The European Super League: a 90th-minute reprieve?

Football's aspiring breakaway competition, the European Super League (ESL), has scored what could prove a last-minute victory thanks to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

The court ruled that football's governing bodies Uefa and Fifa were "unlawful" in preventing clubs from joining the league through the threat of sanctions.

The case was brought by the ESL after its initial proposal in 2021, which included 12 of Europe's top teams, was met with "widespread fury and condemnation from fans, other European leagues and even government", the BBC said. Uefa handed out fines to many of the clubs involved as the plans quickly collapsed, but the ECJ ruling said the governing body, as well as global chiefs Fifa, had been "abusing a dominant position" to prevent new competitions from forming.

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The court said its ruling did not equate to the breakaway league being "approved", but the ESL almost immediately released a proposal for a new competition.

The background

The original plans for a European Super League were revealed with a "sudden, poorly conceived announcement" in April 2021 that sparked anger from fans and the potential of government legislation preventing clubs from joining, said Tariq Panja in The New York Times. 

The league's structure, in particular its exclusivity to the biggest clubs in Europe, would mean that it "upended the competitive landscape for the sport on the continent and the century-old structures that underpinned it".

Six English clubs – Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur – were all mooted participants in the ESL before fan pressure eventually forced them to pull out. Across Europe, AC Milan, Inter Milan and Atlético Madrid also pulled out, leaving just Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona, as well as Italy's Juventus, involved. Juventus eventually parted ways too, and now Madrid and Barcelona remain the "two driving forces" behind the league, said Ian Herbert in the Daily Mail.

The exodus of the clubs essentially spelt the end of the proposal, while Uefa "claimed a major victory" at the time, said Panja.

The latest

The ECJ ruling is a "seismic day" for European football, said Simon Stone at the BBC, and it left officials at Uefa "shocked".

Among the "thousands of words" in the verdict, "the only ones that really matter are whether or not the project can go ahead", said The Independent. The answer is that "it remains complicated". 

While the court said that Uefa's rules on new competitions had not been "transparent, objective, non-discriminatory and proportionate” and they were "contrary to competition law", the ruling still left "all advantage" lying with the governing body. As long as it makes its rules more "transparent" and "compliant with European Union law", then the Super League remains subject to its rulings.

The ESL, and its backing company, the Madrid-based A22, meanwhile declared that "the Uefa monopoly is over. Football is free", as it launched plans for new 64-team men's and 32-team women's competitions. But Uefa also went on the "counter-offensive", said Stone, telling the press that it would "not try to stop them" going ahead but was "not so sure" the ESL organisers "know what they are doing".

The reaction

The "heart" of the original Super League plan was the "chance to make more money", but it is "not clear it remains" in the new vision, wrote Paul MacInnes in The Guardian. With the initial proposals were "never that deep in the first place", the new ones remain "unpersuasive", he added.

Four of the six English clubs originally involved have ruled themselves out of rejoining the Super League and "pledged allegiance" to Uefa, MacInnes said. The UK government has also reacted to the ruling and "vowed to ban Premier League clubs from joining", said The Independent.

Barcelona and Real Madrid remain the key clubs propping up the Super League because they "desperately need some ready cash", wrote Herbert in the Daily Mail. Years of "hubris, greed and mismanagement" had led them to financial troubles, and they view the Super League as "the apparent release from this state of financial purgatory".

However, the "inconvenient truth" for those clubs is that "no one of significance" appears to "have any appetite for this", yet both have "ploughed on regardless" and are now "invigorated by the ECJ judgement", he added.

Both Real Madrid and Barcelona have publicly "hailed the decision", said ITV News, with Madrid president Florentino Perez saying it would make them "masters of their own destiny" and Barcelona boss Joan Laporta insisting it would end Uefa's "monopoly over the football world".