So here we are. The Premier League meanders to its final destination, and yet what lies before us is not clarity—but confusion. A curious case indeed. For the question no longer is who shall venture onto the European stage next season, but rather… who won’t?
In this most bewildering of finales, clubs jostle not for glory, but for direction. For placement. For European allocation—however convoluted, however contrived. We find ourselves at a question of where, excluding the three freshly risen from the Championship, only half of the league—only half!—will be left without a continental itinerary.
And that word—only—has never felt so bloated with irony.
This is a season in which mediocrity is not punished, but packaged and sent abroad. In which the elite are not distinguished, but diluted. In which the lines between excellence and adequacy blur into irrelevance under the weight of UEFA’s ever-evolving, ever-baffling rulebook.
Because if chaos truly reigns—and it often does—then we may yet see nine, NINE! English clubs gracing the European midweek lights. As now another joins the teams prepared to do battle under the St Georges flag—it is the rather unexpected name of Crystal Palace.
Crystal Palace! Whisper it again, for it feels almost dreamlike. They have carved their name into FA Cup folklore, chiselled it onto Wembley stone, and with it… claimed their passport to Europe.
But unlike the many who will tumble across the continent by virtue of rulebook riddles and bureaucratic blessings, Palace arrive not by default—but by deed. Theirs is a voyage earned, not offered. Worthy, not whimsical.
The Devaluation of Glory: When European Football Became a Participation Trophy
Where once Europe was a summit earned, it is now a seat assigned. The European berth from the ever-widening net that now stretches almost halfway down the table. In chasing inclusivity, have we cheapened the prize?
Once upon a time, Europe was the reward of kings — now it feels the consolation of the merely competent. Such are the days in which we live.
Such is the modern game. Glorious still, at times — but increasingly bloated, ever spinning, and sometimes, just sometimes, a little less magical.
Why do so many from our shores, we cry? Well, the Premier League is anointed — Europe’s finest, or so they tell us. The complex web of UEFA coefficients, spun from a thousand moments across a thousand matches, places England at the summit. More representatives go to the continent next year than any other nation. A plethora of English clubs pushed deep into the Champions League, the Europa League, and even that curious little sibling, the Europa Conference League — a tournament still searching for its own meaning.
And yet, somehow—on the other side of reason—there lies the absurd possibility that one of Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, bastions of underachievement this campaign, could stumble into the sacred halls of the Champions League… while finishing among the Premier League’s bottom six.
Yes. That is not hyperbole. That is the modern madness. That is the Premier League, a colossus so swollen with wealth, so engorged with global eyes and golden contracts, that even sub-mediocrity is handsomely rewarded. It is the stage where finishing fourth-bottom no longer excludes you from Europe’s second act… but might catapult you into its grandest stage.
And therein lies the fracture.
This is no longer about merit. This is about market. About branding. About spectacle. A broken compass where direction is dictated by finance, not form. Where two sides, grotesquely off-colour—United, enduring perhaps their most pitiful Premier League season of the modern era, and Tottenham, meandering through a campaign mired in forgettability—can still eye silverware on the continent and dine at UEFA’s top table next season.
Astonishing. Unjust. UEFA.
This is the age where even failure finds a red carpet.
UEFA’s Quiet Coup: A Super League in Disguise
So how has it come to this?
A European Super League, we were told, was vanquished by the will of the people. But peer closely — under UEFA’s expanded tournaments, under their swelling formats — and you will see it is simply taking quieter, sanctioned form, albeit crucially not ring fenced to the European “elite”.
Six, seven, eight plus English sides — invited to the continental ball, their merit a secondary concern to their marketability. The Champions League expands and does The Europa. New competitions are born not out of sporting necessity but commercial greed, and slowly — inevitably — the value of true achievement is eroded.
When Europe becomes the norm for the ordinary, what becomes of the extraordinary?
And of course, we understand why. We’re not blind to the machinations. It was the spectre of that Super League—still flickering in the rear-view—that jolted UEFA into action. Into fear. Into compromise.
And so, in a desperate attempt to hold power, they moved the goalposts. Reshaped the field. Rewrote the script.
They birthed a league format so warped it borders on parody—a table where not all teams play each other, they all play for a top eight finish yet 26 out of the 34 are able to advance to the KO phase??
A competition where randomness masquerades as fairness. Where illusion replaces integrity.
This expansion is just the beginning. The Premier League may reap the benefits now, but the others will follow. Germany. Spain. Italy. Their allocations will grow, their influence will spread, and the lesser leagues—the Hollands, the Belgiums, the Turkeys—will slowly, quietly, be pushed aside.
