Passionate fandom aside, European football has a lot to learn from American sports. Famous British Pundit Gary Neville is not a fan of U.S. investment into English football. “US investment into English football is a clear and present danger to the pyramid and fabric of the game,” he said. The irony is that as a pundit, Gary Neville owes his very career in TV to the “Americanization” of English football; without the influence of America’s example, the English football industry would not be structured around massive TV deals, and Gary Neville would not have a job.
In contrast, New Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly has suggested that the Premier League could learn from America, and I completely agree. Suggestions like Boehly’s are the very reason this sport has developed over the last three decades with arguably ample room for further growth. According to Boehly, lessons from U.S. sports can turn around English Football, which is currently heavily undervalued.
England boasts about having one of the greatest domestic league systems in the world, at the apex of which is the Premier League, which some consider the most competitive in the world. But has the Premier League lost its competitiveness and edge? The answer is a resounding yes.
Europe, especially England, has embraced the commercialism of U.S. sports, only without their egalitarianism. The United States is now a paradise of relative sporting equality, with competitive teams from around the country: 12 different Super Bowl winners and 11 different World Series winners in the last 15 years. European football, on the other hand, does not quite have that competitive edge to its game.
Over the past six years, Manchester City have won five Premier League championships, including three consecutive titles between 2020 and 2023. In the German Football League—the Bundesliga—Bayern Munich, has won the Championship eleven times in a row! This has never and would never happen in the NFL. No American team has ever won the Superbowl three times in a row, let alone eleven. The only NFL team to ever go back-to-back were the 2003-04 Patriots.
Now, the question is, why? Why are American sports leagues more competitive, with talent more evenly distributed than European football?
One of the reasons boils down to the hard salary cap, which the NFL introduced in 1993 and European football has yet to endorse. A salary cap would level the playing field amongst European clubs and end the monopoly on trophies that just a handful of them possess. If Manchester City had a limited wage bill, they would not be able to pay the massive salaries they currently give their star players. Ultimately, the reason English Football has lost its competitiveness is not because it is easy to reach the top, but because it is impossible to create numerous powerful dynasties that have the financial abilities to stay at the top.
With an NFL-esque salary cap, on the other hand, it would be impossible to maintain a dynasty in European football. The logic is simple: If clubs are limited by their wage bills, then it is unlikely they will be able to complete the same number of multi-million-pound transfers we are witnessing now.
Imagine an NFL world without a salary cap. What would stop Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones from jumping at the top free agents every year and building a monopoly-like dynasty?
A mechanism tied to the salary is the NFL’s “fair” revenue sharing, or a reward and punishment system. The salary floor prevents NFL owners from pocketing revenue-sharing money, meaning that if a team loses, the ownership does not turn a profit. This has not been the case with Manchester United, for example, whose owners have made billions even though the team has been underperforming for years. Through revenue sharing, any team can beat any other team, and most teams have a shot to make it to the playoffs if they make the right offseason moves.
One additional valuable difference in the U.S. versus Europe is the holistic system of “machine and man” to keep the games fair. With the recent implementation of advanced technology such as new camera and video tracking in the NFL, NBA, and MLB, referees can make more precise calls and leave no room for speculation. To secure transparency and fairness, every NFL team is allowed two challenges per game should they believe the referee made a wrong call. If they are successful on the first two, they get awarded a third. However, they get charged a timeout for every failed challenge.
In Europe, however, the way technology has been implemented is inadequate and unfair. The Video Assistant Referring system, commonly known as VAR, has been under major scrutiny since its introduction in 2017, with grave errors repeatedly made. Only last week, the VAR called Liverpool Player Luis Diaz’s decisive goal against Tottenham offside. Liverpool ended up losing the game, only for the Professional Game Match Officials Board to later release a statement that the goal was wrongly ruled out for offside. That would not happen in the U.S. (and especially the NFL).
With the U.S. system in place, a significant number of errors would be avoided. Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp would have undoubtedly challenged that game-losing call. This change would lead to fewer mistakes made by European referees, minimize the toxicity and abuse referees often face in English football, and silence the managers—like Klopp in his post-match press conference—who are quick to blame the referees for his team’s shortcomings.
In Europe today, the football industry results are well known: exorbitant salary bills, ridiculous transfer fees, billionaire owners pumping money into the club, bad refereeing with ill-supported referees, and leagues lacking competitiveness since only two or three teams can “afford” a chance to win.
One place to look for urgent solutions is across the Atlantic. Despite the complex multi-tiered European football system and the different labor laws across the continent, the sports must implement mechanisms to level the playing field while also protecting the genuine international aspect of football and its uniquely passionate fandom. As we’ve seen over the past few years with far too many failed initiatives, there is always room for trial and error.
Ahmad Kanafani ’26 (akanafani@college.harvard.edu) writes Sports for the Independent.