I Don’t Love the 90s: The North Atlantic league is still a terrible idea.

By: Dan | October 20th, 2009

As long as the North Atlantic league proposal is back on the table, let me just preemptively mention a few other things from the late 90s that I emphatically hope do not enjoy the same sort of revived popularity. These things are as follows: the phrase ‘is that your final answer,’ Limp Bizkit, the wearing of ski goggles as a necklace, Monica Lewinsky jokes, Austin Powers, and that hairstyle in which a mass of gel is used to slick the hair forward, except for a little duck tail thing at the very front.

But seriously, that this scaled down super league concept should be met with anything other than the derision that killed it the first time around, comes as something of a surprise to me. What’s not surprising is that many people are desperate for a change in European competition’s status quo. Since the clubs involved in the North Atlantic proposal are, historically, big names that the financial reorganization of the last fifteen or twenty years has been especially damaging to, people are willing to, at the very least, consider anything that would help them.

Why return to an idea rife with problems and complications that have never been fixed in the first place though?

For starters, the North Atlantic league would sacrifice the domestic competitions of all the involved clubs by removing the biggest names. Killing off the rest of the Dutch and Belgian leagues so that PSV or Anderlecht might regularly make the Champions League quarter finals doesn’t really seem like an especially productive or moral (stop laughing) path to go down. The decision to bet the house on the current top dogs also precludes the serious development of any new contenders. Ten years ago, Standard Liege, Belgium’s strongest club, certainly wouldn’t have been involved in any North Atlantic discussions. Those who are tempted to usher the big clubs towards the door (I’m thinking mostly of Scotland here) in hopes of a more competitive domestic league might also be in for a rude awakening. As part of a super league, the big clubs, even from a distance, would be in a position to financially dominate their former domestic rivals. The best developing players would have even more of a reason to leave as quickly as possible for greener pastures, while whoever topped the leftovers would be the champion of the dregs, which doesn’t sound like an altogether ideal situation.

A more pressing issue than the moral implications of this proposal is the question of how profitable a North Atlantic league would actually be. Based on the current status quo, even a reorganization of big names like Anderlecht, Ajax, Celtic, Porto, et al would still lack the star power that attracts casual fans from New York to Malaysia to leagues like La Liga and the Premiership. This problem is potentially compounded by the relatively recent conversion of many football fans. As ludicrous and depressing as it sounds, to someone who didn’t have regular media access to football coverage before a certain point in time, arriviste clubs like Chelsea are kings compared to a bunch of nobodies like Ajax. The same problem occurs with a generation gap. Does the average fan born in 1990 know or care much about Van Gaal’s Ajax, let alone the faded photograph, 1970s incarnation? Personally, I feel that any potential audience for this venture would already consume any available coverage of the clubs involved. The attraction of a new, global viewership is by no means assured.

The other major problem with the proposal is the problem that has plagued every potential super league, even the theoretical one consisting of the elite clubs. How is a match between two mid table super league teams, with nothing at stake and no tradition behind it appeal to anyone? I think this is the billionth time I’ve made this argument, but unless the empty seats in the stadium are covered with advertisements, I don’t think anyone that benefits from or cares about a potential Rangers v. Feyenoord match for 8th place.

Ultimately, resurrecting the North Atlantic league would be ceding the initiative of European restructuring to the big clubs that already dominate everything. The message sent out is that the big clubs are never going to be reined in, and that the best we can hope for is to graft a few new names onto the periphery. At a time when UEFA is making an attempt to increase the presence of smaller nations in European competition and reduce the direct link between bank balances and on field success, this would be an especially foolish move to make. There might be something to be said for geographically based mergers of top divisions for the sake of raising the standard of play, but throwing the biggest names together in a cash grab isn’t the right way to do it.