Why Super League is Inevitable

Why Super League is Inevitable

Since most people haven’t moved on from their early impression of Super League, here’s a quick refresher of what it is now.

It is a 3-tier league where:
Super League Star is to Europe, what Premier League is to England.
Super League Gold is to Europe, what EFL Championship is to England.
Super League Blue is to Europe, what EFL League 1 is to England.

Analogy to English Football League, instead of Champions League, is intentional. That’s where the key differences from the UEFA model start. The UEFA model believes that it is paramount that domestic leagues feed into the Champions League. No matter if the format of UCL is group stages or a random league table, the teams in the pool ~must be decided based on their domestic performance.

But if you take away that unnecessary self imposed constraint, you give birth to a new European league that gives you football at its highest -- The Super League.

Real Madrid and Liverpool are two historic teams, yet they’ve only played each other 11 times in the last 100+ years. I wish I could write numbers in capitals, to emphasize how low that number is. Football is more fun when two big teams play each other. There are so many big fixtures that happen only at the mercy of randomly drawing balls at UEFA HQ. All this is because UEFA feels it’s altruistic to have Pot 4 teams given the same footing as Pot 1 teams. I don’t know UEFA enough, but I know that the reason all the way down must be money, not altruism.

Football should be on merit. But when we measure that merit based on domestic performance, the trade off is a league deprived of exciting fixtures. Even this year’s Champions League, which is being considered a “copy” of Super League, is an embarrassing one at that. Each team now plays 1-2 bigger fixtures, but also adds 3-4 dud fixtures to their list.

Super League is inevitable, and for the right reasons. Let me invalidate all the reasons why Super League feels wrong to people.

“It’s not on merit”
It has promotion and relegation, just like any domestic league. Roma can get to Super League Star if it has merit. I would rather argue that the UEFA model is anti merit. Real Sociodad beats this ‘Sturm Graz’ 9 out of 10 times. Guess which one gets to play UCL this season?

“It will get boring”
If we see Bayern vs Arsenal every year, it will get boring. I could agree to that, but it feels like predicting future behaviour. Since Madrid makes it deep into UCL every year, I get to see matchups with City, Liverpool, and Chelsea on almost an annual basis. Spoiler - it never gets boring. And that to me is evidence on past behaviour, which outdoes any future prediction of entertainment. I do concede a little bit to this, though. But I believe the trade off is way more than worth it.

“Football is fun when underdogs win”
Bell curves exist everywhere. In the Super League, teams like Inter, Dortmund, and Chelsea will be underdogs.

“What about regulation”
As if UEFA is the best regulator out there. An association formed by a diverse set of clubs can self regulate it much better than one that’s infiltrated by oil money.

“It undermines domestic leagues”
Yeah, it means coming at 5-7 in your domestic league doesn’t ensure your participation in European cups (i.e. Super League). But it also ensures that NOT making it to 5-7 rank takes away your entitlement from Super League (unless you perform poorly at that too). I think it all balances out. Additionally, it made little sense to put a small team in a big competition, given the differences in squad depth. Smaller teams playing smaller teams ensures equal quality and quantity of players

Can keep going, but the critiques are becoming less and less valuable, and far from the broader points.

The reality is that football, like any sport, is a social phenomena. Yes I can watch it alone, but for most people, half the fun is talking to friends about it. So many big teams have huge fan followings, but they never get to banter with each other. Historic rivalries just don’t happen on a European level. Super League increases the odds of a neutral fan watching something on a weekday. It increases the odds of conversation around football in a social circle, as more newsworthy moments happen. Only big clubs are newsworthy. As sad as it sounds, I am not going to lie about it to do any virtue signalling.

Super League is inevitable, because it is as ethical and meritocratic as any domestic league. Because it matches teams that are similar in level, which helps them grow. It enables fixtures that are lucrative even to a neutral or new fan. It creates rivalries that hardcore followers will feel worth staying up 3 at night to watch. It generates money that (hopefully) goes fairly to the clubs and supports them.

Football is dying. There must be a reason broadcasting rights are not getting renewed. In India you officially watch La Liga/Serie A/Ligue 1 on a website called gxr dot world. It doesn’t even show up on Google. That’s the standard these days. I bet Texas Super Kings in USA’s IPL does more viewership than a non-classico La Liga match. Only way forward is to increase the number of high value, newsworthy fixtures, without compromising on football’s meritocracy and grass root development.