis. Can we have some more?” Liverpool claimed that, “you can never walk alone except in our stadium.” Manchester City put it loudly, “money, money, money, money, money.”
In Morgan Freeman’s view there was only one conclusion, “the billionaires are trying to rob fans of the greatest feeling on earth”. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
We implement a successful business strategy through business models that address customer needs. You must know your customer, the value you are offering to them and how to deliver the better value.
The ESL planners either forgot or took the fans for granted. The voice of the customer did not matter to them.
Fans woke up to hear of a plan that was never socialized to gauge their feelings. There was no evidence of a SWOT Analysis to show the opportunities to leverage.
The value proposition was vague, showing that the billionaires showed poor understanding of the football ecosystem.
Organizations strive to deliver value to customers and disrupt what it offered in the past. Apart from making more money, the business model design did not consider the fan’s needs.
A sustainable business model would have addressed the customer segment and lessen the high opposition. Customers want to know what they are being served. Football fans are no exception.
With the ESL, fans felt it left them with no option except to ‘make the owners even richer’. A case of robbing the poor to pay the rich.
Value propositions must match the fans segment to keep their willingness to pay.
Lessons learned in 48 hours
Business ecosystems are dynamic communities of organizations and individuals, each of which creates new value through collaboration and competition.
Between UEFA and the ESL, no collaboration took place. The ESL Gang planned in secret to usurp the UEFA business model. Therefore, strategy could be three times more difficult to deploy than develop.
Never underestimate the power of fans. According to NBC Soccer commentator, Roger Bennett, “fans are people who live and die with the fortunes of their teams, and willingly move a portion of their own fortunes to these teams.”
Yet, the ability to generate the goodwill of the fans never crossed the minds of the architects of the ESL.
Fans stick to their teams in good and bad times. This loyalty stems out of culture and history. By removing competition, ESL denied teams the chance to play the biggest teams and the usual struggle to avoid relegation.
Football fans, who normally enjoy the goal rush towards the end of the season, did not like this. It is taking away the entertainment factor from the game. It is treason.
In 1958, the owner of Dodgers Baseball, Walter O’Malley moved the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. The fanatical supporters of Dodgers never forgave him for the sacrilege. He broke the club’s social contract with the fans.
A devastated 14-year-old fan said, “for love of money, Walter O’Malley moved the Brooklyn Dodgers, my Brooklyn Dodgers, to the other end of the world, and three decades after he left us flat, my fire still stoked by any mention of the scoundrel who took our team from us.”
Dodgers fans immediately labelled him a dictator. For instance, three fans unknown to one another wrote the names of three dictators in the same order: Hitler, Stalin and Walter O’Malley.
Team support and allegiance become a way of life for the fans.
Fans united to save football
Two days after the announcement, soccer-mad Europe rose in unison to condemn the treachery.
Notably, fans felt it was a stab in the back. They trooped out in numbers to oppose the formation of the ESL. They did not leave clubs out as fans felt betrayed by their unilateral decision to join the league.
Fans, from forty-five countries, under the auspices of Football Supporters in Europe (FSE) issued a statement opposing the creation of ESL. In a YouGov Poll, 79% of British fans opposed the project with only 14% supporting it.
From the six teams that joined in UK, 76% of their fans released statements condemning the ESL and the clubs for their involvement.
Barcelona fans hung a banner over Camp Nou saying that, “Barcelona is our life, not your toy. No to playing in the Super League.”
The great Arsene Wenger lent his voice by saying that, “I would say that’s a bad idea. Football must stay united, it’s the most important thing. It’s based on sporting merit and overall to respect the history that has built from European Football.”
By Wednesday 18th April, Juventus chairperson Andrea Agnelli announced that the Super League was suspended.
Team owners need to be reminded that their investments are as valuable as the people buying their products.
The takeaways
European football, and indeed world football, may have just recovered from the failed leadership of few greedy billionaires.
However, it is not over yet for, as the saying goes, money will always find a way.
Regardless of what happens, the football landscape in Europe will not be the same again.
As an outcome, the biggest winner in the whole saga is the fan. The Fan-Ownership Model has surfaced as the alternative way to check greedy football investors. It is not new as it is already being practiced in some countries.
The Fan-Ownership Model helps clubs during financial difficulties and ensures the right financial decisions. It builds trust as fans feel the club is in the hands of people that love and care about it.
A supporter of this model, Pompey chairperson Ashley Brown says that, “each decision made benefits the club and not for darker reasons”.
Germany attained a rich fan culture because the clubs are fan owned. This model keeps the demons of commercialization in check. It is no surprise that it is the most fan-friendly league in the world.
The Bundesliga succeeded because of the “50 + 1” Rule. This rule enables a level-playing and guards against any owners completely taking over clubs. Clubs, and by extension the fans, must hold most of their own voting rights.
Another winner is the UEFA Reforms. UEFA will introduce the new Champions League format in 2024/2025 season. It plans to increase club participation from 32 to 36.
The Champions League competition is the most popular and high-quality league in world football. It will, therefore, present opportunities for lower clubs to play against the best teams in Europe.
Fans will watch more football and see more of Europe’s best and emerging teams.
If the ESL cartel collaborates with UEFA, this could be a win-win situation for both sides. This is because the UEFA reforms strategy addresses most of the gaps raised by the ESL cartel.
Both sides can work to ensure long-term viability, prosperity and growth for all.
Let football be for the common good of all, not for cartels.
