Project Big Picture and the European Super League

What is Project Big Picture?

Since the news of Project Big Picture not going ahead broke out it seems extremely likely that the European Super League will happen instead. The super league raises fundamental potential problems for the future of European competition and domestic football. Whilst at face value Project Big Picture seems like a way to stop the English football pyramid from crumbling, it is unfortunately just a ploy to help solidify the top 6 and stopping any teams from breaking into it. At the moment, all Premier League teams have one vote for when league-wide decisions are made. 14 votes are needed for a decision to passed. However, Project Big Picture would see the nine longest serving clubs in the league would be given superior votes, only six of the teams would need to agree in order for a decision to be made. The nine teams are the stereotypical ‘big six’ of Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham. It would also include Everton, Southampton and West Ham.

One of the reasons that makes the teams wanting to have totalitarian control over the league is the fact that they added a clause that states that the nine teams have the final say over any potential takeovers. The most recent potential takeover was the Newcastle takeover from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. This fell through because the Premier League claimed that Newcastle had not sent off the sufficient paperwork for the deal to go through which appears to be completely wrong. This is because Mike Ashley’s immediate response has been to take the Premier League to court because he claims that they did. One of the biggest reasons that the Premier League would not want the Saudi deal to go through is because how rich Newcastle would become. Clubs becoming richer than the companies they are competing in is a very real problem which was highlighted when Manchester City breached the Financial Fair Play and faced an extremely light punishment. This is because UEFA banned Man City from the Champions League for two years. The Manchester club were not happy with that, took them to court, and because Sheikh Mansour is much richer than UEFA, he took them to court and won. Jose Mourinho rightly said that their fine of €30 million is criminal because if they did not do anything wrong then they should not be punished, but if they did break rules then the punishment is way too lenient (especially when you consider that Man City were given a €500,000 fine for the same crime that Chelsea got a transfer ban for). If the Newcastle takeover was to happen, they would be worth £260 billion. To put that into context, if you added together every Premier League owner’s wealth, you would get £76.776 billion. Newcastle would have been 3.3 times richer than every owner combined. The Premier League would have become miniscule, especially considering the power Man City currently have over UEFA and the Premier League.

Project Big Picture was a surprise sprung upon the footballing world when it was leaked, and it was tried to be passed off as a way to help the football pyramid but it’s not. It’s a selfish way for the biggest and richest clubs to monopolise the Premier League by lending money to teams in League 1 and below but putting on clauses that will massively hinder them and put them in debt in the years to follow. Project Big Picture is fronted by Liverpool and Manchester United; they both have American owners, and this will see the bastardisation of the sport we love. The rejection of Project Big Picture will almost certainly see the introduction of the European Super League, which could potentially become football’s version of the NBA. The European Super League could destroy the footballing leagues as we know it or compliment it quite well.

“If City are not guilty, the decision is a disgrace. If City are guilty, the decision is also a disgrace. “It's a disgraceful decision because if City are not guilty of it then you are not punished with £30m... if you're not guilty you shouldn't have a fine." - Jose Mourinho on Manchester City's Financial Fair Play Punishment

The European Super League

One-way people are theorising that the Super League could be introduced is by essentially replacing the Premier League. I personally cannot think of a worse idea as it would completely ruin the structure of the footballing pyramid as we know. However, it would make the English leagues more competitive and make the Championship a lot more attractive. However, the biggest teams in England leaving the pyramid would completely discredit the quality of the league because it would also probably see five teams in the Championship get automatically promoted to the Premier League to bring the numbers back up to twenty. This potential structure would not only ruin the English structure but also the structure of Europe’s biggest leagues; competitions like Serie A, the Bundesliga and La Liga would become completely insignificant.

Another way it is thought that the European Super League could be done is if it were to replace the Champions League. However, the Super League would be run by FIFA so it would end up running alongside the Champions League because there is no way that UEFA would fold and allow FIFA to takeover and dominate them. Like the previous idea this would completely destroy the Champions League as it is and would once again ruin its credibility and reputation.

I have thought of a way in which the Super League could run harmoniously alongside all the other European leagues. If it was to be run as a sort World Cup like competition. What I mean by this is that it happens once every four years and is seen as a momentous occasion. I would propose it to run on the same year as the Euros instead of on a World Cup year because the Olympics also takes place on that year. On the year that the Super League is played, the rest of the teams in the other competitions (Champions League and Europa League) would be moved down. This would mean that the Europa League II (a sort of second division) would need to be introduced, like it is already rumoured to be. In a Champions League season, the winners will play a total of 13 games throughout the season. What I would put forward is a league with a similar format to that of the MLS, this is because you would have the competition of not only qualifying for the play-offs, but then going on and having to win the knockout tournament. This would help to add drama to the competition. At the moment, ‘the big six’ in the Premier League have voted for the competition to go ahead however, it is believed that only five places will be allocated to English teams. For the qualification you have to presume that teams who have won the Champions League should get European qualification. That means three spots are filled by Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea. That leaves two spots to be filled by either Arsenal, Spurs or Manchester City. You have to presume that Arsenal and Manchester City’s successes in the Premier League also give them qualification, meaning Spurs miss out. I predict there to be around 14 teams in the new competition with it being filled with Europe’s best teams. For qualification teams have had to be a consistent dominant force in their league or have won a Champions League within recent history, which is why I see Juventus taking the place of AC Milan. The 14 teams that I see being the first teams to take part in my version of the tournament are: Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Inter Milan, Juventus, Porto and Ajax.

For future qualification to the tournament I would say that winning a Champions League gets a team automatic qualification into the next tournament. I would also say that if a team wins two league titles they would also get qualification for the Super League. For the rest of the qualification I would take an average league position in order to work out who would go to the tournament. I believe this would be the fairest way to work out who gets to compete for the European Super League title.

I believe my proposed structure would help to keep Europe's footballing structures intact whilst complimenting them quite well. By not forcing teams to leave their own leagues it helps to keep football's current football fans happy whilst enticing new fans to the sport. One-way new fans could be brought to the sport is by having the play-off rounds in countries like Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia. Boxing is starting to tap into this market by hosting fights like Anthony Joshua vs Andy Ruiz Jr 2 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Tapping into this market will not only help the sport to gain a world-wide audience but to also bring in more money that can be given to countries to help invest in the infrastructure of their league structures. One downfall to this would be that the climax of the biggest European competition would not be played in Europe. What are your thoughts? Let me know.