A ruling by the European Court of Justice rocked the football industry a week ago: clubs are now allowed to set up their own competitions, outside UEFA (or FIFA). No doubt, this ruling will be vigorously studied by Formula One Management (FOM), the teams and Liberty Media, as it has opened the door to a Formula One without the FIA.
Rubbing their hands, promoter A22 faced the massed press. The court ruling was barely hours old when the team behind the Super League was already seeing the hundreds of millions of euros pouring in in their minds. In A22's eyes, a Super League should become the new cash cow for the already richest clubs in European football: a competition with the 18 best clubs, and relegation is not possible. Millions in earnings are guaranteed as a result. The sale of the television rights should generate loads and loads of money.
UEFA pushed aside?
Currently there is the Champions League, a competition for which you need to qualify for each year based on your domestic league performance. A down year at the moment can easily cause clubs to miss out on participation in the most important competition in the world; a sporting and financial setback. Moreover, the Champions League is ran by UEFA, which earns tens of millions from the competition every year. By cutting out UEFA, the Super League would leave more for the clubs.
Not surprisingly, UEFA in particular was keen to protect their own Champions League (and the other European tournaments) and ban the Super League. Clubs that would participate in the Super League anyway could expect hefty penalties. The European Court has now ruled that banning clubs from establishing their own league is against European regulations. An appeal against this ruling is not possible.
Formula 1 in conflict with FIA
Whether the Super League will actually come about is anything but a fact. However, it is now clear that sports federations can no longer prohibit clubs (or teams) from starting their own competition outside the federation; not in football, not in volleyball and therefore not in motorsport either. Undoubtedly, the European Court's ruling will be carefully looked at in Formula One Management's offices.
After all, it is no secret that the relationship between the FIA - the organiser of Formula One - and the FOM, Liberty Media and the F1 teams is deeply troubled. At the beginning of December, this became clear once again in the case involving Toto and Susie Wolff. The FIA had the integrity commission investigate the Mercedes team boss and his wife (managing director of F1 Academy), to the anger of the 10 F1 teams. In the end, the FIA decided to refrain from further investigation. However, the harm had already been done.
Just as earlier, for example, the FIA - and especially president Mohammed Ben Sulayem - incurred the wrath of FOM and the teams by letting potential F1 teams sign up for a spot on the grid. The Andretti-Cadillac team has already been approved by the FIA to get a spot in Formula 1, FOM and Liberty Media are not eager to bring in the Americans. This is because they fear that with an eleventh team, revenue for the rest will be reduced.
More revenue without FIA
At some point, FOM, Liberty Media and the F1 teams may run out of patience with the FIA. Bolstered by the European Court's decision banning sports federations' monopoly on organising competitions, it is suddenly a lot easier to set up a Formula 1 without the FIA. Additional advantage: without the FIA, revenues for FOM, Liberty Media and the teams are likely to be higher. After all, why is the FIA still needed and should it share in F1's profits?
A minor obstacle could have been that Formula One Group (the official trade name) is based in the UK, a country that is no longer part of the European Union. The European Court's ruling is therefore not legally valid in the UK. But the company has several holding companies; not only in the UK and the island of Jersey, but also in Luxembourg and the Netherlands (because of the fiscally attractive climate in those countries, but that is another story). So through the Netherlands or Luxembourg, FOM, Liberty Media and the F1 teams could potentially cite Super League precedent.
Of course, it is not said that FOM, Liberty Media and the F1 teams have (concrete) plans to leave the FIA behind. But these already powerful parties have gained a new trump card against the once-powerful FIA thanks to the Super League ruling.
And that will be the beginning of the end for football in Europe just like the Euroleague has been in basketball. Creating huge disparities between teams that do and don't compete in the close league but do play each other on a national level. Devaluing other teams and degrading the wide base sports need to thrive. That's beside F1 though. I woulnd't want to see them break away from the FIA. We would have a calendar of 25 races with 70% street circuits in a matter of a few years I bet lol.
This ruling doesnt affect F1 anyway. It has never been an issue for any governing body to set up their own competition outside the running of the FIA. Lemans 24hr do it yearly with the ACO. The issue is that the circuits that the FIA use for their championships sign agreements that dont allow other organisations to use their facilities without the permission of the FIA and the European Court cant do squat about that. A little research into this before printing these articles would go a long way.
Only tracks that gain the FIA’s top license can host F1 races. The FIA does not have control over the agreements that the sporting side of any series makes with the track owner. The track owners have title to their own assets and do not relinquish control or management to the FIA.
The FIA have quite an extensive list of top classes which it owns besides F1. WEC etc. Again, any track that holds a licence and hosts 'ANY' FIA event signs agreements that they cannot host a rival series without the FIA first giving permission for them to do so during the agreed period. Whilst FOM may indeed arrange the period of years that a circuit hosts an F1 event for, it is still the FIA that signs it off and ratifies the agreement. IF FOM decided to set up a rival series tomorrow, the current promotion rights contract between FOM and FIA would be nullified and the FIA would take those back. They are just leased to FOM who stand to lose billions if they walk away. The real F1 fans arent interested in watching F1 cars run around streets or mickey mouse tracks. They want to see races at Monza, Silverstone, Spa and Suzuki etc. F1 will continue racing around those tracks whether Mercedes or FOM are part of it or not. Ferrari, Williams and McLaren live for F1 and they know what tracks the fans want them racing on. They wont be going anywhere just like the last time the manufacturers tried to form a breakaway. It was the reasons I just posted that killed it off.
Their(FIA) role is in the licensing and sanctioning. They do not own the tracks. Part of their role is to represent the interest of their clients to include agreements that do not allow those tracks to host rival series but that changes every new agreement. I think that takes place every three years. The new series could careless about the promotional rights using the name F1 as they would hold no value to the new series using another governing body and new name. If all teams break away there will be no cars to race at the events with FIA agreements to a non existing series.
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