Last summer, when Ludogorets celebrated becoming Bulgaria’s champions again, history loomed large – only Taafia, from the South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu, had managed to win 14 times in a row. Just one more would tie the world record.
Yet Europe’s most dominant club haven’t reached the Champions League in a decade – seemingly too strong for their domestic leagues but not strong enough to trouble the continent’s elite, highlighting the gaps in a fragile ecosystem.
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The UEFA Champions League is at the top of the food chain and started in 1992. This season there are 6 English teams, 5 Spanish teams, and 4 teams each from Italy and Germany – teams from these four countries account for more than half of the 36 league teams.
While the competition has grown in size and value – UEFA’s TV rights have grown from almost £500m in 2003-04 to £2.8bn in 2023-24, with the new cycle in 2027 expected to generate more than £4bn – the field of winners has narrowed.
Over the past 15 years, only Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain have broken the English and Spanish clubs’ monopoly on trophies. Italy last won the title in 2010.
For example, it would be a huge shock to see former champions Marseille, Ajax or Porto win the competition in the near future. This is especially true for Red Star Belgrade, PSV Eindhoven or Steaua Bucharest (now FCSB) in the latter stages of the European Cup.
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The revamp of the competition has allowed more clubs to take part, play more games and create more upsets – most notably debutants Bodo/Glimt, who have beaten Manchester City and Atletico Madrid this season.
However, Ajax in 2019 became the only club outside Europe’s top five leagues to reach the semi-finals in the past two decades. In the past four seasons, only Benfica has reached the quarter-finals (twice).
Alex Muzio, president of the European Club Union (UEC), said: “If you had said ‘this is what it’s like’ in 1992 when the Champions League was born, I’m pretty sure they would have said ‘Wow, we really screwed up’.”
Muzio pointed to France as a warning that the game has become too “predictable” as PSG aim for a 12th title in 14 years.
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“People don’t want to watch games where they know who is going to win,” he said, suggesting that Europe now only has four top leagues.
Ligue 1 does face a challenging TV rights situation, with games live on its own channels this season through a direct-to-consumer deal that puts it closer to the Dutch Eredivisie than Serie A, which has seen a slight decline in domestic broadcast revenue.
Other top leagues have also stabilized.
Despite their deep talent pool, France will have just one representative in the last 16 of the Champions League after PSG drew with Monaco in the play-offs.
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Muzio, the majority owner of Belgian Champions League side Saint-Gilloise, said fans were hungry for more equal competitions such as the Premier League, Cricket League and American Football League, and that growing economic disparity would mean more “haves and have-nots”.
“The football community needs to come together and understand that it operates as a community in a way that other businesses don’t,” he added. “We need each other.”
UEFA said it recognized that competitive balance in European football was “vital for the health and sustainability of the game” but was also a “complex challenge” that cannot be solved by European governing bodies alone.
The report says that structural differences between leagues and clubs are influenced by a variety of factors that go beyond European competition revenue, including domestic markets, commercial potential, the history and status of clubs and leagues and how national allocations are made.
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Indeed, across Europe, there have been a number of dominant championship teams – apart from Ludogorets, Red Star have won eight consecutive titles in Serbia, while Hungary’s Ferencvaros and Slovakia’s Bratislava have seven titles each.
However, none of these clubs are in the Champions League this season – Ferencvaros face Ludogorets in the Europa League play-offs, Red Star face Lille in the Europa League play-offs, and Slovan have made no progress in the divisional leagues.
Ferencvaros chief executive Pal Oros previously told BBC Sport that “the gap is so big that we may never catch up” with Europe’s elite.
However, they often have to achieve complete dominance in their domestic leagues to have any chance of competing in the same competition as Europe’s top clubs.
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“The goal is to become a team like Bayern”
In 1969, Slovakia defeated Barcelona to win the Cup Winners’ Cup, the same year Slovak champions Spartak Trnava lost in the European Cup semi-finals to Johan Cruyff’s Ajax [Getty Images]
Slovakia’s promotion to the Champions League last season was a proud moment – their first since independence in 1993, when they qualified for the Czechoslovak First Division title.
