At least on the Stock Exchange Juventus scored the goal in vain awaited Sunday on the Atalanta field. In Piazza Affari the shares of the club travel around 12 with a 13% markup around 0,80 euro, by far at the top of the index. A leap justified in light of the announcement of membership of the Super League project which threatens to completely overturn the rules of European football. It is a more than understandable reaction in the light of the shower of money that could reach the Juventus club in the new reality, guaranteed by the presence of the first world bank, the American JP Morgan.
HALF A BILLION EACH FOR EACH REBEL
According to the project, the 12 clubs interested in the Super League will be able to count, first of all, on 3,5 billion euros to equip their structures for the needs of global entertainment. Furthermore, there are signing bonuses between 100 and 350 million euros for each team which, according to the "rebels", will be able/should participate not only in the SuperLega but also in the national championships. Not only. Against a potential total turnover of 4 billion euros, each club will receive a fixed contribution of 264 million euros per year, whatever the sporting result. For Juventus alone, but the reasoning also applies to Inter and Milan, the potential gain is around half a billion euros, or more or less 50% more than the current valuation of the Turin club.
Hence the rise, albeit held back by robust opposition that the blitz of the "rich ball players" is arousing throughout Europe of soccer, starting from UEFA and the federations involved (Italy, Spain and, above all, the very powerful Premier League) to involve the political world and, of course, the anger of the excluded, Rome and Naples lead in the Bel Paese but also others, with paradoxical effects: why yes to Andrea Agnelli's Juve and not to Edwin van der Sar's Ajax, former Juventus goalkeeper, who represents a club that has won four Champions League?
ONE TOURNAMENT FOR TWENTY. “BUT FOUR FOR EVERYONE” SAYS PEREZ
We try to clarify. On Sunday, the alliance between 12 first-rate clubs came out: 3 Spanish (Real Madrid, Atletico and Barcelona), 3 Italian (Juventus, Inter and Milan) and 6 English (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United , Tottenham). The companies have come together to form a new midweek football competition, the Super League, governed by the founding clubs capable of taking the place of the Champions League, the most profitable controlled by UEFA. 20 teams will participate in the Super League: three will join the founders (Psg and Bayern are missing due to the no of the French and German federations) plus five teams selected on the basis of results. The president of the Super League, Real Madrid number one Florentino Perez, he wanted to emphasize that everyone will gain because the system provides for a sort of subsidiarity: several billion euros will be poured into the rest of the system, severely tested by the pandemic.
ANDREA AGNELLI: "WITH COVID, FOOTBALL IS STOPPED"
Andrea Agnell, one of the vice-presidents, who has left his posts in the ECA (the association of clubs within UEFA) insists on system conditions after Covid-19: “The grassroots has stopped, the fields are closed and many of them will not reopen because their resources are drained forever. Football's ease of access, what has led us all to love this game, is jeopardized by the rules of distancing and by a desire to emulate diminished by the image of empty stadiums, therefore sad ". “Today, Covid – he continues – has not only triggered an imposing recession (only for European football we are talking about lost revenues of around 6,5 billion euros in the two-year period '19-'21), but it has generated a deep crack in the monolith. A crack in which the base of the pyramid had to stop suddenly. Amateurs hardly play anymore, young people don't approach sport and consumers necessarily have to select much more than before. In the meantime, the new generation Z is definitely appearing, which has very different values, as well as interests". Hence the need to put the toy back into the hands of the protagonists, investors and enthusiasts.
THE BIG AIM TO IMITATE THE NBA
In reality for now almost everyone has lined up against the American evolution preached by the "revolutionaries", not by chance often an expression of Asian or North American financial groups, often cold in the face of the traditions of the system. How do you ask Manchester United's owners, the Glazer family, to invest in beating Sheffield or Queens Park Rangers? The owners of Liverpool, the Americans of Fenway Sports Club who also own the Boston Red Sox, aim to create a leading entertainment group, which also includes Lebron James. But they ask american rules: no retrocessions, deductibles to which a well-defined asset value is attributed, perhaps the introduction of the salary cap.
DISQUALIFICATIONS? THE ANTITRUST SAYS NO
But will it be like this? Or the harsh reaction from UEFA and the national leagues will it impose a compromise or even a step backwards? The threat is to exclude the "splitters" from the national championships while the players would automatically be out of the national teams starting from the world championships. A frightening barrage, at first sight, but not so effective. The conspirators, who have JP Morgan as well as the best law firms on the planet behind them, are ready to do battle under antitrust laws. Furthermore, the European treaties on the free movement of workers provide for the idea of competition between the various sports competitions.
It's already circulating a precedent destined to teach: two Dutch skaters, threatened with expulsion from the national team for participating in a private tournament, won both in the first instance and, in December, on appeal at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. In addition, the basketball Euroleague has now ousted the various national federations. In short, the rebels have good cards to play.
