Proposed European Super League would add to fixture congestion.
Major League Soccer, UEFA, FIFA, and other leagues have their own anthems. However, when it comes to growing the game, the anthem should be the 1970s Disco hit “More, More, More” by the Andrea True Connection.
For far too long, it seems like many of the biggest clubs in Europe have adopted the Gordon Gecko mantra of “Greed is Good.”
After the European Court of Justice ruled that UEFA and FIFAwere breaking competition law by threatening to sanction those who joined the breakaway league. Twelve clubs attempted to form a Super League in 2021 only for massive fan backlash forced nine of the twelve to reconsider.
Almost immediately, A22, the group who is backing the European Super League announced a new format that features three leagues–Gold, Star, and Blue. The Gold would be the top tier of 16 clubs, the Star would be 16 as well, and the Blue would be 32 clubs, but 20 of them would be relegated out and potentially replace by “top-peforming clubs from European domestic leagues.” There would be also promotion and relegation between the Gold and Star, and the Star and Blue leagues.
For the rest of this article, we focus on the potential fixture congestion that could occur with the new Super League among other leagues.
Focusing on the Gold league, the teams would be divided into two groups of eight with 14 matches (home-and-away). The top four in each group would advance to the quarterfinals where that and the semifinal stages would be a two-legged format with the final at a neutral venue. This would mean that a team could potentially play 19 matches en route to the title.
Currently, a team who enters the UEFA Champions League would need to play just 13 matches to get to the title. Next year under the Swiss Model, that increases to 15 if you make the top 8 to 17 if you place 9th to 24th. (The last team to win the Champions League despite not directly qualifying to the group stage was Barcelona in 2008-2009.)
In other words, the European Super League would potentially add to the list of fixtures a team may face assuming they allow participants to maintain their domestic schedules as it. Below are the total of fixtures would would currently face in the top five leagues if one of their teams gets to the Final of the UEFA Champions League:
| League | League | Cup | Champions League | League Cup | Total |
| Premier League | 38 | 9 | 17 | 6 | 70 |
| La Liga | 38 | 8 | 17 | 0 | 63 |
| Bundesliga | 34 | 6 | 17 | 0 | 57 |
| Serie A | 38 | 7 | 17 | 0 | 62 |
| Ligue 1 | 34 | 7 | 17 | 0 | 58 |
The table assumes that:
- Top club plays their domestic league.
- Top club enters in the appropriate round in their domestic cup competition and reaches final.
- Team finishes between 9th and 24th in the Champions League group stage and reaches final under the Swiss Model.
- Play the League Cup and reaches final (England only).
What’s two more matches if you join the Super League?
Fixture congestion has long been a pain point in European soccer and is starting to rear its ugly head in US Soccer as well at least on the men’s side. As mentioned before, an MLS side could well face a grand total of 63 matches if the are in the Concacaf Cup, the US Open Cup from the Round of 64, Reach the Leagues Cup Final, and reach MLS Cup as the 8 or 9-seed, and plays all three games in the first round.
In all these cases, that would be an extreme as at most two teams from each league at least could ultimately face such a fixture list. Even the Men’s World Cup suffers from “More, More, More” as winning the World Cup would require an eighth match under the 48-team format, plus whatever happens in qualifying from your confederation.
Having said all of that, UEFA, FIFA, and MLS put most of the fixture congestion on themselves by adding teams, matches, and in the case of MLS a new competition with Liga MX to play them on a more level playing field given that playing Liga MX sides in February and March in the Concacaf Cup puts them at a disadvantage.
If one of the arguments for either a Super League or to formally field reserve sides for a domestic cup competition (which some teams de facto do now in the early rounds) was to reduce fixture congestion. It has no standing considering most of the fixture congestion was put on by themselves and “More, More, More” could end up exhausting the goose the lays the golden eggs.
