Let me preface this with the confession that I was the one person who supported the Super League.
But hot take and this in not a likely prediction or anything, but very much a hot take.
If a major change in the football landscape is incoming it’s the fifa club world cup gaining relevance. I say this bc if Saudi Arabia can have 6 teams stacked with top players and a decent league around that you have another massive league, meanwhile Qatar and the MLS are attracting top players too.
If there can be 5 Non European leagues which have 2 teams that are UCL level an expansion would make sense.
But if that happens, quality players will be spread across even more leagues and the bottom half teams across the European clubs will get worse and worse, clubs like Werder Bremen, Rayo Vallecano, Empoli cannot compete at a decent level in such a world.
Best case scenario, the domestic season becomes an 18 game season with 10 teams in the top division with the fifa club world cup in whatever way its formatted being the primary revenue generator for top clubs.
This could make the UCL either another competition or it could make it the lower tier competition. Perhaps smth like the Euros even.
There will be no new leagues or tournaments that effect the status quo. Established leagues and federations will not be making any changes unless it involves a lot of money, without hindering any current revenue streams.
Football, at its core, is ingrained at a cultural level in many countries, and no amount of money from Saudi, or China, or the US will change that. True fans see the Saudi vanity project for what it is, and while they may attract the plastics, in time nothing will change.
I’m a Canadian. We play hockey. It’s what we do, and it’s why, despite our small population, we dominate on a global level. It’s a community thing, it’s a family thing, it’s a cultural thing. Money won’t change that. It takes generations to create that.
China failed, and so will Saudi. Minor things will happen every decade or so to suit a new generation but when I die in 40-50 years, things will basically be the same.