What gives a competition meaning? What makes football fans and managers look at some trophies with reverence and others with contempt? Is it merely harsh economic reality that makes some clubs abandon certain competitions while chasing others?
Earlier this week on Fox Football Fone-in, the text message scroll at the bottom of the screen presented viewers with this question: “Should the UEFA Cup winner get a Champions League qualifying bid?” The wording seemed oddly specific, as if winning what’s supposed to be a major European tournament isn’t enough to qualify for the group stage of the continent’s biggest event. Regardless, the question managed to garner six text responses in the first hour; four said yes, two said no, with one of the yes votes saying that putting the UEFA Cup winner in the Champions League was the only way to make that competition “meaningful.”
At this point, Juande Ramos would probably stop and ask, “When did it stop being meaningful?” His Sevilla sides went all out to win two UEFA Cups in 2006 and 2007. Zenit St. Petersburg and Rangers certainly didn’t act like the UEFA Cup meant nothing when they met in the final last year in Manchester.
Few would argue, however, that the UEFA Cup lost some of its luster when the European Cup, once strictly an honor for league champions, expanded to allow multiple clubs from nations with high marks in UEFA’s computers. Suddenly, it was no longer necessary to win a league title to compete for European football’s biggest prize. This made European football’s second biggest prize feel like scraps falling off a king’s table.
American college basketball fans will recognize the parallels. When the NCAA Tournament expanded in the 1980s to include top-ranked teams from big conferences, the National Invitational Tournament went from being a popular best-of-the-rest event to a best-of-those-who-weren’t-good-enough event. Lifting the NIT trophy in Madison Square Garden, which once brought great recognition, now brings the mocking cheer of “We’re number 66!” This explains why some American soccer fans refer to the UEFA Cup as “Europe’s NIT.”
It also explains why a club like Aston Villa would give the reserves a run out in UEFA Cup matches in an attempt to exit the competition early and focus on other pursuits. For Martin O’Neill, winning the UEFA Cup is a secondary concern to winning a spot in the Champions League, and the only way he can get there is by finishing fourth or higher in the Premier League. This sort of thinking is far from uncommon in English football. Reading manager Steve Coppell is outspoken in his scorn of the FA Cup, while half the clubs in England seem annoyed by the mere presence of the Carling Cup. Last December, one Manchester United fan told me, “We need the Carling Cup like we need a hole in the head.”
Yet Man United won the Carling Cup, and Reading had a long and fruitful FA Cup run in its debut Premier League season, but were relegated the following year after players publicly stated that the FA Cup did nothing to preserve their league status. Oh, really? It’s almost enough to make you ask if a good cup run is the equivalent of good karma. After all, success on the pitch builds confidence, and that confidence can spill over into other competitions. Perhaps attempting to win every available competition is worth the potential fixture congestion and fatigue.
It doesn’t change the fact, however, that some competitions simply feel more valuable than others. League titles in Europe mean more than domestic cup titles, in part because the league is more difficult to win, but also because the prize for league success — a Champions League spot — is much bigger than the prize for cup success — a UEFA Cup spot. Oddly enough, that’s not the case in America anymore. In fact, as a supporter of a USL club, I would rather see my Carolina Railhawks win the U.S. Open Cup than a USL First Division title, because winning the U.S. Open Cup would get us a spot in the CONCACAF Champions League, where USL clubs seem to be outperforming their MLS counterparts, many of whom show almost zero interest in the Open Cup. Winning the league, on the other hand, gets us a very nice trophy, but with no promotion and relegation system in America, the league title becomes an end to itself. Hey, we won. Awesome. Let’s go for it again next year.
Perhaps this is the argument for giving the UEFA Cup winner a Champions League bid. Changing the UEFA Cup’s name isn’t going to change the fact that it’s viewed as an end point with a less-than-prestigious prize. If the new Europa League were a stepping stone to the Champions League, however, then we might see Martin O’Neill decide his club should go for it. We might see more clubs take their domestic cups seriously, too, because winning those trophies would become stepping stones to the big dance. Purists would argue that not everything should exist to serve the Champions League, but at this point in European football’s history, what doesn’t?
Of course, the UEFA Champions League isn’t an end point, either. The winner goes the FIFA Club World Cup, which purports to crown a true world champion. The gaps between continental champions are so glaring, however, that it’s already a chore to make fans care about this young competition. Sir Alex Ferguson had to convince the media that, yes, Man United would actually take the Club World Cup seriously. And why shouldn’t he? Does anyone at Old Trafford really want to see LDU Quito supporters storming the streets of Ecuador and calling themselves “World Champions?”
Yes, Man United is the richest club in football, so it can afford to care about the Club World Cup. Then again, couldn’t it easily afford not to care, too? Sir Alex could simply say that nothing really matters but the Premier League and the Champions League. He doesn’t. Jose Mourinho was the same way at Chelsea, yet he was sacked by an owner who cared only about the European trophy Mourinho didn’t win, rather than the five domestic trophies that he did. Ask Arsenal supporters if they wish they had one of those trophies right now.
