Why modern football is ruled only by super clubs
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Football was once considered a sport for everyone — a game where success depended on talent, passion and a little luck. But in 2025, the romance faded into the background. Now the world of football lives by the laws of corporations: clubs are turning into brands, tournaments into business projects, and decisions are made not on the pitch, but in the meeting rooms of luxury hotels. Superclubs are no longer just participants — they are the directors of European football.
When you've been losing out to the Electrical Contractors' Association, Edinburgh College of Art and the European Cockpit Association in Google searches for the abbreviation ‘ECA’ for 17 years, it's time to admit that it's time for a rebrand.
That is exactly what the European Club Association did in October 2025: when hundreds of delegates arrived in Rome for the organisation's 32nd general assembly, they unexpectedly found themselves at the first assembly of European Football Clubs — an excellent name for a lobby representing the interests of European football clubs.
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The new club emblem-style logo greeted guests on billboards at the entrance to the Cavalieri Waldorf Astoria hotel, and it was everywhere inside too — on cushions, partitions and screens. Under each chair in the main hall was a bag with the EFC logo, containing a baseball cap, a notebook and a pack of pasta in the shape of the letters EFC.
And to leave no doubt that this was indeed a new era, guests at the welcome evening were treated to fireworks, a gala dinner in one of Rome's most atmospheric ancient venues (with a drone show and a performance by Italian rock band Maneskin, winners of Eurovision), speeches by industry leaders and selfies with Zlatan Ibrahimović.
More than 800 club managers received invitations, most of which were accepted, as were those of the presidents of Concacaf, FIFA and UEFA (Victor Montagliani, Gianni Infantino and Aleksander Čeferin). Representatives of the leading leagues and players' unions also came to the Italian capital.
EFC President Nasser Al-Khelaifi pompously explained that with this rebranding, he wanted to bring the word ‘football’ back into the organisation's name, just as he is bringing the EFC back to the centre of world football politics.
In Google search, you still have to scroll down to the fourth page — past Everton Football Club, the European Federation of Corrosion and the Extreme Fighting Championship — to find the EFC itself. But this is already progress: two pages better than a week ago. It seems that even the algorithms have sensed a shift in the football hierarchy.
The first EFC meeting was a manifestation of processes that began back in April 2021, when 12 of Europe's biggest clubs left the ECA to create a rival to the Champions League — the European Super League. They lost the battle then, but time is showing that they are more likely to win the war.
They wanted more matches in Europe — and got their way thanks to the expansion of the UEFA European Cups.
They wanted more influence over the marketing of tournaments — and got it thanks to the creation of UC3, a joint venture between the EFC and UEFA.
They wanted more money — and they will get it with a new cycle of media deals, now overseen by Relevent Sports, an agency founded by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, who has long dreamed of hosting European matches in the United States. The agency, with which UEFA had collaborated for more than thirty years, has been left out of the picture.
Welcome to football in 2025 — now ruled by the big clubs.
A world cup for the elite and concerns for the future of national leagues
FIFA has finally found a way to tie its brand to football's most attractive assets — the clubs — through the revamped Club World Cup.
The 820 clubs that make up the EFC couldn't help but notice: the 12 European participants in last summer's tournament in the US received £28 million each just for taking part. Chelsea, who won the tournament, earned £85 million — almost six times more than they would have earned for winning the Conference League, and half of what the club earned for the entire Premier League season. So the talk in Rome was not about the heat, empty stands, tired players or Donald Trump at the KCHM trophy presentation, but about how FIFA could push even more EFC giants into the next edition in 2029.
Instead of discussing whether there have been too many football competitions lately, the delegates debated whether to hold a ‘preliminary tournament’ for African and Asian participants to make room for Barcelona, Liverpool and Napoli in the next edition.