On Sunday, 12 of the biggest teams in European soccer shook up the sport, announcing plans for a breakaway “Super League” that has been met with intense condemnation from across the soccer world, including from fans of those 12 teams.
Normally, this news wouldn’t be particularly relevant to Boston sports fans, especially if you’re not a soccer fan.
But there is a local tie-in here, because one of the 12 teams is Liverpool, and one of the key figures is Liverpool’s ownership group: John Henry, Tom Werner and their Fenway Sports Group, who of course also own the Red Sox. Henry reportedly may be one of the vice-chairmen in charge of the new league.
And Liverpool’s fans, particularly those in the United Kingdom, are livid at Henry and FSG, calling the move “a betrayal,” “extreme greed,” “immoral,” “sickening,” “shameful,” “an embarrassment,” “another nail in the coffin of football,” and “the most bare-faced act of greed in the game’s history.”
Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher called it “a betrayal of a heritage they are seeking to cash in on.” Two of the team’s biggest supporter groups have announced they will be removing their flags from Anfield, the team’s stadium, writing, “We feel we can no longer give our support to a club which puts financial greed above integrity of the game.” Fans have already put up banners of protest outside the stadium as well.
OK, so what exactly is this Super League and why is everyone so upset about it?
On its surface, the league is intended to be a rival to or replacement for the Champions League, which is the top club competition in European soccer. Currently, teams in the biggest domestic leagues in Europe (England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, Italy’s Serie A, and Germany’s Bundesliga) can qualify for the Champions League by finishing in the top four in their domestic league. Other teams from smaller leagues around Europe can qualify by winning their domestic league or qualifying for a play-in spot.
Since qualification for the Champions League is entirely merit-based, there is no guarantee that the richest clubs in Europe will make it every year. This is particularly true in England, where six of the 10 most valuable teams in the world (Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham) compete for four spots not just against each other, but also against teams like Leicester City, West Ham and Everton that are also in the mix this season. In fact, Leicester City and West Ham are both in the top four in the Premier League as of Monday, with Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham all on the outside looking in with a month left in the season.
Those “Big Six” of English soccer make up half of the 12 teams launching the Super League, joining Spain’s Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid, and Italy’s Juventus, Inter Milan and AC Milan. It is unclear if the giants of Germany and France -- namely Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain -- will join at a later date. Germany’s second-richest team, Borussia Dortmund, has said it will not be joining.
Reports indicate that the league intends to add three more permanent members and five rotating members that will either qualify or be invited to the league on an annual basis.
Despite whatever the 12 Super League teams say, their motivation for forming the new league is clear: Money. They want more games against other top European teams instead of Champions League group stage games against smaller teams from Denmark, Austria, Ukraine, etc. And they want to be guaranteed those games every year instead of having to qualify for them on merit.
The protests from fans center around the idea that a league with 12-15 permanent members is antithetical to what makes European soccer special, which is a system of promotion, relegation and qualification in which no team, no matter how valuable, is ever guaranteed a permanent spot in any league or tournament. It would also shut out many smaller leagues and teams from ever being able to compete against the giants.
The backlash has not been limited to just fans. The Premier League issued a statement condemning the new league. UK prime minister Boris Johnson and other politicians have vowed to fight its formation. UEFA, the governing body of European soccer, has threatened to ban players on those 12 teams from playing for their countries in the European Championship and World Cup. There have been rumors that domestic leagues like the Premier League will be weighing expulsion or other stiff penalties for teams that join the Super League.
While some of the owners involved in the creation of the Super League have released statements, Henry and Werner have not yet commented publicly.