Premier League will lose out to European super league ‘soon’, predicts Arsene Wenger before final Arsenal game

While a European super league has been discussed hypothetically for years, Wenger warned that it is now inevitable

Arsene Wenger believes that the Premier League will soon lose its supremacy to a European super league. Looking back at his 22-year reign as Arsenal manager, which ends on Sunday, and forward into the future, Wenger predicted the imminent rise of a new European league, saying “it will happen and it will be soon”, to the cost of the English domestic game.

While a European super league has been discussed hypothetically for years, Wenger warned that it is now inevitable. In his final pre-match press conference as Arsenal manager, Wenger said that the dominance of the Premier League would ultimately be its downfall: that the biggest teams in Spain, France, Italy and Germany would see a super league as their only way to match Premier League revenue.

Wenger argued that the current form of the Champions League “does not sell well anymore” and that is why Europe’s top clubs will need to ensure that they only play the biggest teams, and divide all the revenue, rather than spend time playing smaller sides instead.

Discussing how money has changed European football over his long career, Wenger identified what he believes is “the next evolution” in the game. “Maybe I will see you in a few years and you will certainly have a European league over the weekends. A domestic league will certainly play Tuesday and Wednesday. I think that is the next step we will see. A European league will happen, and it will be soon.”

Wenger said that the driving force for this would be the top teams from countries outside the Premier League, who need a way to catch up. “It will be soon because it is a way for other clubs to fight against the Premier League,” he said.

That demand for big revenues will push a European league to weekends, rather than midweek. “To sell it well,” Wenger said, when asked why weekends. “Because the Champions League doesn’t sell well anymore. Look at the audiences of the Champions League. There’s a contrast there because if you look at the audiences of the Champions League, it is not fantastic. But if you have Real v Barca, or Real v Arsenal, or Manchester United v Bayern Munich every week the audiences will be good.”

A weekend European super league would threaten the Premier League’s supremacy of the weekend, and Wenger mentioned two possible futures for it. Either playing on midweek days to avoid the clash, or moving to a smaller 16-team competition. Asked whether the Premier League would get smaller as a result, Wenger said: “Exactly. If you want to make [the Premier League] more attractive you have to go down to 16 and make a real competition of it. But it will be smaller if it goes to Europe.”

For years Wenger has argued against the financial power of the super-clubs and he said there was no way to stop this development in the game, because of the money at stake. “It is inevitable. Why? First of all, to share money between the big clubs and small clubs will become a problem. Because the big clubs will say that if two smaller clubs are playing each other nobody wants to watch it. People want to watch quality. So we have to share the money but nobody is interested in you?

“But ultimately this is just a function of the same trends that have seen European leagues become so predictable. [Money] has reduced the uncertainty of the game a bit,” he said. “In Europe overall you have big, big financial powers and in December you can say who will win the league. That is not good.”