MOLLY
HUDSON
The expert
eye on the
women’s gameOn Wednesday evening
a record 91,553 fans
watched a women’s club match
— el Clasico at the Nou Camp.
Before the game, fans held
coloured pieces of card that
formed a “More than
empowerment” message, and
those in attendance described
an atmosphere never heard
before at a women’s game.
It was a step forward and a
moment in history.
But what next? It is
understood that groups around
the world, including the FA,
are in contact with Barcelona
to discuss how they marketed
the match and attracted so
many. For comparison,
Arsenal’s Champions League
match at the Emirates against
Wolfsburg on March 23 had
only 5,018 in attendance.
It is not as easy as simply
copying what Barcelona did,
although better promotion
would not go amiss — it also
helps to have a Ballon d’Or
winner, in Alexia Putellas, and
to be the best club in the world
when attempting to convince
people to fill the stands.Bridging the gap
Arsenal became the last
English club to exit the
Champions League after
their 3-1 aggregate defeat by
Wolfsburg in the quarter-finals.
It has resulted in the Women’s
Super League, which claims to
be the best league in the world,
being derided on social media.
Yet the lack of representation
in Europe is not a fair
reflection of the WSL, which
even players at Barcelona or
Lyons will describe as the
most competitive league. That
Wolfsburg were of a higher
standard than an English club
is not a reason for panic —
more worrying is the manner
of the defeat. Often English
sides rely on having a team of
stars rather than an effective
collective tactical approach.
Jonas Eidevall, Arsenal’s head
coach, said after the defeat
that a player-marking system
is much more common in
Europe, highlighting that they
had struggled with it against
Hoffenheim, Barcelona and
Wolfsburg. English teams must
learn to adapt to different
styles much more quickly.Back in the big time
Liverpool confirmed their
return to the WSL with a
4-2 win over Bristol City
yesterday in front of a record
Championship crowd of 5,752
at Ashton Gate. Operating as a
professional outfit in a division
that ranges from part-time to
full-time clubs, they have lost
only once in 20 matches.
A stint in the second tier
has also been a lesson for
Liverpool who, having been
a leading force in the women’s
game, were overtaken by
rivals who had invested more,
and were relegated from the
WSL in 2019-20. Success is no
longer a guarantee, despite
having an established brand.meIAN
HAWKEY
European Football
the times | Monday April 4 2022 1GG 16
For a man whose day job, as president of Paris
Saint-Germain, exposes him to regular chants
and banners suggesting it is time to find a
different role, Nasser al-Khelaifi seemed
remarkably chipper last week. But then he was
among allies. Anybody who might have rubbed
him up the wrong way had not been invited to
the large gathering of club football’s power-
brokers that he chaired in Vienna.
It was the General Assembly of the European
Club Association (ECA) — the suits who set the
agendas for Uefa’s blazers. And with last April’s
European Super League launch — and crash
landing — still fresh in the memory, the ECA is
the European governing body’s preferred cut of
suit. The three superclubs who have maintained,
at least gesturally, their commitment to a
breakaway Super League — Real Madrid,
Juventus and Barcelona — had not been invited
to Vienna.
In between discussing how Uefa’s European
competitions will be reshaped and how clubs
should impose compulsory cost controls,
Khelaifi, chairman of the 247-club ECA, made
sure the absent Super League rebels would still
hear themselves being scolded. There was a sneer
at Barcelona, a club sometimes envied by fans
elsewhere for their supporter-led ownership.
“Barcelona — a fan-owned club with a
€1.5 billion [£1.26 billion] debt,” Khelaifi told the
BBC. “Does that work?” He also reported that in
his last direct exchange with Florentino Pérez,
the president of Real and chief architect of the
Super League project, “I was really tough with
him.” If Khelaifi was as tough in that
conversation as he was when he marched down
to the referee’s dressing room for a
confrontation with match officials
immediately after PSG’s elimination
from the Champions League in
Madrid last month, Pérez would
certainly have been startled.
Khelaifi presented the ECA
assembly as a success in that
the association and Uefa have
reached a mostly shared
vision of a revenue-rich,
financially disciplined new
landscape for European club
football that betters any
speculative breakaway plan from
the point of view of most the
wealthiest teams.
There will be a new calendar that promises
more elite-level fixtures: from 2024, the
Champions League will swell to take in, most
likely, four extra midweek evenings in the
autumn and winter than its group stage now
offers, from six up to ten. In a format based on
the so-called Swiss model, which is to replace the
four-team groups, all clubs will be in the same
division, although not on the basis of every club
having to play all the others.
There will be space for 36 teams rather than- Most significantly for the grandees who want
a degree of protected status, two of those places
will be open to clubs who have fallen short of
qualifying for the Champions League by the
usual route of their finishing position in their
domestic table (or for having won the Europa
League). Past achievement, as measured by Uefa
coefficient rankings, will be a factor in claiming
those two places.
That would be an appealing idea for
Manchester United if they were to find
themselves scrambling, as they are now, to try
to finish fifth or sixth in the 2023-24 Premier
League. It may also sound reassuring to the next
owners of Chelsea, who will require time and
expect some wobbles of form once
the club are transferred from the
ownership of Roman Abramovich and
start building a strategy to stay highly
competitive while weaning themselves off the
habit of receiving £80 million in annual subsidies
from their departing, sanctioned benefactor.
Ears will also have pricked up at Newcastle
United, the Premier League’s other state-of-flux
club, on learning of Uefa’s proposals, formulated
with the ECA, for future financial discipline. The
era of Financial Fair Play (FFP) is to give way to
a soft cap on spending, so that a club’s outgoings
on wages and transfer fees cannot exceed 70 per
cent of their revenue. But the introduction of
that cap is to be tapered: the squad cost ceiling
will be set at 90 per cent of revenue in 2023, 80
per cent in 2024 and 70 per cent after 2025. Clubs
will also have more margin on annual losses.
FFP rules allow clubs to lose up to €30 million
over three years; that will double, provided a club
owner covers those losses. Right now Newcastle
may be closer to the Sky Bet Championship than
to any European tournament, but the intention
of the Saudi Arabia-backed Public Investment
Fund, which led the takeover of the club last
year, is that by 2025 they will be competing in
Europe. There will be a great deal spent on
transfer fees and wages to reach that target.Back in the present, the contest for the semi-
finals of the 2021-22 Champions League, which
begins tomorrow, will apply a very light sheen to
the idea that it is an open, varied competition
rather than a superclub cartel: monied PSG are
out, and so are Juventus. Benfica, who would
have lorded it on Uefa’s coefficient table had
such a table existed in 1962, are in the last eight
for the first time in six seasons. Villarreal have
the opportunity to make a small case for the
legitimacy of “wild-card” tickets, as some are
already calling the proposal to reserve spots in
future Champions Leagues for clubs with a
strong history.
Villarreal, who face Bayern Munich on
Wednesday, are a sort of wild card because they
entered this Champions League as Europa
League winners. It is not the same as sneaking in
because you have a decent coefficient ranking,
but, as one or two within the ECA high
command are already arguing, they are both
alternative pathways on the same flexible
continuum of reward. The chance of a real
novelty, a Benfica-Villarreal semi, has to be
regarded as very slim, given that Liverpool and
Bayern are the obstacles. The chance of a full
Iberian wipeout in the quarters — Real and
Atletico Madrid face Chelsea and Manchester
City respectively — looks rather higher.Why new Chelsea owners will love
a ring-fenced Champions League
Khelaifi, left, believes his model will better any plan for a breakaway Super League
while keeping grandees such as Chelsea, above, on side in the post-Abramovich eraMICHAELA REHLE/REUTERS*