The article is authored by Michał Kiedrowski, a journalist for Sport.pl.
Once again, a black despair has erupted in Poland. The Polish champion failed to qualify for the Champions League. It’s not just about the failure; we might have been able to bear that. It happens every year, but this year the despair is much more painful. Our neighbors succeeded. Both the Czechs and Slovaks will have teams in the Champions League. From the countries of the former Eastern Bloc, Crvena Zvezda from Serbia, Shakhtar Donetsk from Ukraine, and Dinamo Zagreb from Croatia also made it. Only we, in our over 37-million-strong nation, are such failures that we’re left with only the third-tier competition with a bizarre name: the UEFA Europa Conference League.
€22 million per point in the UEFA country ranking!
But it shouldn’t be like this. Our league is richer than the Czech, Serbian, Croatian, or Slovak leagues. According to UEFA data, the Ekstraklasa generates revenues of €153 million (data for the 2022/23 season)! The Croatian and Czech leagues each generate €97 million, and the Serbian league - €65 million. And these enormous sums - 655 million PLN - earned us just 6.875 points in the UEFA country ranking for the 2023/24 season. One point cost the Ekstraklasa €22 million!
There’s a reason to beat ourselves up. Because others in our region can do it, but we can’t. What are we doing wrong? Why can’t our officials do what they manage in the Czech Republic and Slovakia? How is it that despite spending so much money on football, it doesn’t translate into any success in European competitions?
The answer to all these questions is unfortunately very complex, and if we want to find the reasons for our enormous failure in European competitions, we need to dig very deep. It all started with Solidarność and Balcerowicz. Yes, it’s not a mistake; we owe the current state of our football to them.
Think about it for a moment. If there hadn’t been Solidarność, the transition from socialism to capitalism would have been handled by the nomenklatura from the PZPR (Polish United Workers' Party). And then it probably would have been like in Ukraine or Russia. The entire state property would have been privatized by cronies from the communist party. We would have had oligarchs like Rinat Akhmetov, the owner of Shakhtar Donetsk. His wealth in 2013, before Russia's first aggression against Ukraine, was estimated at $15.4 billion. At the same time, Poland's wealthiest individuals, Jan Kulczyk and Zygmunt Solorz, were nearly six times poorer than him.
Due to Solidarność, which curbed the ambitions of communist bigwigs, we don’t have oligarchs like those in Ukraine or Russia. Privatization in Poland followed entirely different paths. And here lies the main reason why we don’t have our version of Shakhtar Donetsk. Of course, that’s a good thing. It’s better not to have oligarchs in the country than to have Shakhtar.
The Transition Destroyed Continuity in Polish Clubs
Additionally, there was Leszek Balcerowicz, the symbol of the shock therapy applied to the Polish economy in the early 1990s. Overnight, football clubs were cut off from funding from mines, steelworks, or other state-owned enterprises. They were taken over by businessmen who, at best, had a vague understanding of running football clubs. The clubs became ephemeral entities. Every Polish championship medalist from 1989 to 2010, except Legia Warsaw, experienced relegation from the Ekstraklasa. Many fell even further. Lech Poznań, Widzew Łódź, ŁKS, Pogoń Szczecin, Lechia Gdańsk, and many others are essentially not the same clubs that bore those names in the 1990s. All declared bankruptcy and had to rebuild from the fourth or even lower leagues. The world has practically forgotten about Polish championship medalists from the 1990s and 2000s, like Hutnik Kraków, Odra Wodzisław, Amica Wronki, Groclin Grodzisk Wielkopolski, or GKS Bełchatów. Even Legia, which didn’t get relegated, faced difficult times after being cut off from the military. In the 1991/92 season, they only secured their spot in the league for the next season in the penultimate round by defeating Motor Lublin 3-0.
Meanwhile, in the Czech Republic, the transition from communism to capitalism didn’t happen so drastically. Sparta Prague didn’t have to fight for survival like Polish clubs did. They played in European competitions year after year without any issues. The last time they missed out on Europe was in the 1982/83 season!
