At the end of January 2024, the President of Ferencváros (the leader of Hungarian football), Gabor Kubatov, said that he had discussed the concept of the Super League with the head of UEFA – and received approval for this idea. Anyone who follows football news will probably be surprised – how can this be, because quite recently both the main European body and many leagues, together with clubs, opposed the new tournament proposed by Real Madrid and Barcelona. The difference lies in the details: the Hungarian spoke about a separate, Central European tournament, in which there are no Spanish giants even in theory.
If the Central European League does take place, it won’t be tomorrow, but in the meantime, go to qeydiyyat to bet on your usual tournaments and favorite teams. We propose to figure out what all the fuss is about.
What is the concept and where do the legs come from?
Kubatov actually expressed a completely new idea, which had been voiced several times before. The bottom line is that the top European championships are a completely different planet compared to national tournaments at a more modest level, and the financial gap is only growing, exacerbating this situation. So that you understand:
- even in the conventional top 5, the opportunities are incomparable – the Premier League is three times richer than the French Ligue 1;
- Ligue 1 itself is two to three times richer than the RPL (before disqualification from European competitions) and the Turkish Super League, and also 3-4 times richer compared to the Portuguese Primera, the Dutch Eredivisie and the Belgian Jupiler Pro League;
- all other leagues are still several times poorer than the so-called “second tier” championships.
The problem with such a gap is not even the fact of its existence, but the fact that it cannot be overcome. With such a difference in financial capabilities, the best players will still leave in a previously known direction. Small national leagues will continue to be of interest only to small local audiences, since even local stars do not play here.
The poverty of modest leagues from small countries is due to the fact that small audiences do not allow them to sign huge sponsorship contracts. A vicious circle emerges: the number of local fans cannot be increased, the best talents leave for richer championships, and broadcasts cannot be sold abroad because foreigners are indifferent to them.
In such a situation, there is only one way out: to unite the top clubs of several national associations into one tournament. Fans will receive more interesting matches, and teams will receive money from sponsorship contracts with an advertising market of no longer 5-10 million potential consumers, but 50 or more. Specifically, now Kubatov considers it necessary to unite the football of Hungary, Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia.
Why is UEFA not against it?
Let’s start with the fact that UEFA’s official position has not been made clear – we know about Čeferin’s consent only from Kubatov’s words. In addition, the president of Ferencvaros, unlike Real Madrid and Barcelona, does not oppose his brainchild to the traditional football structure, but declares his desire to integrate it. In other words, no one is taking away either power or the right to manage cash flows from existing football officials. Finally, the tournament does not interfere with the national championships – they somehow want to fit it into one month.
In the end, the idea itself, which has been in the air for a long time and in relation to various championships, has little chance of being realized, and below we will make a powerful argument against it. However, it is beneficial for Ceferin to praise her, because he is preparing for the next election of the head of UEFA, and many significant members of the executive committee are dissatisfied with him. The approval of the Central European Super League could potentially win over the Hungarian Sándor Csányi – and this, for a second, is the vice-president of not only European football, but also FIFA.
Apart from approval, nothing is required from Ceferin, and clubs and national associations will most likely fail to unite.
The main drawback of the idea
No one has already planned to unite the championships – there were similar ideas in the Benelux and in other countries. A unified tournament would indeed be stronger, offer more interesting matches, and have a much wider audience. But here’s the problem: if this is an official league within UEFA, participants in European cups are delegated from it, and not from individual countries!
Let’s imagine that eight leagues delegate two participants each to the Super League – a total of 16 teams. Without unification, all these teams would take part in the European Cups, but tickets to the general tournament will be given as to the national championship – that is, no more than eight places. But even then, that much only on the condition that they manage to bypass the Premier League and Primera Liga in the rankings, which is unrealistic. It would be more realistic to count on only 5-6 European representatives.
The previous idea of unifying the Central European leagues (namely 16 teams from 8 countries) assumed that all participants would receive tickets to European competitions – UEFA did not approve of this. Then the initiators asked for at least eight seats – but, so that no one would be offended, one for each national association.
On the one hand, honestly, on the other, it’s nonsense: from the conditional Croatia, whose teams will take the first two places, there will be one representative, and the same number from some Montenegro, whose teams will be in the last two positions. In other words, the point of delegating someone from such a Super League is lost, and individual domestic championships, even if they remain, will not be considered the top division.
Thus, the Central European Super League is still a shock, and nothing more. Kubatov expects to create it in 3-5 years, but it seems that the time has not yet come to implement this idea.