Barcelona, Real Madrid – Just who are you trying to kid? The Death of European Football.

Good Evening.

The Passeig De Gracia in Barcelona may seem like an odd place to start a discourse on Scottish Football and the urgent need for its reform, but in truth that is exactly where this article starts.

Anyone who is familiar with the street concerned knows that in Barcelona the Passeig is home to all the designer brands – Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Rolex, Versace, Armani, Jimmy Choo, and all the others can be found on this one street. It is “up market” merchandisers row, the marketing folks dream street, or Brand Alley as one might say.

On a hot July day, I found myself walking up the street, ignoring the branded offers from the shops and instead looking at the buildings which housed those shops. A simple thought occurred: No bricks, No Buildings, No shops, No brands – Once upon a time the bricks and the buildings were on this ancient street, but the brands weren’t!

Further on up the street, I came to a beautiful Government owned building within which there was a lovely gardened courtyard, with benches, trees, grass, birds and all that you would expect of a well-tended garden.

In this tranquil place, just off the Passeig, surely here you can escape the advertising of the biggest brands in the world?

Alas! No.

For there, amidst information boards showing pictures and histories of some of the most famous castles and ancient buildings in and around the Catalan Capital, you find a small temporary Imax like cinema complex which is showing a solitary film. It is a piece which has been prepared by a company called MediaPro and its title is simply “How we make El Clasico great!”

Stop and think about that for a moment. How a media company makes El Clasico great? Not the clubs, or the players, or the fans but we, MediaPro – a media company, make a football match great!

There is much to commend their expertise and skill because when it comes to communication about, and visual images of, Barcelona FC v Real Madrid FC (or vice versa) MediaPro are the kings of the castle and the undoubted experts. It is they who have the exclusive media rights and so they who call the media shots around the world. Of course, they also command big bucks and huge patronage!

The two giant clubs have played one another, home and away, for many decades of course, but since 2004 MediaPro have broadcast the games between the clubs to an ever increasing audience beyond Spain itself, and here, in this wee temporary cinema, they now claim to broadcast to almost 1 Billion football fans who want to watch the Catalans take on the Madrileños each and every time.

In 2004, MediaPro started to broadcast to the United States and targeted the Spanish speaking/football watching population who lived there. Back in the day they had 16 staff cover the game with 8 Cameras.

In 2016, the games were broadcast to over 170 countries and each game is covered by more than 400 staff and 58 cameras which are situated in all areas of the ground, with two cameras being on overhead wires and a third suspended from a helicopter which hovers high above the ground.

Such is the technology that, at any given time, during the match the broadcaster can stop the action and virtually walk the viewer a full 360 degrees round the ball, showing the position of every player from every angle and showing the exact trajectory of the ball from every possible position.

To achieve this, MediaPro rely on, highlight, and blatantly advertise the cleverness of some of the world’s best known technological brands in terms of screens, cameras, lenses and other essential broadcast items. Canon, Panasonic, Sony and similar brands are all featured and brought to the viewers’ attention. Such advertising is worth its weight in gold.

The pictures created are then filtered by the various networks who are carrying these 4K/HD images to lull the network viewers into the false belief that this network is in the van when it comes to broadcasting this one football match, when, in actual fact, the very same pictures are being beamed to other viewers in other parts of the world on screens which are only different because they carry a different network logo.

For example, Sky apparently paid MediaPro £180 Million just for the rights to show El Clasico in the UK in 2016. Different broadcasters pay different sums to show the game in France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Argentina, Vietnam, India, USA, Australia and every other corner of the planet, and so in return for their visual expertise MediaPro become hugely rich and pass on a proportion of  that wealth to a greedy Spanish FA.

MediaPro help to promote this game, and these Networks, by staging pre match events (such as erecting temporary pitches and having training camps for hundreds if not thousands of kids before the match – all complete with Madrid and Barcelona shirts) in downtown Bombay, Hanoi, Karachi and other places where the broadcast and football may just need a boost.

Despite a long history of fixtures, for people outside of Madrid or Barcelona it is undoubtedly MediaPro and their partners who are, indeed, making the El Clasico great.

Yet, there is an argument to suggest that MediaPro are singlehandedly killing the game of football. Their entire coverage is so slick, so well presented, so complete and beautiful in 360 degree Technicolor that you could be forgiven for thinking that there is no other football match on the planet.

Their brilliant promotional film boasts about how the money generated by this one fixture is so great that the Spanish FA is now reliant on MediaPro’s all-conquering coverage of the games between the two biggest clubs in Spain.

The result is that the brands of Barcelona and Madrid are even more global than they were before, and as a result the two have swept aside the image of not only all the other clubs in Spain but most of the other clubs in Europe.

Not so long ago, world stars like Bebeto came to play for Deportivo, Requelme for Villa Real and even Mario Kempes for the once mighty Valencia. But not today. None of these clubs have the brand, the image or the money to attract the modern day equivalents.