Indeed, there can be only one champion of Europe, and the UEFA Cup winner won’t be it. That’s why Aston Villa supporters wouldn’t dream of trading that coveted fourth-place finish in the Premier League for a UEFA Cup. Finishing fourth just feels more meaningful. The club’s treasurers would certainly agree. In the end, though, history will remember those who hoist the trophies. Finishing fourth ultimately leaves you with an empty trophy case. The metaphor couldn’t be more apt.
David J. Warner is the creator of Dave’s Football Blog, the former lead of AOL’s Soccer FanHouse and a semi-regular contributor to EPL Talk and World Soccer Daily.
Read More: Champions League, The Marketing of Meaning, UEFA Cup
by David J. Warner · March 12, 2009
Great article. I agree almost completely. The UEFA Cup (er, Europa League) winner, to me, feel like the “champion of the almost champions” which is only sort of something to brag about. It’d be great to have the winner go straight to the group stages, and maybe (MAYBE) the runner up gets a spot in qualification.
One thing though: say an English (or whatever nation) team wins the Europa League final, and is therefore qualified for the next year’s Champions League. Does that spot take away one spot from the EPL? So only the top 3 teams get CL spots? Or is that an extra spot, therefore allowing for even more teams of one particular league to qualify for the CL?
Definitely seems like a good idea, just a few kinks to work out.
Oops. Feel = feels. Tiny typo but I always have to correct myself haha.
As you aptly pointed out, the problem with League Cups/the UEFA Cup is simple: they don’t represent being the best at anything. Champions League? That’s the Champion of Europe. Premier League? Champion of England’s top division. Even the FA Cup, which almost seems to be answering the same question as the Premier League (“Who is the best team in England in a given season?”), goes about it in a way that’s different enough and inclusive enough (it accepts the possibility, however remote, that a team outside the top division could be the “best”) that it remains an interesting and viable tournament. What’s the point of the League Cup? It answers no new questions, provides no expanded set of competitors, gives no greater prize than the Premier League. The only thing it changes from the Premiership is the format (Cup v. League); of course nobody will care!
The UEFA Cup is flawed in the same way – it means nothing to win it, which is why I disagree with your metaphor at the end. A trophy is just a symbol of some subjective victory – that is, the Premiership champion can, after winning the league, be “empirically” regarded as Champion of England, but what is this prize worth to outside observers? In the case of the UEFA Cup, not much. In fact, I would say it is a greater achievement to be the 4th best team in England than it is to be the 33rd (or would it be 17th?) best team in Europe, so it comes as no surprise that fans and clubs alike treat it as such.
Interesting article David. This article seems mostly targeted at Aston Villa, who are very interesting as the first genuine challengers to attempt to break into the English elite since Chelsea.
Villa seem to be caught in between their hopes for the future and the reality of recent history. You might think clubs like Villa, who don’t expect trophies every year, should compete for whatever they can get to please the fans. It’s better to have a trophy in the case than a t-shirt that says, “I went to the CL and all I got was this lousy shirt”, or whatever Everton got for failing at the qualifying stages.
Maybe though it’s good policy for Martin O’Neill to sacrifice the short term chance at a cup this season for the broader goal of becoming an elite team. If nothing else, it makes the players and supporters think such a thing is possible. A season of elusive dreams might be worth more than a cup in the case.
Alex: I agree with you completely about the Carling Cup. I’ve advocated in the past for the Premier League to pull its clubs out of that competition and leave it to Football League clubs only. That would allow PL clubs to have their own cup competition which could double as a global barnstorming tour, thus eliminating the need for a 39th game. Of course, the Football League would probably raise holy hell about compensation for its losses, so the amount of compromise required for such a move would prevent it from happening.
Colin: Your argument about O’Neill’s policy here is watertight, but let’s not forget that if the dream dies, Gareth Barry walks away, and others might follow, and what of the dream then? Do Villa fans settle for being another Everton?
Plus, this is just as much an issue with Tottenham, who bowed out of the UEFA Cup in much the same way as Villa. (I don’t fault them for their domestic cup exits, as they ended up losing to Man United in those.) There’s nothing written in stone that states giving up on one competition will help you in another. Success breeds more success in the long run, and I don’t think a club like Tottenham isn’t really in a position where it can afford to give up on anything.
Isn’t money the elephant in the room in this conversation? I’m guessing no one has mentioned it because we all have a pretty clear sense of the way it affects this topic, but it has to be included in a list of the factors affecting the prestige of a competition, right?
I didn’t mention money because I’m not totally clear on how the math works out. Is a knock-out in the qualifying stages of the CL worth so much more than a long UEFA run and asociated gates increases? I’m not sure, but that seems to be the case.
Dave I hadn’t thought about the players, good point that Villa have to compete for CL if they want to hold on to Barry in the near term and Abonghlahor and Ashley Young in the longer term. That’s one of the factors that makes this tight rope dance of trying to get into and stay in the top four so interesting. Can they keep players, manager, and form over enough seasons to really crack the glass ceiling of English football? It’s tangential to the topic, but I think it gets at how teams five and six in England value the UEFA cup.
