In August 1998, a group representing an Italian media conglomerate arrived unannounced at UEFA President Lennart Johansson's holiday villa in Switzerland to pitch a radical alternative to European club competition.

Their plan to launch a European Super League failed, but it was a lot closer to happening than you might think. As Real Madrid and Atletico prepare to do battle in the final of the all-powerful Champions League in Milan, know it could have been a different story.

This is what might have happened had the Italians got their way in 1998.

May 28, 2001: European Super League Final: Real Madrid vs. Bayern Munich, Stade de France

And so, it comes to this, finally—the end of the beginning. After all the hand-wringing and dallying, the bickering and the squabbling, European football has arrived at its alleged destiny.

Were the labour pains, the writhing, the screaming and the kicking all worth it? Has football in Europe been born again?

Where to begin? The outward signs are that it is business as usual. The inaugural final in Paris this evening between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich will feel rich in pedigree. Both sides were finalists the last two seasons in the now defunct Champions League. Somehow that already feels like a moniker from another age, a fustian relic of a simpler time.

The age of European football that just ended was a time of consensus among clubs, fans and the suited men in Nyon, France, who are paid to try to secure the best deal for both. It was an age doomed the moment it became clear that Europe's top clubs were being lulled by overtures from Italian magnate Silvio Berlusconi's Fininvest media group, and it perished once the contracts were signed.

For "top clubs," read "most profitable." The self-appointed cartel of clubs that last year fought UEFA and the international courts for permanent membership in Europe's new showpiece competition, and failed, has nonetheless accomplished much of what it set out to achieve.

With guaranteed qualification on fixed five-year terms available but heavily slanted towards the big clubs, the likes of Real and Bayern have suitably protected their interests against the threat from top-flight rivals in Spain, Germany and Europe.

The wild-card entries are still available to clubs via their performances in the continent's domestic leagues, though making up half of the new Super League's 32-team annual intake, they represent a far smaller portion of its financial clout.

Real, reigning European champions, will go into tonight's final as favourites. They finished seven points clear at the top of the 16-team Super League Pool B—one half of the bloated 32-team group stage that put clubs through an exhausting 15-match round robin before the competition reached its quarter-final stage in March.

Sixteen of those clubs will enjoy protection in this league for at least the next four seasons; that only four of them qualified for this season's quarter-final is the surest sign that decisions have been made based on financial clout rather than success on the pitch—despite UEFA's protestations.

For its part, Europe's governing body remains vocal in the media about how it resisted the move by Fininvest and a consortium of clubs, Real and Bayern among them, to secure permanent membership of the Super League for Europe's highest earners. Less touted is the fact that its hand was forced by a ruling from the European Court of Justice, who blocked Fininvest's plans on the grounds that it would contravene European market laws on monopolies.

And so, the power brokers conceded, and now all memberships of the ESL are to be reviewed after five seasons. After that time, an aggregate of all points collected—weighted for appearances in the tournament's latter stages—will dictate who can remain.

By then, the 16 "founding" clubs will have had five uninterrupted years to strengthen their case; as for the rest, they must hope to qualify each year on merit through their domestic leagues, or else a precious season's worth of points will be lost, whittling away the likelihood of their making the cut.

Not that Europe's elite have found it completely smooth sailing in these unchartered waters. Negotiations between Bayern and insurance giant Allianz over naming rights to the German giants' planned new stadium have reportedly stalled, with the company reluctant to commit to a deal until Bayern have tied down their place in the ESL from 2005 onward, when the new ground is scheduled for completion.

For the rest, though, the problems are far more pressing. Tonight's finalists' domestic rivals—Atletico Madrid, Valencia, Borussia Dortmund, Bayer Leverkusen; sides with ambition on the European stage—are, for now, left with a fighting chance. But for how long?

Bayern received just over €12.5 million for reaching the Champions League final in 1999, 12 months before the changes were introduced. Whatever the outcome tonight, they are guaranteed a prize fund of at least €46 million, such has been the impact of TV revenue flowing in from the new Super League contracts.

Bayer Leverkusen, who fell to their compatriots at the quarter-final stage, will receive €31 million, but they finished fifth in the Bundesliga and will not be back next season to add to that windfall. Thanks to Fininvest's deal with UEFA, third-place Bayern will.

And this is where the age of consensus, of competition anchored in compromise, comes to a shuddering halt.

Bayern have always been a bigger earner than Dortmund, Real an easier sell than Atletico; until now, that financial power was only useful inasmuch as it could be converted into success on the pitch. Now, for the game's elite, that job has been done for them by their allies at Fininvest and elsewhere among an international media that stands to gain tenfold from the apartheid that has come to European football.

Bayern and Dortmund no longer play on two halves of the same pitch, no longer see the world the same. Bayern will be underdogs tonight in Paris, but it doesn't matter. The biggest battle has been a long time won.