A 2007 survey showed that Madrid were the most supported club in Spain with 32% of the population being Real fans compared to Barcelona’s 25%. After the big two the next best supported club was Valencia with a huge 5%.

However, as MediaPro’s coverage has increased in quality, technology and perception, those figures have changed so that in 2011 Barcelona were now favoured by 42% of the Spanish population while Madrid were chosen by 37%. Valencia, Athletico Mardrid and Athletic Bilbao made up the top five with these last three not making double figures with their combined followings.

Last year, Forbes cites both big Spanish clubs as the two biggest and most followed sports brands in the world and all other football clubs as also rans.

It is this domination that is strangling Spanish Football in particular, with other clubs in other countries also losing ground in terms of brand following.

Sevilla have taken a unique attitude to the problem by simply not trying to compete with the big two in the league and making a perennial ambition of looking to satisfy their fans with Europa League triumphs in the sure fire knowledge that their bigger Spanish rivals will simply not enter the competition.

Other once huge clubs such as Valencia, Betis, Vigo and others barely get an international mention while Racing Santander and Athletic Bilbao more and more rely on their Basque credentials.

What MediaPro seek to do is propagate and enhance what is described as the greatest rivalry in sport. Team against Team, Club against Club, Messi against Ronaldo, City against City, Spaniard against Catalan, style against style, brand against brand and history against history.

There is no room for anything else in Spanish Football and the rest literally wither on the vine.

Not only that, as I sat and watched the magnificent skills of the MediaPro team, it dawned on me that the MediaPro model has been so successful that every league in the world, every major broadcaster and newspaper, and every national FA wants to promote and milk its own local “El Clasico”.

Munich v Dortmund, Milan v Inter or Juventus, Feyenoord v Ajax or PSV, PSG v Monaco, and so on. In England, the offering is a little more diverse with Man Utd, Chelsea, Spurs, Man City and perhaps Arsenal creating the media hype in amongst a league which is otherwise shocking in its flagrant spending and outright mediocrity.

However, of the English teams only Manchester United can call upon the type of fanbase that the two Spanish Clubs have, with the rest having to rely on over hyped TV money or the largesse of megawealthy owners with either a political agenda or an ego to match their wallet.

Of course, all of this is looked upon with green eyed envy by the powers that be at Hampden, and it is for these reasons that in Scotland it is absolutely vital that the Scottish FA, The Scottish Professional League, The BBC, STV and all the newspapers maintain the ancient and, at times grotesque, rivalry between Celtic and Rangers.

Locally, this is the only “big ticket” match that comes anywhere close to reflecting the relative revenues generated by the MediaPro led model of El Classico. It is what can be packaged, marketed, branded and sold internationally and it is something which, over the years, the Scottish Football Authorities have come to depend upon financially and in terms of a key international brand.

What kind of national football authority gets itself into a state whereby it openly has contracts which are dependent on a third or fourth class footballing rivalry of dubious standing – because that is what Celtic v Rangers (or vice versa) has become and there is no getting away from that fact by anyone.

Like the Spanish model, it is a tactic and a business plan which has systematically killed large parts of Regional Football Support leaving so called “Diddy Teams” – a term which I detest as insulting and condescending to genuine football fans – to scramble about for the occasional sports mention beyond the local papers.

Yet it should be no surprise at all that the playing and financial fortunes of Aberdeen FC, and indeed others, have improved during the absence of this long toxic so called “sporting” rivalry.

However, it should not be forgotten that the MediaPro model is all about branding, merchandising and advertising. The extremely slick coverage, which is admittedly the best in the world, can easily be sold to all sorts of broadcasters in different territories only because those broadcasters can attract massive advertising revenue from the brands to be found on the Passeig De Gracia who want to be associated with the El Clasico.

Airlines, Hotel Groups, Watchmakers, Credit Card Companies, Luxury Consumer Brands, Car Makers, Sports Companies, and even Tea Makers will all pay big bucks to tag along with the big match, and other brands will seek to sponsor the two clubs or pay for pitch side advertising which will be seen throughout via MediaPro’s 58 expertly placed cameras.

Yet, MediaPro’s own blurb and hype has come in for vicious analysis and criticism. Several articles have been written saying that their coverage statistics are unrealistic and are downright fabricated. Someone flicking through numerous channels who happens to click on the game for all of two seconds cannot be classed as a viewer, yet apparently finds themselves as part of MediaPro’s statistics.

It is those statistics which (a) attracts the networks (b) sells the networks advertising for top dollar (c) makes Barca and Madrid ever richer (d) lines the pockets of the Spanish FA and (e) condemns all other football clubs into relative obscurity in the eyes of the media and business.

