By Zoran Avramović
Roke-koke cannot pass in serious football. The components of this game – passion and money – are far too strong for a hastily assembled project, built in the time of the coronavirus around a long-standing idea, according to which the super-rich in a closed competition would become even richer. A large full stop has been placed, and it has been covered by the Aurora Borealis!
UEFA, the European Football Clubs (EFC) and Real Madrid reached an agreement under which the Madrid club, as the last Mohican, abandoned the idea of the super league. It was particularly emphasised on that occasion that everything had been done through respect for sporting principles, with the aim of establishing club stability and improving the fan experience through technological advancement.
To recall, in April 2021 the most powerful clubs from England, Spain and Italy attempted to create a football NBA on European soil, completely disregarding the principle of solidarity and togetherness of football on the Old Continent. After fierce protests from fans as well as condemnations from some governments, the “society” was halved and then gradually crumbled all the way down to Real Madrid.
What was interesting in that tense period was the behaviour of UEFA’s leadership. Aleksander Čeferin, from the first day the super league of the super-rich was announced, claimed that nothing would come of it. Many viewed this as an act of self-encouragement and an attempt to calm the stands, but now, five years later, it is completely clear what it was all about. From where did Čeferin’s calm arise:
“In societies that divide, football still offers a common language. This is not a coincidence. It is the result of a system where places on the pitch are earned, season after season – they are not reserved for some.”
Like an ace arriving just in time for the round of sixteen, support came to Čeferin from the Arctic Circle. Bodø/Glimt, after victories over Manchester City and Atlético Madrid on their way into the final sixteen of European football, eliminated last year’s UEFA Champions League finalist, Inter. The Milan club had a budget twelve times larger than that of the team from a fishing town located beneath the screw of the globe. Sacks of money do not play, do they?
David’s entry among the financial Goliaths brings the charm of uncertainty that the creators of the super league completely ignored in their graphics of greed, not to mention the sidelining of concern for the environments from which football’s precious gems emerge.
The idea of a super league of the rich has failed. The financially strongest clubs have been defeated, but they are not losers. They have a competition that is almost their own, with a significantly increased prize fund. Let us look at the compass directions of the pairings in the UEFA Champions League 2025/26. The wealthy West holds fourteen places, while Galatasaray and Bodø/Glimt appear as intruders who managed to slip into high society. Although, the Turkish representative with a budget of nearly 400 million euros certainly does not belong to the category of the “poor South”.
Despite the efforts from Europe’s football headquarters, primarily through financial fair play, economic stratification among the household members has never been greater. The position of the vast majority of clubs outside the “big five” leagues – with the exception of Turkey, Russia, Portugal and perhaps a few others – is in fact exhausting: constant searching for and producing football pearls for wealthy markets.
To illustrate the inequality, it is enough to mention that last year the value of transfers in the Premier League amounted to 3.13 billion euros. And why should we then be surprised that in the round of sixteen of this season’s UEFA Champions League there are six clubs from England? Or that in the last two decades of the highest-quality and most profitable club competition in the world only Ajax (2019) managed to reach the semi-finals.
Aurora Borealis does not cast a rosy light on European football. It is a phenomenon, once in a decade or even less often. But it is good when hope remains within sight.