Apologies to Gabby for my poor spelling abilities
Brian, I agree and disagree with you: yes, money is an important factor, but its not really a cause of anything. Its a really a chicken-egg situation: did tournament X’s monetary rewards lead to it becoming prestigious, or did said tournament’s prestige lead to its financial allure? I am personally a proponent of the latter theory. A tournament’s revenue generation ability is determined by how much fan interest there is (that’s the story, anyway), and fan interest is directly tied to prestige; prestige, after all, is a function of how the tournament’s relevance is perceived by external observers.
So, the Premiership and the Champions League are important in the minds of fans, and therefore prestigious, because they answer important questions, and thus bestow upon clubs that are successful in those competitions an important status (“X is the best/third best/fifth best team in _______”, etc). The FA, Carling, and UEFA Cup (as a complete aside, I think I know why the new name is “Europea League:” UEFA realized that having “Cup” in a tournament’s name all but condemns it to mediocrity) don’t confer any sort of status upon their winners; they, much like witty sayings, prove nothing (see, even Voltaire hates the UEFA Cup!).
Colin: The most recent comparison I’ve been able to find is from 2007. (Click on my name above this post to see the PDF.) Sevilla got 6.25M Euros for winning the UEFA Cup, and Espanyol got 5.31M for reaching the final. Both were in the UEFA Cup group stage. Sevilla also got another 1.2M for participating in the UEFA Super Cup. (Milan got 1.6M for winning it.)
By comparison, Levski Sofia lost all six CL group stage matches and got 5.56M for their troubles, while Werder Bremen got 18M in the CL group stage and only 2.5M more for reaching the semis of the UEFA Cup knockout rounds. Celtic lost in the CL round of 16 and got 15M for their troubles. (Bremen got more money from the “market pool,” which I’m guessing means their games got better TV ratings or something similar.)
That was two seasons ago. The gaps may be even wider now. Plus, keep in mind that this is merely UEFA prize money and has nothing to do with gate receipts and outside commercial revenue.
Based on those numbers, Villa could get 15M to 20M in prize money in the CL group stage alone next year, while a UEFA Cup win would bring them a mere 7.5M in prize money. That gap is a big reason why Villa is putting a fourth-place finish in the EPL ahead of a UEFA Cup run. 20M would do more to strengthen the squad than 7.5M, and it would likely involve fewer trips to former Soviet states.
But here’s the problem. If Villa finishes fourth, it would still have to go through a qualifying round tie against a runner-up from another fairly strong league. And where do the Villans go if they fail? Right back into the UEFA Cup. So even a fourth-place finish in May won’t necessarily prevent a spectacular backfire in September.
Villa’s ambition is laudable, no question, and O’Neill probably believed he had to make this choice so as not to load down his fairly thin squad with extra travel and fixture congestion — not to mention this path will go a long way toward getting the most out of Gareth Barry for now. Still, this is all a huge gamble, and while the UEFA Cup may be appropos of nothing to some, it is, at the very least, proof that you’re capable of winning a high-level competition, and that’s not a small thing for a growing club.
I would love for the European cup to return to its league-champion only format. I think this is the secret desire of Michel Platini, although he cloaks it in socialist blah blah talk.
However, there is always the tension between quality and quantity. No doubt, the first five-ten years will see the top four leagues dominate. However, once the tv money gets funneled to lower leagues, i could see them regain their former glory.
Not so long ago Ajax and Red Star Belgrade were feared opposition.
Thanks for the numbers Dave. It’s a huge difference, basically a Fellaini difference.
I think your point about building the team’s confidence is a good one, Villa have not fared too well in any of the cup competitions this year. They could use the experience in knock-out style competition.
Elliot: Platini will never be able to take spots away from the power leagues. That cat won’t go back in the bag. Plus, for all Platini’s talk about earning it on the pitch, the clubs that keep going back the CL will always be in a better position to do that. Olympique Lyonnaise, anyone?
On the other hand, the Lyons and Celtics and PSVs can promise any player Champions League football, but can they pull better players away from England, Spain, Germany and Italy, where the day-to-day competition and the endorsement opportunities will always be better?
Colin: Good point about Villa and cup competitions. That’s why I wonder if Man City is putting themselves in a better position by going for the UEFA Cup. Yes, they have deeper pockets, but I have a feeling a UEFA Cup win would make a lot of clubs look at them as a destination club that’s serious about Europe, rather than rich midtable punchline. And where would that leave Aston Villa in the long run?
The main problem is CL money. Huge amount of money goes to teams who play in CL, which is giving them an advantage against other national teams, which gives them an advantage to catch a CL spot, which give them even more money because sponsors like CL regular teams. That’s endless, and that’s biased.
Basically, the main winners are the sponsors, cause the system kills most of the unpredictability of the game, thus giving them corporation-compatible stable returns. Spain is summarized to Real and Barcelone. The Premier League – and now the CL – to the big four.
Where are all these teams that shone before the 00s ? The eastern europeans, the belgians (standard, anderlecht), dutch (ajax, PSV), french (appart from OL), scottish old firms ? It’s getting so boring !
If we could get something from US sports, it wouldn’t be the closed leagues and the draft, but something like a salary cap.