The European Super League will have a great partner. In an interview with the British newspaper ‘The Guardian’, the bank JP Morgan Chase confirmed that it will finance the creation of the new competition for soccer on the continent. On Monday (19), a spokesman for the company announced support, but did not disclose the exact amount being invested in the development of the league.
In the statement released on Sunday (18), the 12 founding clubs of the European Super League – Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atlético de Madrid, Inter Milan, Milan and Juventus -, stated that the competition will have an initial investment of 3.5 billion euros in the launch alone.
The figures released never before have been seen in football and make people connected with this sport wondering how to keep a competition in these financial conditions for years.
“It’s still complicated to do the math. What we can say for now is that there is an organization behind the Super League that guarantees good money at the beginning. Naturally, we are talking about rich clubs with many fans, which attract financial and commercial interests. JP Morgan offers an important advance, and certainly this competition will attract interest from sponsors. In other words, commercially it tends to be a great financial success “, evaluates the economist Cesar Grafietti.
Pedro Mendonça, a lawyer specializing in sports law, points out that in order to achieve the economic potential of a competition, it is necessary to have legal certainty.
“There are not many doubts about the economic potential of a competition that has some of the main clubs in the world. However, for this potential to be achieved from a commercial aspect, security is needed from a legal and regulatory perspective,” said the lawyer. .
The European Super League project has long been idealized by leading European football clubs. The founders justify the creation of the league by saying that “the global pandemic has accelerated the instability in the existing European football economic model”. According to them, “for several years, the founding clubs had the objective of improving the quality and intensity of the existing European competitions throughout each season and of creating a format for the best clubs and players to compete regularly”.
The new competition is expected to raise at least 4 billion euros annually, more than the Champions League. Of that amount, part will be used to pay JP Morgan, with 3.2 billion left to be shared among participating clubs.
Cesar Grafietti explains that playing in a richer league will have an impact on the clubs: “now, more money goes first to reduce debts, which in the league clubs are huge. But it will also mean that everyone involved will also demand a return. After all, playing a league much richer will cost more. In other words, athletes tend to want more money, especially if they are removed from their national teams “.
“In the American leagues, a reference for this league, the reality is high salaries, compatible with revenues. As much as there is salary cap, even so, most of the money goes to athletes. There will still be impacts on clubs that will not play. Certainly competitions will lose value, and the impact of this tends to be the reduction of investments, especially in the training of athletes. It is worth remembering that it is from smaller clubs that large clubs are composed. Less money, less training “, added Grafietti.
How will the values of the European Super League be divided?
The founding teams will keep most of the money, approximately 119 million euros (R $ 800 million) each. That amount alone is already greater than what last season’s champion Bayern Munich won in the 2020/21 Champions League.
There are also 20% divided by merits. An amount of 540 million euros will be paid for the ranking of the previous year, with prizes for rankings. The champion will pay an extra 40 million euros.
Finally, another 15% will be distributed for recognition of the club to the public.
The document concludes by saying that clubs can earn between 56 million euros and 240 million euros for each year of the league. In this way, each team participating in the European Super League will be able to win up to 270 million euros (R $ 1.8 billion), which represents almost three times more than what the Champions League champion earns.
Uefa ‘counterattack’
In addition to announcing the exclusion of clubs and players, UEFA is trying in another way to prevent the European Super League. The organization is in negotiations with Centricus Asset Management for a € 6 billion financing package to reshape the Champions League.
According to ‘Bloomberg’, the value sought by UEFA is even greater than that predicted by the Super League, estimated at 4 billion euros.
The negotiations started even before the creation of the new European competition and is seen as a response by UEFA to the clubs that made the European Super League official.
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