Football governing bodies in Europe are furious over moves by some clubs to form the breakaway European Super League.
At least 12 clubs including the so-called ‘Big Six Clubs’ of England have agreed to breakaway from the UEFA Champions League.
The clubs are: Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, Inter Milan and AC Milan.
The teams agreed on Sunday, April 19, 2021, to form a ‘European Super League,’ causing a ‘civil war’ for European football.
Competition Format of proposed European Super League
• 20 participating clubs with 15 Founding Clubs and a qualifying mechanism for a further five teams to qualify annually based on achievements in the prior season.
• Midweek fixtures with all participating clubs continuing to compete in their respective national leagues, preserving the traditional domestic match calendar which remains at the heart of the club game.
• An August start with clubs participating in two groups of ten, playing home and away fixtures, with the top three in each group automatically qualifying for the quarter-finals.
• Teams finishing fourth and fifth will then compete in a two-legged play-off for the remaining quarter-final positions. A two-leg knockout format will be used to reach the final at the end of May, which will be staged as a single fixture at a neutral venue.
“As soon as practicable after the start of the men’s competition, a corresponding women’s league will also be launched, helping to advance and develop the women’s game,” the breakaway clubs said in a statement.
“The new annual tournament will provide significantly greater economic growth and support for European football via a long-term commitment to uncapped solidarity payments which will grow in line with league revenues,” they said.
“These solidarity payments will be substantially higher than those generated by the current European competition and are expected to be in excess of €10 billion during the course of the initial commitment period of the Clubs. In addition, the competition will be built on a sustainable financial foundation with all Founding Clubs signing up to a spending framework.”
“In exchange for their commitment, Founding Clubs will receive an amount of €3.5 billion solely to support their infrastructure investment plans and to offset the impact of the COVID pandemic.”
On Sunday, Florentino Perez, President of Real Madrid and the first Chairman of the Super League, announced in a statement that “We will help football at every level and take it to its rightful place in the world. Football is the only global sport in the world with more than four billion fans and our responsibility as big clubs is to respond to their desires.”
Andrea Agnelli, Chairman of Juventus and Vice-Chairman of the Super League has backed the move of a European Super League, saying “Our 12 Founder Clubs represent billions of fans across the globe and 99 European trophies.”
“We have come together at this critical moment, enabling European competition to be transformed, putting the game we love on a sustainable footing for the long-term future, substantially increasing solidarity, and giving fans and amateur players a regular flow of headline fixtures that will feed their passion for the game while providing them with engaging role models.”
American bank, JP Morgan, has pledged to finance the European Super League.
But FIFA, UEFA, La Liga and the English Premier League, are strongly “opposed” to the idea.
A joint statement sanctioned by UEFA’s president Aleksander Ceferin, with the FA, Premier League, La Liga, and Serie A, as well as the Spanish and Italian football federations, sharply condemned the move.
According to the statement, Europe’s top national football governing bodies and leagues will remain united in opposing the “cynical” initiative, and will use all methods available to them, including legal action, to prevent the scheme from being put into practice.
In its statement, FIFA says “In our view, and in accordance with our statutes, any football competition, whether national, regional or global, should always reflect the core principles of solidarity, inclusivity, integrity and equitable financial redistribution.”
Also, the European Club Association noted in a statement that it “strongly opposed” the “closed Super League model”.
By Melvin Tarlue