At last a good news story about Europe. Or miracles do happen.<\/p>\n
It has been a crazy week for football and now we have four teams from the English Premier League (EPL<\/span>) taking all the places in the two European finals. First, Liverpool made the biggest comeback in history, before Tottenham followed up by having the biggest comeback in history since the previous night. Then Arsenal breezed into the final of the Thursday night cup (otherwise known as the Europa League), before Chelsea went all the way to a penalty shoot-out where Eden Hazard calmly scored the\u00a0winner.<\/p>\n So footballing history is made as we now look forward to Liverpool v Tottenham in the Champions League final on 1 June in Madrid and Arsenal v Chelsea in the Europa League final in Baku on 29 May. This is unprecedented, or so we are hearing today \u2013 but not completely so. We only have to go back to 2015\/16 when Real Madrid beat Athletico Madrid in the Champions League final, while Sevilla beat Liverpool in the Europa League \u2013 not quite a clean sweep, but a Spanish three out of four was not\u00a0bad.<\/p>\n The question we should be asking isn\u2019t about the\u00a0EPL<\/span>\u2019s dominance of the European competition this year, but why has it taken so long to dominate European\u00a0football?<\/p>\n The Premier League has had huge financial advantages over the other European leagues for a number of years \u2013 historically stretching back to the 1990s. But other than a false dawn in 2007\/8 when Manchester Utd beat Chelsea in the Champions League final this dominance has not been manifest. I remember\u00a0UEFA<\/span>\u00a0and other European Leagues and their local media complaining about the unfair advantage of Premier League teams at the time \u2013 it surely won\u2019t be long before these complaints are\u00a0repeated.<\/p>\n The\u00a0EPL<\/span>\u00a0was first mover in the development of football as an entertainment brand. It achieved this by breaking away from the national league, and working with Sky on a number of increasingly lucrative broadcasting deals. This was done alongside the clubs establishing their own international presence inside the Premier League brand envelope. Despite this, wins in Europe were rare, with Manchester Utd in particular failing to replicate their English dominance with European success. They did come away with the Champions League trophy in 1999 and 2008, Liverpool had an amazing win in 2005 and Chelsea took the prize in 2012. So in the 27 years of the Premier League, English clubs have only won the top European trophy on four\u00a0occasions.<\/p>\n What is the current state of the financial dominance of the\u00a0EPL<\/span>? According to the\u00a0Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance 2018<\/a>, in 2016\/17 the Premier League had combined revenue of 5.2 billion euro. In context, the next biggest league is La Liga in Spain, with combined revenues of 2.8 billion euro. So the English league has almost double the financial power of its nearest rival. This is indeed mostly driven by the television broadcasting deals, which are in turn boosted because of the first mover advantage described above and its dominance as the leading international brand in football league terms. Premier League games are still what most people around the world want to\u00a0watch.<\/p>\n But why haven\u2019t English teams translated this dominant position into Europe\u00a0before?<\/p>\n Part of the reason is how revenues are shared in England compared to the Spanish League, for instance. The Premier League has always had a fair method of revenue distribution that rewards all of the teams competing. In 2017\/18, this was distributed at a ratio of 1:1.6 from top to bottom (see\u00a0Forbes<\/a>). In Spain, until recently, the top two clubs Real Madrid and Barcelona were able to negotiate their broadcasting rights separately. It could be argued that the subsequent capture of around 40% of the total revenues available by these two teams enabled them to dominate European football and indeed this translated into winning six of the last eight Champions League finals between them. Spain has now introduced a centralised method of distribution, so it could be said that this has weakened the top two teams \u2013 however, even though their percentage take has dropped to 23% of the total, they are actually receiving more money in real terms due to better broadcast deals being negotiated\u00a0overall.<\/p>\n What has changed to make English teams competitive in Europe this year as \u2013 let\u2019s be honest \u2013 the teams are not that much better, but prevailed on very small margins in three of the four semi-finals? It does seem that after 27 years of brand and financial dominance, the English teams have at last got the best managers in the world to manage the best players in the world (some of whom are even English). I also think that the teams are better organised in financial terms (revenue to wage ratios are dropping year-on-year to around 55% in 2016\/17) and they are also building strong sustainable supporting footballing structures for their managers \u2013 who are now perhaps\u00a0better described as\u00a0coaches<\/a>.<\/p>\n As I alluded to earlier, it will now be interesting to see if there is a backlash from the European media, the other leading leagues, and even\u00a0UEFA<\/span>\u00a0themselves. If so, I would suggest they look at what the English model has brought to its domestic competition by fairly sharing revenues. If Manchester City win the title on Sunday, they will be the first team to win back-to-back titles since Manchester United in 2008 and 2009. The league has not been dominated by one team, and even Leicester City won in 2016. In Spain, since 2005, only Real Madrid or Barcelona have won La Liga (apart from Athletico Madrid in 2014); in Italy, Juventus have won Serie A continuously since 2012; in Germany, the Bundesliga has been won by Bayern Munich since 2012; and in France, Ligue 1 has been won by\u00a0PSG<\/span>\u00a0since 2013 (apart from Monaco spoiling the party in 2017). For an English outsider, this looks like a very boring outcome for all\u00a0concerned!<\/p>\n Talk will now return to the formation of a new breakaway European Super League. This would not benefit the English teams as\u00a0the Premier League<\/a>\u00a0has stated: \u201cIn England, football plays an important role in our culture and everyday life. Millions of fans attend matches across the country, with allegiances and local rivalries often passed down through generations. We have a fantastic combination of competitive football and committed fans that we will vigorously\u00a0defend.\u201d<\/p>\n These are stirring words indeed, and let\u2019s hope that these principles guide the Premier League in the years to\u00a0come.<\/p>\n Professor Adrian Bell<\/em><\/a><\/p>\nFinancing football<\/h2>\n
Money and management<\/h2>\n
What next?<\/h2>\n