Europa mess in a league of its own

ON SOCCER:PICTURE THE scene, if you will. A conference room in Uefa's Lucerne headquarters last September – lake view, polished floors, state-of-the-art cooler filled with Alpine-fresh spring water bubbling quietly in a corner.

Inside, an annoyance of marketing executives – that is the correct collective noun, you can look it up – are sipping skinny lattes and peering at a flip-chart. Beneath the words “Uefa Cup”, someone has scrawled phrases such as “positioning strategy”, “brand DNA” and “paradigm shift” in coloured marker pen.

“So chaps,” pipes up the lead suit. “Michel’s been on. He wants us to reinvent the Uefa Cup. We need something bold, something dynamic, something so utterly captivating that even Gary Megson would think twice before starting a quarter-final away leg with Kevin Davies on the bench nursing that old groin strain.”

“But that’s impossible, Claude,” says another. “Everyone knows the Uefa Cup is rubbish. The only people that want to play in it are runners-up in the Lithuanian cup and clubs with names like Rapid Artillery and Dynamite KGB. Not even the most startlingly cobalt blue-sky thinking can save this lame duck.”

“Not so fast Jeremy,” says Claude, quick as a flash. “We’ve already got a name – the Europa League. It’s perfect. It sounds just enough like the Champions League to convince everyone that it actually might make them a few bob while simultaneously recalling the legend of the Greek woman who was violated by Zeus when he stole into her bed-chamber one night in the form of a white bullock. Cos, you know, ultimately this competition is a load of old bull.”

“I like it,” says a third. “And our brand development boffins came up with a symbol last week: they’ve encased a stylised representation of the trophy in a burnt-orange, sun-like orb – a symbol of how the warm rays spread out from the Uefa life-givers to every corner of the continent, bringing sustenance to even the most neglected members of our footballing family. Plus it looks a little bit like a football.”

“Fantastic. Name – check. Symbol – check. Now we need to devise a format. Brian, I believe I forwarded this actionable to your in-tray last week?”

“You sure did, Claude. And I’m happy to reveal that my team and I have the perfect system. We’ll start the qualifying rounds in the middle of summer so, fingers crossed, all the complete no-hopers from industrial mining towns in Georgia and Manchester City will be siphoned off before the proper stuff starts.

“Then we’ll have a group stage where we can parachute in all the sides who have been knocked out of the Champions League because it’s only fair isn’t it? Then we’ll have four – yes, four! – more two-legged knockout rounds before having the final in the second week of May, just when all the major European leagues are reaching the decisive parts of their seasons, before starting the whole thing up again just six weeks later.

“But hang on, Bri. I thought the whole point of this product reorientation was to make the competition more streamlined and ensure players already stretched to breaking point wouldn’t have to spend half their summers traipsing halfway across the continent?”

“Hear you on FM, Claudey boy, but remember the more games we play and the more TV exposure we get, the more our core sponsors will pay. And if it comes to a straight choice between respecting the playing professionals and the fans or the advertising execs. . . well, I think you know the answer to that one.”

“Alright, I’ll buy shares in that, but I still think we need something else – a real piece of cascade thinking to make sure this baby gets off the ground. So let’s throw some seeds in the tray and see if the budgie bites.”

“Balls.” “I’m sorry, Brian?” “Footballs, I mean. Nothing says ‘significant silverware’ more effectively than specially branded balls. Well, except maybe a pretentious, quasi-operatic anthem to blare out as the teams are lining up. Hey, we should do that as well.”

“Great, so that’s sorted. The Europa League will be, if anything, more inconvenient than the Uefa Cup, involve even more irrelevant teams and enable us to cream off more sponsorship revenues to fund our fleet of Mercedes. Oh yeah, and the ball thing. And don’t worry: it might all sound like the sort of nonsense a teenager on work experience in an advertising firm could have cooked up in his lunch break, but we’ll cobble together a press release filled with phrases like “fresh impetus” and “centralised profit streams” and everyone will be so confused they’ll stop caring.

“So, moving on to the Intertoto Cup . . . ”