In the early morning of April 14, Beijing time, the dust of this season's Champions League quarterfinals was settled, and the Premier League and La Liga won the top four seats. It was also the first time in many years that the two leagues, which had long monopolized the top two in the Europa League standings, had completed their top four finishes, the last time in 2008-09, when Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Barcelona met in the semi-finals, but it was Barcelona who broke through the Premier League to win the title – yes, it was the first time in history that the Anglo-Spanish League had drawn a semi-final four.
In the European table, which is related to the European quota of major leagues, the Premier League and La Liga have monopolized the top two places for more than a decade. In the European championships table in March, Britain and Spain surpassed third-place Serie A by nearly 20 points, which is completely out of the same grade. It is clear that the lead of the top two will be further expanded next month.
Why do the Premier League and La Liga show such a different posture? What is the secret of the success of these two major leagues?
Premier league
Commercial buildings built on the basis of the masses
When it comes to the Premier League, everyone knows that this is the richest league in European football, and the Championship teams that are rich to the lower level often invest their full fortunes in a chance to get promoted: as long as they play the Premier League for one year, it means that they will eat and drink for the next few years.
The first year of revenue exceeded 100 million euros, and even if it was downgraded, it could be divided into nearly 90 million in the next two years. If relegation is successful, it can get 360 million euros in three years. This is only the bonus and broadcast fee income of the Premier League, and the ticket and other commercial income brought by the Premier League matches must be calculated separately.
In deloitte's 2020-21 European club revenue statistics, 11 Premier League teams have squeezed into the top 20 – that is, most of the top teams in the European League can't even enter the first half of the Premier League in terms of revenue. The strength of the Premier League ranks first in Europe, which is naturally very logical.
The economic success of the Premier League first comes from its sound "robbing the rich and helping the poor" mechanism. The Premier League operates the league as a whole commercially, and then distributes the proceeds relatively fairly to all participating teams, maintaining the vitality of the entire league. Compared with the situation that the general strong people on the European continent are ridiculously strong, the Premier League has a new situation almost every year, and the strong teams often overturn the ship on the middle and lower reaches of the team. More importantly, such a distribution of benefits and the comparison of strengths have allowed the Premier League to maintain suspense and vitality, thus further promoting the overall commercial value of the league.
And the foundation of all this is the very strong foundation of football in the United Kingdom. In the past hundred years, the four British football associations have only won the 1966 World Cup, which can be counted down among the European powers, but the British people's enthusiasm for football has always remained unchanged. As many as 6 levels of professional-semi-professional leagues, and almost uncountable amateur leagues of all kinds, fans out of their own pockets to support the enthusiasm of the home team to dominate the european world. The Premier League has long hovered in the top few seats in terms of the highest ticket prices in the major leagues. In the 2018-19 season before the pandemic, Premier League matchday revenue reached a staggering €770 million, 50% higher than the Bundesliga and La Liga closest to them.
Spanish
Economic problems are frequent, but youth training is unique
It is completely understandable that the Premier League relies on strong economic strength, after all, we have also watched the Chinese Super League win two AFC Champions League titles by buying and buying. So what about La Liga?
Of course, there is still some economic strength, due to the existence of real Madrid and Barcelona, the overall revenue of La Liga is far more prominent than the economic strength of its country, and it is almost in tandem with the Bundesliga. But if you take your eyes off a few big clubs, La Liga is far less good than in the Premier League. La Liga teams have repeatedly experienced financial crises over the years, and even a strong team like Valencia has often sold players to make ends meet.
However, they always have talented players to sell, which is the way to survive in La Liga - relying on the strength of the world's unique youth training to achieve low investment and high output. In the 2019-2020 season, La Liga is the only one of the five major leagues to achieve profitability, relying on the concept of small business and the endless flow of talented players.
Even in the era of Real Madrid and Barca's so-called "Western Super League competition", small and medium-sized clubs in La Liga have cultivated good players who can play alongside Messi and C Ronaldo, Silva and Alba of Valencia, Senna of Villarreal, Alonso from Real Sociedad, Ramos trained by Sevilla, and even the "freak" of modern football, Bilbao, who only accepts Basque players, has contributed a Llorente to the world championship.
This year, the outstanding representative of this route in La Liga is Villarreal, nicknamed the Yellow Submarine. The city where this team is located has a population of only 50,000, not even enough to fill its own "love song stadium", but this club has 40 echelons of men's and women's football at all levels...
It is such a line of such a team, in the Champions League knockout rounds in a row Juve and Bayern two giants. On the "Transfer Market" website, Bayern's players are worth a total of 800 million euros, the starting 11 players who were eliminated by Villarreal are worth a total of 280 million euros, while the opponent's starting line-up is worth only 95 million euros.
Of course, this is already destined to be a historical figure. Using a bunch of young players to make achievements and then selling high prices to maintain a virtuous circle of clubs is the way for small and medium-sized clubs in Spain to survive. Among villarreal's youngsters, Torres asked for 60 million bids for Premier League teams last year, but he insisted on playing a Champions League for his hometown team; and Pino, who has just emerged this year, has also attracted the attention of European teams including Arsenal - by the way, the 19-year-old's famous work is to stage a senior year in La Liga against Wu Lei's Spaniard, becoming the first person in team history, and then he was selected for the Spanish national team.
Text/Hubei Daily reporter Guo Xiaoming
Video editor/Hubei Daily reporter Hu Yuwei
Photo/ Weibo, Xinhua News Agency