Uefa’s craven failure to stand up for the game’s values has left clubs on the brink

What do you think of the multi-club model? It seems a shame that community clubs are becoming branches of the European elite. On the other hand, you have Bordeaux going bankrupt, while the only real option to save the club seemed to be to fall under the ownership of Liverpool’s FSG. – Declan

It’s a disgrace and should never have gotten to this point. Why should great clubs with a proud history and identity – in Bordeaux’s case over a century, winning six French league titles – become breeding grounds for bigger clubs? I don’t know what Bordeaux fans think, but in the UK I think a lot of fans would rather see their club go bust and start again at the bottom of the pyramid than lose their independence and identity. I’m a Sunderland fan and I’d much rather see us play as ourselves in the sixth division than as Manchester United’s fourth team. One of the great lies about fandom is that it’s about winning; far more important is being – and representing – who you are.

Under the chairmanship of Aleksander Čeferin, UEFA has become a dysfunctional body in a million different ways – something that has been allowed to happen while everyone has been worrying about the far worse mistakes of FIFA – but the failure to act on multi-club models is probably the worst. It is a tacit acceptance of a quasi-franchise model, which may make sense in terms of generating revenue for those at the top, but is anathema to everything European football ever was and should be.

The question is not, in the short term, whether Bordeaux need this to survive, or even really about Bordeaux, who have been catastrophically mismanaged for years – and Gérard López taking over in 2021 has certainly not helped. It is more about how football has manoeuvred itself into a position where so many traditional clubs are in such dire financial straits that they feel a takeover by a superclub is the only solution. Football is by far the most popular sport in the world; what does that say about UEFA’s regulation that, with all the money involved in the game, so many are facing ruin?

There has been a cowardly failure to defend the values ​​of the game, a
unwillingness to challenge elite greed. And now we have the absurd spectacle of UEFA granting dispensations to clubs that share at least partial ownership (Leipzig and Salzburg; Manchester City and Girona; Manchester United and Nice) to play in the same league, a clear attack on the integrity of the competition. And that’s before you even get to potential Financial Fair Play or Profit & Sustainability shenanigans. For example, Brazilian striker Savinho was signed by Troyes (majority shareholder: City Group) in 2023 and loaned to Girona (minority shareholder: City Group) for a season before being sold to Manchester City (majority shareholder: City Group) this summer. How can anyone even begin to set a fair value for that transfer, to ensure that a club isn’t overpaying to help out a family member, or that family member isn’t giving them a cheap deal that wouldn’t be available to an outsider? It’s a mess, and UEFA allowed it to happen.

With Kylian Mbappé and Endrick moving to Real Madrid, is there any hope of anyone else winning the Champions League? – James

They are both exceptional players, but football is less about the individual than the team. Endrick is a central attacker, but when he plays in his natural position he takes up the space that Jude Bellingham was so successful in last season. Where will Kylian Mbappé play? If he plays on the left, as he prefers, that means no room for Vinicius Junior, whose pace and movement on the counter-attack have been so important to their European successes. But if he does play centrally, where does Endrick go? And what happens to Bellingham? Perhaps Madrid could switch from a basic 4-3-3 to something more like the system France played in this summer, a 4-3-1-2, with Bellingham behind Vinicius and Mbappé, but that still means two players who naturally want to get from the left to their stronger right foot. What’s more, Mbappé is not the most industrious player out of possession, which could cause structural problems.

Carlo Ancelotti has proven himself adept at managing egos and finding structures to house multiple stars throughout his career, but this feels like one of those signings where a great player joins a great team and makes them worse. That said, Barcelona are such a mess, Madrid should still win La Liga.

What do you think is the most pressing concern regarding refereeing/rules in the new season? – Mel

It will be VAR, as it always is these days. Semi-automatic offside in the Premier League is a welcome addition and should both speed things up and make decisions more accurate. But no-one has yet been able to come up with a working definition of handball now that everything can be seen and replayed, and the confusion over when catching a player on the follow-through is a foul (see Denzel Dumfries on Harry Kane for England’s penalty against the Netherlands) is only getting worse.

• This is an excerpt from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, the Guardian US’s weekly look at the game in Europe and beyond. Register for free here. Got a question for Jonathan? Email him at soccerwithjw@theguardian.com and he’ll feature the best answer in a future edition