By the way...

New leagues at last

Bernd Reichart is a man with great visions.

(Bild: APA/GEORG HOCHMUTH)

In his latest article, "Krone" columnist Harald Petermichl takes a close look at the latest developments in international club soccer. And comes to the conclusion that, thanks to the innovative ideas of a few gentlemen, the future for footballers could be nothing short of epochal.

New leagues at lastIf you are planning to spend your long winter evenings studying the geology and palaeontology of the Malay Archipelago, with a particular focus on the Permian echinoderms of Timor, you will find it hard to ignore geologist Johannes Wanner, who was born in Scheidegg in 1878 and died there in 1959, and his contributions to the subject. The same applies to all those who are passionate about the reorganization of European club soccer, as a Scheidegg native is currently increasingly present in the media. We are talking about Bernd Reichart, CEO of A22 Sports Management in Madrid. A good two years ago, he wanted to create a new Super League with 16 top European teams, but this did not please UEFA (and not only UEFA).

Following a ruling by the European Court of Justice, it is now clear that UEFA cannot simply prohibit such plans, which is why Reichart, supported by Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Juventus Turin, is now making a new attempt to enchant the European soccer world with his project. However, the planned league will no longer be called Super League, but Unify League, and will be divided into four sub-leagues called Star League, Gold League, Blue League and Unions League, offering space for 96 clubs. A great idea, because it has long been a scandal that UEFA only has a paltry three club competitions in its portfolio and that there are still one or two days on which European honors are not played for.

The only snag is that nobody knows which 96 teams are to take part in the illustrious new competitions, because there is already growing resentment about far too many matches per year. This raises the question of whether the UEFA competitions should simply be abolished in return or, which would be even more practical in terms of the much-vaunted load management, whether the national leagues should be dispensed with without further ado and the 96 richest European clubs finally left to their own devices and in peace. The smart Mr. Reichart has not yet provided any answers, but since his application to UEFA concludes with the words "We hope that this application will be received in the spirit in which it was prepared: one of cooperation, consensus, transparency, good governance and compliance with European legislation", we can assume that everything has long been perfectly prepared in the background and that we can already look forward to a new era of soccer.