"Boring!" - Or European Football

The upcoming Champions League final between Manchester United and Barcelona, while undoubtedly exhilarating for the teams’ many fans, and galling for Liverpool and Real Madrid supporters, nonetheless brings into focus the predictable tedium of European football’s finest annual extravaganza. While it can be safely argued that the tournament’s finale will pit together the Old Continent’s strongest teams of the moment, the spectre of banality hangs over the conflict with the familiar sense of quasi-déjà vu.

This showpiece feud scores a point in favour of American sports over its European counterparts. The statistics – at least as far as the continents’ largest sports are concerned – speak for themselves. Since its inception in 1955, only 6 teams (Real Madrid, AC Milan, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Ajax Amsterdam and Manchester United) have won over 60% of the European Cup / (not-just-for) Champions League tournaments. The number is similar for the NFL, although the latter has been running for eleven years fewer and involves a lower amount of teams. Less than half of the forty semi-final appearances in the Champions League over the past ten years have been made by different teams, in which period there have been seven different winners – the same as in the NFL.

However, to compare the 32-team NFL to the 76-team Champions League (which change from year-to-year) is not the fairest of juxtapositions. Instead, comparisons can be made with the (admittedly smaller) national leagues, where the figures are even more once-sided. Since 1994, when the NFL introduced the salary cap, there have been 12 champions. In the same period, the Premier League trophy has been held aloft by only four different clubs; the Spanish La Liga and Italian Serie A fare little better, with only five different champions in the same period. Even adjusting for the lower amount of teams in the European leagues, the gulf between both traditions in terms of parity is significant.

The reasons for these differences can be attributed to three main superior practices in American sports: free agency, the draft, and the afore-mentioned salary cap. European football clubs have no league-imposed wage restrictions, meaning that the richer – and, usually, more successful – franchises can simply buy any player they want. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that the ten richest football clubs account for over 30 Champions League titles and over 170 domestic league titles. And, of course, as these teams enjoy more success, their coffers grow……and so on. Conversely, the NFL tightly regulates each clubs’ spending, throwing more focus on teamwork, coaching and player development, and avoiding the “player-off-the-shelf” shopping-spree mentality that has affected clubs such as Real Madrid and Chelsea. The NFL has traditionally employed a rigid “hard-cap” approach, which contrasts with the “soft-cap” strategy of the NBA, a league where compromises are made and loopholes are found, resulting in a less well-distributed list of victors.

Free agency is enjoyed by sports organisations on both sides of the Atlantic but, again, the salary cap plays a big role. The introduction of free agency had a significant impact in European football in terms of player movement, with free agents signing with the highest bidder. This concept, however, is misshapen when the highest bidder has greater flexibility. NFL teams, for example, are restricted by the salary cap ceiling from making big-name signings they cannot “afford”, giving a fairer advantage to teams with a lower payroll. These smaller teams, however, are simply pushed aside by the big European clubs, who can eclipse their bids in the annual player auction. The lack of a salary cap also helps these teams to re-sign their players during their contracts, thereby avoiding free agency, a luxury not always available to American sports teams. Instead, player movement is increased, leading towards greater parity and an annual sense of hope as franchises get a chance to consider signing proven superstars.

The draft, however, is probably the best example of giving all teams a fair chance. Unlike in Europe, American sports franchises cannot sign promising young players and “own” their rights before they have even stepped on a professional playing field. Instead, aspiring NFL players must pass through the well-funded collegiate ranks where they receive world-class training without the intervention of any professional sports team. Once they have done this for a few years, they are given the chance to enter the NFL’s annual draft, where teams can select new players for their franchises. In the interests of parity, the worst-performing team from the previous season is given the first choice, allowing the club to potentially sign the best play in that year’s college crop. This has allowed underperforming franchises to change their fortunes (as was the case with the Indianapolis Colts’ drafting of Peyton Manning), an exercise in equal opportunities that is replicated in the NBA, the NHL and many of America’s major sporting organisations.

But not, sadly, in Europe. Teams sign players to their academies at a ridiculously young age, with the top teams getting the chance to handpick their future stars. These youngsters play at various levels and receive an indoctrination into the club that has signed them, with the services of the majority dispensed with, forcing them to the ‘lower’ clubs. Again, the rich get richer.

As successful as these measures have proved in America in terms of creating unpredictability, excitement and equality, they have not gone beyond the discussion stage in European football (although major European rugby leagues do employ salary cap restrictions). There is simply too much money involved, and the richest clubs enjoy a tremendous amount of power and influence. Most importantly, however, the move is unlikely to receive the support of the players themselves, despite the fact that American athletes saw the value of a salary cap system and approved the measure. In the US, the organisation, and, in particular, their commissioners wield the power; in Europe, this falls on the clubs.

And, instead, the opposite is likely to happen. The news that the NFL and its players’ union is yet to agree on a renewed Collective Bargaining Agreement that will keep the salary cap is disturbing. Should the situation continue, next season could be the last one regulated with a salary cap. With insiders predicting that any disappearance of the salary cap would be permanent, one must only wonder what the future holds for small-market teams such as the Buffalo Bills and Tennessee Titans when up against the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants: a future as predictable as what the league itself would become.