De Siervo warns Champions League revenue has positive and negative effect | OneFootball

Lega Serie A CEO Luigi De Siervo warns that while increased UEFA revenue blocks the European Super League, it also creates ‘financial instability’ as some clubs spend big to ensure Champions League qualification and ‘dominate’ domestic tournaments.

De Siervo was speaking at the SPOBIS Challenges of European Football – The Top Leagues Perspective panel in Hamburg and pointed out some of the ways the new format of the Champions League has benefited club football.

It was developed in part to stave off the threat of a European Super League, which would’ve been a closed system ensuring only a certain number of clubs could participate every year, therefore guaranteeing huge revenue.

“In recent years, football faced crucial battles, such as the attempt to introduce a closed model like the Super League,” said De Siervo.

“This project was firmly rejected by fans, UEFA and all the European Leagues, because we believe in football based on sporting merit and open competition. I am convinced today that the Super League idea is definitively dead and one of the main reasons is that the big clubs, who promoted this initiative, are benefiting significantly from the new Champions League format.

“This model guarantees them very high revenue, reducing their interest in finding alternative solutions. For example, Inter have already pocketed €90m from UEFA for this first part of the season, which is roughly what they earned by winning the Serie A title last year.

“Similar situations are reflected in other European Leagues, where revenue just from qualifying for the League Phase of the Champions League is 20 times higher than what they’d earn by winning their domestic title. On the other hand, this also creates an increasingly wide gap between the top teams and the others, with the risk of making some tournaments less competitive in the long run.”

Champions League qualification or bust

epa11862180 Dinamo’s Luka Stojkovic (L) in action against Milan�s Rafael Leao during the UEFA Champions League match between Dinamo Zagreb and AC Milan in Zagreb, Croatia, 29 January 2025. EPA-EFE/ANTONIO BAT

De Siervo wants to reiterate that while this is the wider trend, it is not so far being seen in Italy, where Serie A is more unpredictable than ever.

“In the last five years, four different clubs have won the Scudetto, a sign of great balance that we want to preserve. Elsewhere, such as in England, Germany and France, we are seeing the consolidation of a situation where a single club, thanks to disproportionate revenue from UEFA competitions, has a structural advantage that allows them to dominate their domestic league for years, creating a gap that is unbridgeable.”

In that case, Manchester City, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain start every campaign with a more than 60 per cent chance of winning their league.

Above all, De Siervo warns that the importance of UEFA revenue means that merely qualifying for the Champions League becomes the main aim of any season, with failure a potential financial and sporting disaster.

“This situation is pushing many clubs to invest beyond their capabilities to try to get into the new Champions League, generating an increase in costs that is difficult to sustain. It is a sort of financial gamble, inflating the balance sheets and creating risks for the stability of the whole system.

“The Lega Serie A believe it is fundamental we collaborate with UEFA to guarantee the current model does not create an unsustainable imbalance within national leagues. The growth of European football must be in harmony with domestic tournaments, not compromising the competitive balance that makes them exciting until the final day.”