Ginesta Xavier, Viñas Carles
Department of Communication, Faculty of Business and Communication, University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia, Vic, Spain.
Department of History and Archeology, Faculty of Geography and History, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Front Sports Act Living. 2023 Mar 7;5:1148624. doi: 10.3389/fspor.2023.1148624. eCollection 2023.
The main objective of this article is to analyse the reasons why the 2021 European Super League project failed. The authors ask whether, in addition to the popular clamour against a semi-closed competition, it was the combination of geopolitical interests of the different actors currently involved in European elite football that prevented the project from going ahead.
The main methodological framework is based on a case study, which follows an Stakian approach. To do so, on the one hand, a historiographical analysis of the case has been done; on the other hand, authors have complemented this case study with an analysis of 23 pieces of news published on the website of five mainstream newspapers (from April to June 2021) from those countries with the most significant European football leagues: The United Kingdom (The Guardian), Spain (El País), France (Le Monde), Italy (La Repubblica) and Germany (Der Spiegel). To supplement the analysis of this phenomenon, authors have also considered other relevant news published in other mainstream press or news agencies (such as The New York Times, Politico, The Yorkshire Post, The Times, Marca, Bloomberg and Reuters).
The authors conclude that, while financially the Super League debate has not been closed, in defending the current business and competition model of European football, UEFA has had the complicity of owners and shareholders of the founding clubs outside of their traditional historical roots, as well as governments that have made football an asset because of their geopolitical positioning, such as Qatar and the UK post-Brexit.
本文的主要目的是分析2021年欧洲超级联赛项目失败的原因。作者们探讨了，除了民众对这种半封闭赛事的强烈反对之外，当前参与欧洲精英足球赛事的不同行为体的地缘政治利益结合起来，是否也是导致该项目无法推进的原因。
主要的方法论框架基于一个采用斯塔基安方法的案例研究。为此，一方面，对该案例进行了史学分析；另一方面，作者们通过分析欧洲足球联赛最为重要的几个国家（英国《卫报》、西班牙《国家报》、法国《世界报》、意大利《共和报》和德国《明镜周刊》）五家主流报纸网站在2021年4月至6月期间发布的23篇新闻报道，对该案例研究进行了补充。为了补充对这一现象的分析，作者们还考虑了其他主流媒体或新闻机构（如《纽约时报》《政治报》《约克郡邮报》《泰晤士报》《马卡报》《彭博社》和路透社）发布的其他相关新闻。
作者们得出结论，虽然在财务方面，超级联赛的争论尚未平息，但在捍卫欧洲足球当前的商业和竞争模式方面，欧足联得到了创始俱乐部那些非传统历史根源地的所有者和股东的默契配合，以及因地缘政治定位而将足球视为一项资产的政府（如卡塔尔和英国脱欧后的英国）的支持。
