If Ibrox’s “investors” are banking on the Super League they are dafter than they seem.

As we try to puzzle out what reason someone might have for buying the club across the city, some theories sound better than others. The idea of a quick turnaround and fast profit on the club seems very silly—unless something momentous changes. But perhaps a momentous change is exactly what some people are counting on. Perhaps they’re banking on the European Super League.

Last weekend, I heard about a documentary on the European Super League that has impressed a lot of people. They may have missed the fact that it’s largely a documentary in favour of the Super League, made by people who like the idea, so what other picture was it going to paint? There is a general belief among some that a European Super League is in the works and that only minor details need ironing out.

For example, one of the major sticking points for clubs is that the Super League, as originally proposed, had no system for clubs outside of it to qualify. There was no access structure. The latest proposals attempted to change that by creating the appearance of an access path. But I wrote a long, detailed piece on those proposals when they came out, and if you examine them closely, they offer even less representation than clubs currently get in Europe under UEFA.

In short, when you compare these proposals to UEFA’s current system, you see that the number of clubs qualifying for the three European trophies combined is already far greater than even the most ambitious Super League scenario.

UEFA offers more clubs from more countries a path to competition football than any alternative will, and that alone will kill this idea stone dead.

If the Ibrox club’s prospective new owners from the United States—a country where the Super League’s financial backing was originally expected to come from— see this as a proposal with some life in it, as some seem to think, then they have badly underestimated the scale of the challenges they would face in trying to make it work.

When the Super League was first proposed, several English clubs were involved, but it was quickly blocked. One man was widely blamed—or credited—with stopping the Super League in the UK: Boris Johnson. As usual, the truth is both more and less than that. Johnson wasn’t some great hero of football; he’s a populist. He realised before the clubs themselves did that this was an unpopular idea. The biggest mistake those clubs made was thinking they could push this through without consulting their own fans or considering the backlash—not just from their own supporters but from football fans across the UK.

Johnson simply went where the wind was blowing. Fans killed the Super League deal in the UK, and their opposition guarantees that no Premier League club, no matter how much they might want to, could ever publicly back this idea again. Legislation is coming in England to introduce a regulator, and that regulator will ensure this idea never gets off the ground. Fan power has been strengthened, not weakened.

So, England is out. And without Premier League clubs, the Super League would be picking a fight with a far more powerful and well-funded entity than even UEFA: the Premier League itself. The English league has spent decades growing its brand and its revenues. It won’t allow a rogue competition to challenge it.

The idea is also dead in Germany. Fan ownership structures mean that clubs there would never be allowed to participate, even if they wanted to—which they don’t. German clubs (along with PSG) were the first to reject the original Super League proposal, making it clear that they had no interest in breaking away from UEFA.

So right away, two of the top five leagues are out. That alone makes the Super League unworkable. A few clubs in Italy and Spain might still want it, but they won’t get their way if they’re standing against the combined power of UEFA, the Bundesliga, and the English Premier League. You cannot call something a “European Super League” if it doesn’t include clubs from England or Germany.

La Liga is out. They’ve hammered the idea and threatened the clubs involved. So too has Ligue 1 in France, as well as Serie A. That’s the remaining three of the Big Five leagues, all implacably opposed to this.

If the Ibrox club threw its weight behind the idea, that wouldn’t be a surprise—but for it to mean anything, the organisers would also need the support of Celtic. And as I understand it, we are irrevocably tied to UEFA and the current system, where we have played a prominent, albeit low-profile, role.

Without Celtic, there’s no point in the Ibrox club being involved. On their own, they bring nothing of real value to the table. And if they aren’t Scottish champions—if they remain in our shadow, which they are and which they would be—it would devalue the entire tournament to include them while the top club in Scotland sits it out.

The truth is that no domestic league will allow its member clubs to join a breakaway tournament. They will all resist it. They will freeze player registrations. They will take any necessary action to make it impossible. UEFA will drag the Super League through the courts. Sponsorship and TV money will follow the fans—and the vast majority of fans do not want this. No PR-driven documentary is going to change that.

And here are some facts to back that up.

BT Sport, which holds the rights to the Champions League and Premier League, condemned the Super League immediately and said they wouldn’t be involved. Sky reiterated its commitment to the current system, meaning it will back whatever the Premier League supports—and the Premier League is against it. Amazon Prime Video denied any involvement. DAZN confirmed that they weren’t interested. Facebook outright rejected claims that it had held talks to broadcast matches. MediaPro, which holds La Liga’s rights, told Reuters they wouldn’t break contracts with UEFA or national leagues, stating that the whole idea was doomed to fail.

It’s worth noting that three of the vice presidents of the Super League project were American owners of English clubs. JP Morgan was originally set to finance it, but they have since walked away. The three English club owners based in the US who were involved have since written open letters apologising to their supporters for their role in the fiasco. Even in the States, they know it’s dead.

The idea is a non-starter. If these Americans who are looking at the Ibrox club are banking on this as their golden ticket—if they think they can secure another vote at the table or another club in favour—then they are backing a loser. UEFA has settled on a new Champions League format that fans and officials both seem to approve of. A few elite clubs might be stamping their feet, but it doesn’t matter.

The majority of clubs and supporters are more engaged with the Champions League than ever before. Even I, who was sceptical of the new format, have been surprised by how well it has been received.

If European football’s structure is going to change, it will be through UEFA—not breakaways, not by ditching domestic leagues. Domestic leagues are here to stay. And frankly, there may already be too many games. We could be at the limit of what clubs, schedulers, and fans can reasonably tolerate.

Some people think all this Super League talk makes the Ibrox club look like a cheap punt—an easy gamble on a positive outcome.

But they fail to grasp that this won’t be a cheap punt. It will be expensive to acquire that club, even with all its problems. And it will be even more expensive to run it in a way that satisfies its fans and the Scottish media.

The more I look at this deal, the more I actually wonder if it will happen. Once due diligence is done, those who currently seem so keen—if you believe The Daily Record—might just decide to take their money elsewhere.

The European Super League is not a magic bullet for these investors or anyone else. It’s not a quick route to big money. And that leaves only one other way this deal makes sense—the way that should terrify Ibrox fans the most.