League Focus: Assessing the Lack of Value in the Europa League

When Tottenham played Everton at White Hart Lane, two of the teams that rank just outside England’s elite had the chance to do battle on a level playing field. Previously, both sides had struggled to deal with playing in Europe’s second competition and facing fresher, more prepared Premier League sides on a Sunday. In this game, though, both had the same difficulties to contend with.

Prior to the clash, the two sides had just 2 league victories and 5 losses between them in matches immediately following their 8 Europa League group stage games this season. Having finished fifth and sixth last season, they were eleventh and ninth going into their clash.

This is a recurring theme, too, with Tottenham’s Sunday struggles not merely a feature of this season alone, but prevalent in each of their recent campaigns as they continue to finish outside the top 4. There is a trend across Europe in this regard, too, and European commitments simply don’t seem to affect the stronger Champions League teams as much as those in the Europa League.

Four Italian teams have made the Europa League group stages this season and all four look set to qualify for the knockout rounds. Their domestic form, however, is suffering. Napoli (3rd) are some 8 points off Roma in second and look yet further behind Roma in terms of their development and their shared aim to topple Juventus at the top, while Fiorentina (8th), Inter (11th) and Torino (15th) all have serious reason to be disappointed with their domestic campaigns thus far.

In France, Saint Etienne (5th) would probably be satisfied with their league position at this stage and their current run of form (6 games unbeaten) suggests they are starting to deal better with midweek matches. However, they have yet to win in the Europa League and will need a victory in their final match at Dnipro to give them a chance of qualifying. What is more, their WhoScored rating (6.99) suggests they have been only the eighth best performing team in France, and are suffering rather more than their league position suggests. Lille, in 15th place without a win in 6 games and Guingamp, rock bottom of Ligue 1 having lost 11 out of 15 games so far, including all 4 of those in the days following a Europa League match, have thoroughly underwhelmed.

The domestic campaigns of Sevilla (4th) and Villarreal (7th) are going fairly well, but neither has been overly impressive in Europe with just 4 wins from 10 games between them. In Germany, Wolfsburg and Gladbach are impressing domestically, but the latter would almost certainly be even higher up the table if it weren’t for the Europa League. They have gained an average of just 0.7 points per game in Bundesliga games directly after European action, compared to an almighty 2.5 per game when they have not played on a Thursday.

So in just about every case, teams are sacrificing on at least one front to (try and) succeed on another. Far from its long lost relative the Champions League, the Europa League, in its early stages in particular, is more of a burden than anything else.

One would have hoped that by introducing the reward of a Champions League place to this season’s Europa League winners, the competition would have grown in stature, and to a degree that has happened. For the likes of Tottenham, it arguably represents their best chance of getting back into Europe’s premier competition, and yet the chances of that happening are rather slim nonetheless due to the ludicrous format of the competition they are in.

With 12 group winners and 12 runners up being split equally between pot one and pot two of the draw for the last 32, eight third-placed teams from the Champions League group stages are allocated a pot based on their points total from the previous round, meaning those teams in more difficult Champions League groups – and therefore with fewer points – are unlikely to be seeded in the Europa League. Thus, the incentive for winning your Europa League group is lessened and the chances of progressing to a stage of any significance is minimal. Few would back the likes of Inter, Everton or Tottenham to beat Manchester City, Roma or Basel over two legs, and they could be facing those teams as soon as the first knockout round.

So what is the benefit to teams of playing in the Europa League? The financial rewards are bordering on paltry, particularly in comparison to its bigger brother, the Champions League. In 2013, as The Swiss Ramble reported here at every stage of the Champions League up until the final, the prize money was some 5 times that of the Europa League. Similarly, the TV revenue gained from the Europa League pales in comparison to the Champions League, with the teams in Europe’s lesser competition receiving less than a tenth of the amount of TV money. One has to wonder whether these figures are even significant to the teams from the smaller nations involved.

Fans of those lesser teams will indeed get the chance to enjoy playing against and travelling to some of the world’s better known teams, and in that sense the competition has value, but by having teams for whom these Europa League group stage nights are a highlight of the season, the tournament is itself devalued. It is meant to be a competition for the crown of the best of the ‘next best’ teams in Europe, but there are certainly a lot of teams in the competition who simply cannot lay claim to any chance of securing that title. Is there sufficient value in entertaining the lesser teams to the extent that the current format does? Arguably not.

In the midst of a round of midweek Premier League fixtures, few will be harking back to the memory of last week’s Europa League action, or looking forward to the final game of the group stages next week. Or the last-32. How many people can truly even say they are excited about the latter stages to anything like the same extent as the Champions League? And is all of this, the thousands of miles travelled, the uninspiring performances and the many, many lost points domestically, worth all the fuss? 

The Europa League is distinctly lacking in sufficient value to remain in its current guise beyond this season, and there is certainly an argument to say that it should not remain at all.

Do you think the Europa League is worth retaining at all? If so, how should it be changed or do you think it works as it is? Let us know in the comments below