Three lessons from football’s European Super League disaster
Businesses can learn from the failed attempt to create a European Super League, says Matthew Lynn.


In the business school textbooks, the launch of “New Coke” in 1985 will no longer be written up as the biggest flop of all time. (It had to be withdrawn, and replaced by the classic formula, after only 79 days on the market.) That honour will now surely go to the launch of the European Super League.
The plan by 12 of the largest teams in Europe, including Manchester United, Liverpool, Real Madrid and Juventus, to launch a separate competition consisting largely of games between the elite, might have made the handful of teams included a lot of money – but the fans hated it, as did the sport’s governing bodies. Even prime ministers and presidents were quick to join the condemnation. The plan unravelled in less than 48 hours. It is now dead. There are three lessons to draw from the debacle.
1. Know your core customers
Every business has existing customers, and then all the new ones it might hope to reach if it just tweaked the product a little. There is often a tension between the two. In the north of England, people want to watch Liverpool play Burnley and Leeds. Across Asia, they would rather see them play Barcelona and Manchester City: they don’t know where Burnley is, and don’t really care. This problem is not unique to football. Apple devotees want upmarket, top-of-the range phones, but another billion people just want a cheaper device that works well. Lots of loyal customers want top-of-the-range, innovative Bavarian engineering from BMW, but millions more just want a cheap, small car. The point is that the hardcore loyal customers have to be kept on board, even as you extend the brand and develop new markets. That can be a tricky tightrope to walk sometimes, and it is very easy to fall off. But it is the only safe way to grow the business – and when you get it right, it is a brilliant strategy.
Subscribe to MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
2. Read the room
If you are going to make a radical change to the business model, then you need to choose the right moment. After a year of lockdown, and with the Covid-19 epidemic still raging around the world, people understandably place more value on anything that has a sense of place and continuity. There is no great desire for radical change. Everyone just wants life to get back to normal. It was the worst possible time to attempt a radical reorganisation of the European game, and one that might have bankrupted many smaller teams that people still feel very attached to. In a buoyant, optimistic moment, the clubs might have got away with it. In the spring of 2021, they didn’t have a chance. It wouldn’t have been a good time for Cadbury to change the flavour of Dairy Milk, or for M&S to stop selling socks. Likewise, it wasn’t the right moment to ditch a football league more than a century old for something new.
3. Keep the staff on board
Volkswagen couldn’t make a switch to electric vehicles if all the engineers came out on day one and said they hated them, and warned everyone they would break down before they reached the first roundabout. Barclays couldn’t close all its branches and switch everyone to app banking if the employees walked out saying your money was not safe. For a change as large as this, the clubs had to make sure the managers and the leading players were all signed up to the transformation, and were willing to defend it in public. Instead, it was as much of a surprise to them as it was to everyone else. That was simply incompetent management – and it made an already difficult sell impossible.
So the European Super League is dead, for now anyway, but it wasn’t all for nothing. The big clubs were grappling with issues that confront many companies. Now at least those companies have some guidance. The Super League made a total hash of their plans and in doing so made clear to everyone else some of the mistakes that have to be avoided. It is unlikely that anyone will say thank you – but perhaps they should.
Sign up for MoneyWeek's newsletters
Get the latest financial news, insights and expert analysis from our award-winning MoneyWeek team, to help you understand what really matters when it comes to your finances.
Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years.
He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.
-
8 of the best houses for sale for around £500,000
Some of the best houses for sale for around £500,000 – from a 19th-century stone farm cottage in North Yorkshire and a two-bedroom apartment in Edinburgh’s New Town to a converted Methodist chapel in Norfolk
-
What will the unravelling of US-China trade mean for the economy?
What will a US-China decoupling mean for the global economy?
-
'Rachel Reeves' plan to force pension funds into UK assets won't work'
Opinion Hustling pension fund cash into British assets sounds like a good idea. It would be better to make Britain an attractive place to invest, says Matthew Lynn
-
Supersonic travel: How China could 'leapfrog' US and Europe's commercial aviation industry
Opinion Innovation in commercial aviation has been stuck for 60 years. A commercial supersonic jet might be back on the market soon, but will China get there first?
-
How British businesses can tackle Trump's tariffs
The majority of British businesses are likely to take a hit from the chaos caused by Trump’s tariffs to reorder global trade. Companies in the firing line face some difficult decisions, says David Prosser
-
Trump wants to colonise Mars – will it happen?
Donald Trump wants to plant the US flag on Mars. Could humans really live there?
-
Why are energy bills so expensive in the UK?
Electricity bills in the UK are higher than in any comparable rich country. Some blame the net-zero zealotry of the government for that. What is really to blame for high energy bills?
-
Will Putin invade Europe? Why investors know Russia is a paper tiger
Opinion Markets are right to ignore talk of Putin invading Europe, says Max King.
-
Why French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has been banned from running for office
Marine Le Pen, presidential candidate and leader of France's right-wing National Rally party, has been barred from standing by the country's judges.
-
Five years on: what did Covid cost us?
We’re still counting the costs of the global coronavirus pandemic – and governments’ responses. What did we learn?