And the 1990s were a time of major reform in European football. The Champions League was created. By participating in the group stage, teams could earn significant money. And it was crucial to qualify for these competitions year after year and build up a ranking to avoid facing giants in the qualification rounds.
The Lost Years Are Irrecoverable for Polish Football
The turn of the century was a lost time for Polish football. The continuity of work in the clubs was interrupted. Academies and youth teams were in a deplorable state. Czech coach Werner Liczka, who worked in Polish clubs in the early 2000s, was asked in an interview how Poles could catch up with the Czechs in terms of training standards. He replied that Poles would never catch up with their southern neighbors because by the time we reach their current level, they will be far ahead again.
In recent years, Poles have been catching up, but once again, we encounter obstacles that drag Polish teams down. We are not the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Serbia, or Croatia. We don’t have one or two dominant clubs that practically have a subscription to play in European competitions and attract the best football talents from across the country. In Poland, even Legia has to fight for its place in Europe every year. And we can forget about attracting talents to one or two of the most powerful clubs.
This is also due to the fact that the structure of our country is different. The Czechs have Prague, and then there’s a long gap before the next city, Brno, which is over three times smaller. In Croatia, only Zagreb is really large. In Serbia, Belgrade has 1.2 million residents and is five times bigger than the second-largest city, Niš. In Poland, besides Warsaw, there are Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Łódź, Gdańsk, Szczecin—large, wealthy cities with football ambitions. Each has a new stadium, thousands of fans, and significant revenue from TV broadcasts, sometimes even from the city budget. The capital, concentrated in one or two places in other countries, is spread out in Poland.
This Way, We’ll Never Catch Up to Europe
In the last five seasons, Poland has been represented in European competitions by: Legia, Śląsk, Jagiellonia, Wisła, Pogoń, Lech, Raków, Lechia, Cracovia, and Piast—ten clubs. This means that in the period that counts for the UEFA ranking, a Polish team earns points on average for two seasons! So how can they expect an easier path in the qualifiers if they aren’t building a ranking that provides seeding and theoretically easier opponents? Sparta Prague, as I wrote earlier, has been playing in European competitions every year since 1983. Slavia Prague last missed out in 2016. Crvena Zvezda in 2015. Dinamo Zagreb in 2006. Slovan Bratislava in 2008. If you build your ranking consistently year after year, there’s a chance that eventually, even in the Champions League, luck will be on your side.
And here we come to a bizarre fact. The Polish league is much wealthier than the Czech, Serbian, or Croatian leagues, and this is why its teams fare worse in European competitions. This is because there is too wide a pool of teams fighting for European spots, and new teams are constantly qualifying for them. Even Legia, with its great potential, isn’t able to qualify for European competitions every year.
Moreover, success in Europe is the best remedy for problems in the domestic league. Last year, Legia advanced from the Conference League group stage, but in the league, they were only fifth after the autumn round. They secured a podium finish only in the final rounds in the spring. Raków (2023 champion) played in the Europa League group stage but finished seventh in the table and didn’t even qualify for European competitions.
In the 2022/23 season, Lech reached the quarter-finals of the Conference League, but in the league, they were only sixth after the autumn round. They finished the season in third place. A year later, they dropped out of European competitions altogether.
In the 2021/22 season, Legia played in the Europa League group stage. They even won their first two matches. But in the Ekstraklasa, it was a disaster. They finished in 10th place and didn’t qualify for European competitions despite defending the Polish championship.
In the 2020/21 season, Lech reached the Europa League group stage. In the Ekstraklasa, it was a catastrophe: 11th place.
And the worst part is that there’s really no hope that the situation for Polish teams in European competitions will improve anytime soon. The lost years cannot be made up in a few seasons. Nor will a hegemon suddenly emerge in the league. Even if a group of talented young players were suddenly developed somewhere, they would more likely go abroad than build their team’s position in the UEFA club ranking. Europe has already left us far behind for good.
