it is a house where there is no bread

O Sporting-Benfica on Sunday could already provide, with one game to go, the recovery of the title of national champion to Benfica, which has not been able to do so since 2019. If so, it is certain that for Sporting it will mean a year away from the Champions League and the millions of euros it guarantees to the big clubs in Portuguese football. In 2022/23 alone, the total received by the three national participants exceeded 150 million. And, when it is estimated that the reformulation of competitions, which UEFA will carry out from 2024 onwards, will lead to an increase in these values ​​by at least 50 percent, for the Portuguese teams the numbers are not just adding up. Is that the loss of a place in the ranking European football, in favor of the Netherlands, means that from 2024/25 there will only be one national team with certainty of entry – with a second depending on two qualifying rounds and the third falling in secondary and much less lucrative competitions. If things in Portugal are already heating up at the moment, with three vacancies, they will get much worse when we only have two. Easy times are not to be guessed.

The first question that arises here is whether the Champions League is for our clubs. It is not. In fact, as a result of the expansion of the total number of participants from the dominant countries, it will be less and less — from 2024, in addition to the four teams that already place there, possibly five, if they win the Europa League, the first countries in the ranking are almost certain to add one more, via the extra places allocated to the two nations with the best points average in the immediately previous season. That and an overwhelming dominance of global marketing — which means that even in peripheral markets like ours, any fan’s second club is almost always from England, Spain or Italy — led us to today’s reality. It is a reality in which, to prevent the secession of the most powerful, UEFA is changing the Champions League and, with each change, brings it closer in benefits to what could be an eventual European Super League of private organization. And why does UEFA not want this Super League? Because the day she is born, she ceases to control the revenue and to distribute it, not only in accordance with principles of solidarity but also with her interests.

This is an article from the weekly Expresso. Click HERE to continue reading.