A product thirty years in the making: the Champions League, organisational legitimacy, and the disenfranchisement of Europe’s football supporters

ABSTRACT

The UEFA Champions League (CL) has tremendously shaped the power alignments in Europe’s top league since its renewed invocation in 1992. Acting both as a counter-balance but also as an amplifier to the competitive imbalance imposed by the English Premier League, UEFA has sought to maintain a link to football supporters in Europe and branding and streamlining one of football’s top products at the same time. This paper embeds these parallel and often ambivalent aspirations in a framework of organisational input and output legitimacy claiming that the CL can serve as a prime example to depict UEFA’s strategy to maintaining the status quo of European football.

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Notes

1. See e.g. Di Salvo et al., “Sprinting analysis”; Zambom-Ferraresi et al., “Performance Evaluation”; García-Rubio et al., “Effect of match venue”.

2. Among them King, “The new symbols of European football”; Cox et al., “Myths of the nation”; Mittag and Legrand, “Towards a Europeanization of football”; Brand and Niemann, “Die UEFA Champions League”; Dietschy, Sonntag and Ranc, “Parallel Myths, Popular Maps”.

3. See for example: García, “UEFA and the European Union”; García, “Football and Governance”; Geeraert, The EU in International Sports Governance.

4. See Olsson, “Decisive Moments in UEFA”, 21–22.

5. Meyer and Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations”.

6. I will use the term “active fan scenes” throughout this paper to denote the parts of the fan scenes with an active interpretation of their fandom, mainly in the stadium. This involves Ultra-groups but also other organized fans which are football-culturally active during and around football matches. For origin and elements of the fan-culture of Ultras see Doidge, “The Italian Ultras”.

7. See e.g. King, The End of the Terraces; Giulianotti, “Sport Spectators and the Social Consequences of Commodification”; Llopis-Goig, “From ‘socios’ to ‘hyper-consumers’”; Kennedy, “Football stadium relocation and the commodification of football”.

8. Scharpf, “Interdependence and democratic legitimation”, 2.

9. Additionally, and in order to further differentiate the two clear-cut processes, Schmidt has introduced “throughput” legitimacy (with the people), which can be achieved by transparent, accountable and efficient decision-making. Cf. Schmidt, Europe’s Crisis of Legitimacy, 39f. As UEFA, along with other sport-governing bodies, faces continued criticism because of its non-transparent decision-making and behind-closed-doors practices, throughput-legitimacy will not be addressed further in this paper – as it is simply not something UEFA has achieved or can rely on. I will not indulge throughput in more detail here, as I deem what Schmidt differentiates as throughput to be included in Scharpf’s original input-dimension.

10. Scharpf, “Interdependence and democratic legitimation”, 12f.

11. Louis van Gaal in 2015 on the Premier League clubs quarrelling for the CL positions.

12. Olsson,“Decisive Moments in UEFA”, 22.

13. Campell, “Champions League is ‘killing football’”. For studies pointing to this issue see e.g. Michie and Oughton, “Competitive Balance in Football: Trends and Effects”; Pawlowski, Breuer and Hovemann, “Top Clubs” Performance’.

14. Peeters and Szymanski, “Financial fair play in European football”.

15. Garcia, “Football and governance”, 103f.

16. The association was founded as EUPFL (Association of European Union Professional Football Leagues) and in 2005 renamed as EPFL. It meanwhile operates under the shortened name European Leagues.

17. None of the leagues in the Oceania Football Federation is part of the WLF.

18. Holt, “UEFA, Governance, and the Control of Club Competition”, 18.

19. Garciá, “UEFA and the European Union”; Henry and Chao-Lee, “Governance and ethics in sport”; see also: Börzel and Panke, “Network Governance”; Provan and Kenis, “Modes of Network Governance”.

20. García, “Football and Governance”, 107.

21. Ibid., 104.

22. Gammelsæter and Walters, “Ownership and Governance”, 151.

23. Quoted in Walker, Gayle and Elgot, “Boris Johnson threatens to use ‘legislative bomb’”.

24. Walker, “Government pledges to stop English clubs”.

25. As of January 2022 the website of the competition is still functional and lists the original twelve clubs as members of the envisaged competition.

26. Statista, “UEFA Champions League: rights revenue”.

27. Bullough, “UEFA champions league revenues”; Maguire, “The price of football”, 94ff.

28. Morrow, “Football, Economics and Finance”, 167; Conn, “Champions League still a financial lure”; Maguire, “The price of football”, 93ff.; Vieli, “UEFA.60 Years”, 150. Also see: Dantas et al. “Impact of UEFA Champions League”.

29. Vieli, “UEFA. 60 Years”, 93.

30. See for example Numerato, ‘Who says “No to Modern Football?’; Porter; Supporter Ownership in English Football; Webber, “The Great Transformation”; Ziesche, “From Kick-Off Times to Globalisation Critique”.

31. See Guschwan, “Stadium as public sphere”.

32. Ziesche, “From Kick-Off Times to Globalisation Critique”.

33. Leischwitz, “FC Bayern unddie Schickeria”; “Südkurve München”.

34. Fankurve, “Schickeriaboykottiert Auswärtsspiel”; “FC Bayern Fans protestieren”.

35. Stroh, “Zu Gast dahoam”.

36. Abendzeitung München, “Choreo-Streit”.

37. LAOLA1, “Fan-Protestgegen UEFAund RBS”.

38. Two adversaries where addressed, UEFA and Red Bull whose German spawn RB Leipzig has brought up the active fan scenes against the German football association.

39. Kurier,“‘Fuck UEFA’”.

40. Fankurve, “Vorm Finale: ‘Fuck UEFA’”.

41. Coxetal.,“The European dilemma”.

42. UEFA, “Supporters”; FSE, “Fans” congress’.

43. UEFA, “Supporters”.

44. Ibid.

45. Ziesche, “Wellgoverned?”, 93–9.

46. Supporters Direct, “The heart of the game”.

47. UEFA, “Composition of the UEFA Organs and Bodies”, 3, 8.

48. UEFA, “Supporters”.

49. MacInnes, “Uefa faces call for governance reform”.

50. UEFA, “Supporters”.