The Champions League will effectively become a closed loop. A carousel of the same familiar faces, spinning year after year, pocketing the profits and monopolising the spotlight.
And those from the so-called lesser leagues? They are siphoned off. Shunted down. Poured into the Europa League and Conference as though they are consolation prizes, as though their presence is merely to pad out the fixture list.
But with that, the standard drops. The edge blunts.
We have seen it. We are seeing it. The chasm is real, between those arriving from England, Spain, and Italy… and those brave souls representing Kazakhstan, Armenia, Andorra. It is less a competition, more a procession. And while the romance of the underdog is a story football loves to tell, there comes a point when the script simply fails to convince.
Fairness Forsaken: The Fallacy of Market Over Merit
I had this very conversation today. And the truth stings: in the name of visibility, UEFA will sacrifice fairness. They will prioritise marketable over meritorious. They will let in the glamour, and keep out the grit.
Take Portugal, for instance. A nation steeped in footballing history. Only two of their sides may enter the Champions League—and one must fight through qualification. This season, Porto—Porto—champions of Europe within living memory, finished third. Third. And they will not play Champions League football next year.
Meanwhile, in the Premier League, Spurs and Manchester United—two clubs stumbling through a season littered with missteps and injuries, riven with inconsistency—will. One of them will qualify, despite spending most of the year flirting with crisis. Despite losing 18 and 21 games respectively across their league campaigns. Let that sink in.
Eighteen defeats. Twenty-one defeats. In 37 matches played. And yet they will step into the arena Porto are denied.
Of course—and I say this through gritted teeth—it isn’t Tottenham or Manchester United’s fault. These are the rules. This is the game now. Win the Europa League and you are handed a golden ticket. That’s the carrot, dangling just beyond reach, luring clubs into taking the tournament seriously. But surely—surely—the glory alone should suffice? The thrill of lifting silver beneath the lights? A place in next year’s competition to defend that crown? That, in itself, used to be honour enough.
Unless, of course, your domestic campaign has earned you a place at Europe’s top table. And in this case, it hasn’t. Not even close.
This is not balance. This is not competition. This is UEFA twisting logic into currency. Turning qualification into commerce.
It’s a slow erosion of principle. A soft betrayal of the sport’s soul. And while the music will still play, the anthem still rise, the trophy still gleam under the lights… somewhere in the silence between the games, the purists will hear it: the echo of something lost.
But football—as it so often does—has bent its own truth until it snaps. The rules, the formats, the entry points… contorted beyond recognition. And yet, this is no accident. This is strategy. UEFA’s shield against mutiny. Their grand counter to the looming threat of a breakaway league. Protect the crown jewel—no matter the cost to the lesser diadems below.
The Endangered Soul of European Football
I regretfully acknowledge that I’ve wasted both your time and my own
Because they won’t change it. Not when the giants march in. Not when the shirts are branded and the sponsorships colossal. Not when the cameras point, and the tills ring, and the names are household.
All I ever ask of football—all I ever ask—is balance. Fairness. A sense that everyone has a chance. I don’t want to look up a decade from now and see the same tired cast of six English clubs waltzing through six Italian aristocrats, locked in combat with the same six from Spain, from Germany, from France—qualifying in comfort and predictability, spinning in circles for profit.
I want the wild. I want the unpredictable. I want the cold of a Russian November, boots scraping over plastic turf, breath visible in the dusk. I want the chaos of a Greek amphitheatre, the madness of Panathinaikos under floodlights, where the air is thick with flares and fury. I want those ancient, creaking, magnificent cauldrons in Eastern Europe, where tifos rise like tapestries and the atmosphere swells with unfiltered soul.
That is European football.
That is the beating heart of it. And those teams—the champions of their lands, the pride of their people—they deserve to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Real Madrids, the Barcelonas, the Bayerns. They’ve earned that right, season after season, step by step. And yet slowly, subtly, UEFA is ushering them to the side door. Ushering them away from the lights. Not because they’ve failed, but because their names aren’t glittery enough.
And so it goes: the slow erosion of romance, the quiet exile of wonder, all for the sake of branded battles and corporate comfort. European football is not broken—not yet—but the cracks are spreading. The direction of travel is no longer disguised.
And as UEFA smiles and shakes hands and speaks of legacy and growth, we realise the unthinkable has already begun.
The Super League did not die.
It simply changed its clothes.
And now it walks among us in silence.
Victoria Concordia Crescit