They have once again become the main force in Slovakia since being bought by businessman Ivan Kmotrik in 2008, and sporting director Robert Vitek said their goal is to “win the title every year like Bayern Munich in Germany.”
“The key to being financially sustainable is one of the main stages of participating in the European Championships,” Vitek explained. “For Slovakia you have to win the title to have a real chance.”
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Playing in the Champions League has earned Slovakia around £18m in television revenue, plus increased attendances, commercial deals and publicity – home games against Manchester City and AC Milan and trips to Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid.
“Maybe over time we will appreciate the success of bringing a club like this to Bratislava,” Vitek said.
“We didn’t score a point, but we represented Slovakia well in Europe and we can be proud of that.”
To reach the league stage, the Slovak team had to advance through three qualifying rounds, the first Slovak team to do so since Jilina in 2010.
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Asked whether there should be a more feasible route, Vitek said: “We can be realistic and sensible about these types of topics.”
“For clubs like us, there is a ‘path to the championship’ and some clubs in the ‘minor’ leagues always find a way to get to the main stage. However, it is difficult.”
“There are no easy solutions” – what can be done?
Ludogorets have twice reached the Champions League group stages, their last appearance being in 2016 when they drew with Paris Saint-Germain, and have won every Bulgarian title since promotion following the arrival of Kirill Domuchev in 2010.
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But considering they are currently in second place, seven points behind leaders Levski Sofia, that momentum may be coming to an end. Journalist Teodor Borisov said “Bulgarian fans are desperate” to see a different champion.
He attributed the 14-time champion’s decline to injuries, poor form and the influence of head coach Julio Velazquez on Levski.
Clubs in other leagues have proven that through shrewd recruitment it is possible to attract dominant rivals.
Hearts, like Muzio’s USG and Brighton, have benefited from Tony Bloom’s influence and are looking to end the old side’s 40-year dominance, with Rijeka beating Dinamo Zagreb in Croatia last season and Storm Graz ending Red Bull Salzburg’s decade-long run at the Austrian title having won the past two editions.
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Sturm sporting director Andreas Schicker said it was a “balance between achieving success, qualifying for European competition and profiting from talented players such as Rasmus Hoylund”.
Meanwhile, UEFA said solidarity payments to non-European competition clubs had increased by 80% this cycle to nearly £270m, “well above payments reserved for participating clubs”, with the European league body welcoming the increased redistribution.
Clubs participating in the Champions League and Super Cup receive 74.38% (over £2 billion), Europa League clubs receive 17.02%, and clubs in the Divisional League receive 8.6%.
USG celebrated its first Belgian championship in 90 years last season and qualified for the Champions League for the first time [Getty Images]
Real Madrid last week became the last club to end a European Super League split dispute, with UEFA and UEFA, the independent body representing more than 800 clubs, saying an “agreement in principle” had been reached “in the interest of European club football”.
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Elsewhere, Latvia – which does not have a domestic TV deal – has proposed a joint “Baltic League” with Lithuania and Estonia in an attempt to boost revenue and make clubs more competitive in Europe.
The UEC, which represents more than 140 clubs, has its own ideas and is calling for transparency and dialogue.
One of these is a new policy on the protection of domestic media rights, which will reinvest a portion of Europe’s competitive media revenues into countries beyond domestic rights.
Another is a player development incentive policy that would see clubs not in the Champions League compensated when the players they develop compete in competitions – they believe nearly 1,500 clubs have benefited in recent seasons.
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The focus is on increasing competition at a domestic level, with the hope that it will ultimately help the “minor leagues” become more competitive in Europe.
The teams making their debut in this year’s Champions League – Bodo, Kairat, Paphos and USG – all appear to come from leagues with more recent winning teams.
“There is no clear and simple solution because if you help Qarabagh, Benfica, USG or teams from non-big four leagues to significantly increase their revenue, then all the teams behind that league will be in trouble,” Muzio said.
“It is very important that we as UEC as stakeholders do not try to pretend that there is a magic wand that we can wave.
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“It’s going to take a lot of work over a long period of time to try and balance things out and make things fair again.”
