Other than Rangers in Europe under Gerrard, this has to have been the most exciting European football watch for years. And it’s not finished yet.
Overall though, I despair. The whole situation is depressing and it has been increasingly so for years. Greed is at the core of our game more than ever before, whether it’s the so called super league clubs, or UEFA. Pigs in the trough fighting to get the lion‘s share of the cash and bully others out of it. All they are both interested in is chasing TV and sponsor money and ring fencing as much of it as possible for the big (read rich) clubs in the big (“Top 5”) leagues. UEFA suddenly being the moral voice of the game, really? No, their nose is out of joint because the super league risked kicking them off the gravy train.
Those thinking that all of this means things may get better for the likes of Rangers are, I think, going to be disappointed. The imbalance will continue, even after this shambles. Multiple clubs in England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France will still get preferential access to the Champions League, however it is structured going forward. The 4th or 5th team in these leagues will still get an easier route to CL riches than the champions in other less lucrative leagues such as Scotland, Holland, Belgium, Portugal etc. It’s a downright disgrace and nothing will change. In fact, I reckon UEFA will try even harder to placate the clubs in bigger leagues to prevent the ongoing threat of a breakaway league. Rangers and other big clubs in smaller leagues will continue to have an uphill struggle to even get a glimpse of the CL.
I think now is the time for the smaller leagues to get together and put a more forceful representation to UEFA about our role in the game, the fact that we have big clubs with impressive histories and that champions of these leagues should be given a fairer crack of the whip. If UEFA are really about sporting achievement and competition across Europe, as they have stated in the last 48 hours, let’s challenge them to demonstrate that in practice and give clubs in smaller leagues a better chance of competing at the top table via automatic qualification for the group stages or whatever format it is. Continuing to ringfence the CL and it’s money to the rich teams in the top 5 leagues is effectively “super league lite”. It will simply reinforce the imbalance that currently exists, pander to the big club arrogance that they are above the rest of us, and also see those clubs continue to move away from the rest financially. Which will inevitably lead to another episode of superleaguebreakawayitis in a few years time as those clubs once again seek to keep the money to themselves.