Who distributes the money? As? In what percentage? How many years? The answers to these questions are the key to the battle between the Super League model and the one led by UEFA as the governing body of European football. The key to the box is always the great workhorse and is what is hidden behind terms such as “sustainability” of football in the coming years. Barça and Madrid believe that by getting rid of UEFA they eliminate an intermediary who also takes his share of the cut, although in this sense Florentino Pérez is the most belligerent. Meanwhile, Joan Laporta is in favor of strengthening the Super League project to be able to negotiate with better cards before UEFA.
On this board everything is yet to be settled but after Thursday’s ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Barcelona team and the white team, with the help of the company A22, have a way to move forward with this fight.
A contest that has been going on for years and that has forced UEFA, together with the European Club Association (ECA), to introduce important innovations from a sporting and economic point of view. That is why the next Champions League modifies the competition system and 36 teams will compete. A greater number of games will be played and income will increase.
Behind the scenes, UEFA has promised to distribute between the clubs from the 2024-2025 season until the 2026-2017 campaign a total of 3,807 million per season (around 86% of what their competitions generate). This figure represents the amount that the teams would receive after deducting what UEFA calls “competition expenses”, as well as the part that the regulatory body itself retains, which will be approximately 6.5%. A percentage that in a Super League without UEFA would not exist, logically, since everything would go to the clubs, who would decide exclusively how to distribute the money.
In total, it is estimated that UEFA competitions would earn around 4.4 billion, 900 million more than at present, which represents an increase of 26%, but 600 million less than originally planned. Apparently television rights have not risen as much as they expected.
There is also a percentage of around 10% for teams that have not entered continental competitions (308 million) or that have been eliminated before the group stage (132 million). Broadly speaking, this is the UEFA model with the reformed Champions League.
Meanwhile, the Super League, through A22, aims to generate 5,000 million. The main asset of this company to attract teams is to promise them a larger piece of the pie than UEFA can provide them. Some sources estimate it at double what they currently receive with the Champions League, at least for the highest-ranking clubs.
The promoter of the Super League has specified that 8% of the income (400 million) would be allocated to solidarity payments for those teams that do not compete in any of the three divisions of their competition. The other 92% would be entirely for the clubs.
One of the great novelties projected by A22 is the Unify television platform, which would be free. If it is not paid, how to achieve such a large volume of income? The Super League ensures that open football will attract fans en masse and that this will be a boon when it comes to getting advertisers to bet on the competition, to the point of being able to bill more than 3,000 million per season for this concept.
When the Super League was presented in April 2021, it had the American bank JP Morgan as a financier of some 3.5 billion to be returned in 23 years, but the North American entity backed out a few days after seeing the wave of rejection that the project caused among institutions. , governments, leagues, other clubs and fans. It will be necessary to check in the near future whether the European justice ruling produces any change in JP Morgan’s position. Powerful knight is money.
