The Advent of the Super League

A few years ago I got into this conversation with a friend about the future of European football (soccer).

To this friend I said, that the European football was getting to the point where the need to create a European super league was inevitable. Currently in European football the leagues are contested by a handful of clubs for instance in Spain: FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Sevilla and Valencia (with the place for 3rd and fourth being interchangeable with other clubs); in Italy we have AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus; in France the league is dominated by Lyon with Marseille a distant second; as for Germany the season just ended was a closely contested battle with only 10 points separating the top four clubs. But do not be fooled to thinking that this represents a more competitive league. No! The Bundes Liga has been slipping backwards for a while now and it is no longer as competitive as it used to be.

As for England, the premiership is separated into 3 tiers (or four depending on how you look at it), with the top four clubs Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United contending for the title season in season out. Since the premier league was formed in 1992, the title has been won by one of the afore mentioned clubs with the exception of 1997.

Given the amount of money that has recently been invested in the premiership and the revenue streams that are generated from the top clubs the competition is just not that strong.

That was then this is now With the emergence of billionaire investors in clubs, particularly in the premiership (of the 20 clubs in the top flight atleast nine - Aston Villa, Birmingham, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United, Newcastle, Portsmouth and West Ham are owned by Billionaires) the direction of football is changing again.

According to the Deloitte annual review of football the five clubs in the premiership have wage bills that are significantly greater than £50m, led by Chelsea, which paid £114m in 2005-06, the most recent season for which figures are available. Manchester United's wage bill was £85m, followed by Arsenal's of £83m, Liverpool's £69m and Newcastle United's £52m.

And with the debate on capping wage bills proving to be a non starter it will inevitably lead to big money vs big money i.e. only the clubs backed by billionaires will make any inroads towards winning the title.

The feeder league. I can see the USA league amalgamating with the Mexican and Canadian leagues given the fact that Latin Americans are now a significant proportion of the minority groups in the USA and the migrant communities in Canada and their spending power on the up etc etc. The fact that football (soccer) has not taken off in the USA will continue to bamboozle marketers and senior management alike, but the potential that could arise from the coming together of the 3 leagues would prove very profitable all round.

PS This is a somewhat haphazard blog of random thoughts thrown into the aether in the hope of sorting them out through exchange ofcourse.