Of course, the ever increasing wealth allows both Barcelona and Madrid to attract the best players (arguably) and the biggest sponsorship deals, with Barcelona in particular being converted from a no sponsorship mentality to the free sponsorship of Unesco to the highly lucrative emblazoning of Qatar airlines on the chests of the players –  all within a few short years.

What we now see in European Football is a media elite – a number of football clubs where sheer wealth and media geography dictates where they will stand in the league of International Football Clubs.

Whether they have or don’t have local fans who attend their games is of very little importance.

MediaPro have played a huge role in creating this elite but the Monster itself is steadily going out of control with rich owners now coming in and buying up football clubs like kids in a toy shop. In some cases, this has proved disastrous with clubs going bust when the owner runs out of money or just gets plain fed up with their purchase and so decides to turn the money tap off leaving the husk of a football club.

Even clubs like Arsenal find they cannot, and simply won’t, compete with the wages and transfer fees on offer from clubs who have no great fanbase but who are backed by gazillionaires – for the time being.

The clubs at the very top of the Champions League pots are increasingly far away from everyone else in the competition and the gap between the top and the bottom of the 32 clubs in the group stages will continue to grow.

However, there will come a time when viewing figures will reach saturation point and the football, no matter how good, on offer from the Barcelona’s and the Madrid’s will not be enough to sustain the footballing interests of those who are not within the main fanbase of the big two in Spain. However, by then it may be too late for many regional clubs who will have been killed off by not so much a two headed dragon as a 58 (or more) camera’d “Clasico” which is sold around the world on the back of dubious viewing and advertising figures.

Rivalry in sport is all well and good, but when a singular rivalry confines every other contest to second or even third division status then it is a rivalry that should not be encouraged or welcomed in the long term.

In Scotland, we have an “Old Firm” Football Association, an “Old Firm” view of football in general and an “Old Firm” dependent media who do their utmost to play down, if not downright ignore, what is going on at other clubs – even when there is no competitive “old firm” to speak of at all.

Sure, there is lip service to what happens at other clubs, but it is no more than lip service and there is no investment whatsoever in Scottish Football by BBC Television as can be seen by the poor coverage of all Scottish League games with a budget that wouldn’t stretch to Cristiano’s laces.

The only good thing that comes from the lessons to be learned from the MediaPro experience is that if you use the right technology, have a sufficient amount of cameras and can show improved images then viewers will watch, interest will grow and the overall brand will improve.

“Ah, but the quality of the football in Scotland isn’t as good as in Spain and elsewhere” I hear some voices say.

Interestingly, the whole point of this article is not about the quality of the football or the investment made in football, it is about the quality of the broadcast and the investment made in the marketing, the branding and the technological innovation created and used by one single broadcaster who has turned the viewing of Spanish football upside down by superhyping one single rivalry which, in turn, is killing off the rest of the clubs on the global stage.

Were that technology and expertise used more widely then perhaps all of Spanish and European Football would benefit and here in Scotland there would be no need for an “Old Firm” centric governing football body which will go to any lengths to protect what it sees as its big media ticket.

What is certain is that the growth of the El Clasico brand has had an impact far beyond the shores of Spain with other European Clubs losing ground on the two Spanish giants in terms of world and European market share and influence.

Scottish Football must realise that neither Celtic nor Rangers will ever get close to the Spanish teams in terms of world or European markets under the current European or domestic set ups, and so, without a change of perspective the continuation of the “old firm” rivalry as being Scotland’s best footballing media export is a plan that is doomed to fail all of Scottish football eventually.

The extended and far superior coverage offered by BT Sport is a welcome development but football clubs have to spend money on improving their own media offerings and to create content which they, in turn, can sell to broadcasters rather than being hamstrung by a Hampden dictated ideology of what might, or might not be, a good media strategy.

The Spanish FA own the rights to El Clasico and it is they who sell to MediaPro. A Spanish Governing body which owns the biggest branded game in the world selling to a Spanish media giant who openly boast of their expertise, their technological expertise and their worldwide media reach.

Yet, between them, they are killing the regional teams of Spain and the rest of Europe as a whole with a broadcasting ideology which focuses solely on the best branded goods.

There are loads of top brand names on the Passeig De Gracia. Names with worldwide reputations, huge global branding budgets, and instantly recognised logos and trademarks which shout quality and high end product.

However, having watched MediaPro’s excellent self promoting video, I walked back down the Passeig and couldn’t help but notice an ironic contrast between the Mediapro blurb and the ordinary people in the street.

The vast majority just walked past the branded windows as the goods on show were not really for them and were of little real interest.  A Few stopped at the odd window and looked in for a few moments out of curiosity, but by the time I walked all the way down to the Placa de Catalunya (a good 500 yards or more) I hadn’t seen a single person buy anything at all from any of the branded shops.

Perhaps, there is a lesson there for European, and indeed Scottish, Football and how it connects with the ordinary fan in the street who do not support Barcelona, Madrid and possibly some branded others?