12 European Clubs Agree To Join European Super League Soccer

[Ray Gin]

Liverpool and Manchester United are in talks about a bombshell plot involving Europe's biggest football clubs to join a new FIFA-backed tournament that would reshape the sport's global landscape.

Sky News has learnt that financiers are assembling a $6bn (£4.6bn) funding package to assist the creation of what could become known as the European Premier League.

More than a dozen teams from England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are in negotiations about becoming founder members of the competition.

As many as five English clubs could sign up to join it, with a provisional start date said to have been discussed as early as 2022.

Sources said that FIFA, football's world governing body, had been involved in developing the new format, which is expected to comprise up to 18 teams, and involve fixtures played during the regular European season.

The top-placed teams in the league would then play in a knockout format to conclude the tournament, with prize money for the winners expected to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds each year.

One football industry figure said that a formal announcement about the plans was possible as soon as the end of this month, although on Tuesday a number of key details - including the full list of participating clubs - had yet to be finalised and the plans could still fall apart.

Top English clubs in bombshell talks to join European Premier League

A $6bn (£4.6bn) financing package is being drawn up to back the launch of a new European Premier League, Sky News can reveal.

news.sky.com

I'm guessing the clubs involved would want a restructured league or they wouldn't take part. Cup competitions probably knocked on the head

 

[Bandit]

I'm guessing the clubs involved would want a restructured league or they wouldn't take part. Cup competitions probably knocked on the head

Wasn't that part of Project Big Picture. Get rid of the League Cup and reduce Premier League by four games?

Soccer is really becoming something I don't particulary like anymore

 

[Best]

European Super League talk comes about every so often. How valid this one is I don't know.

But I'm going to guess that the COVID crisis has focused the minds of the top clubs. Revenues from domestic leagues could be in jeopardy due to lack of crowds and a potentially reduced TV contract in the future.

So a brand new league, with brand new media contract, with lots of hype may be the way they can increase revenues further

 

[Son Of Jack]

It's a break from UEFA competitions, not leagues, as I understand it.

EPL teams would play domestically as they do, but also in this proposed league instead of the Champions/Europa Leagues

 

[Tom]

EPL teams would play domestically as they do, but also in this proposed league instead of the Champions/Europa Leagues

Expect a revamped Champions Leagues announcement from UEFA with more money and a new format

Mission accomplished by the big teams. Rinse and repeat.

 

[Son Of Jack]

 https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1321187103049469952

That's the Bartomeu who, along with the entire Barcelona board, has just resigned. This decision AFAIK needs to be ratified by the members, which seeing as it's a Bartomeu decision, is very unlikely to happen. And the new President and board could just take them back out.

 

[Snoops]

European Super League: Five English clubs sign up to breakaway league in challenge to UEFA plans - Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur all agree to plan

Five English clubs are among 11 European teams who have signed up to a breakaway Super League in an extraordinary development on the eve of Uefa's announcement of a new Champions League format.

Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur have signed up to the breakaway plan with only Manchester City among the Big Six yet to do so, sources with knowledge of the development have told The Times.

The Super League development is a direct challenge to Uefa which is to announce its new 36-team Champions League format on Monday, to come into force from 2024. The European governing body had thought it had seen off the threat of a breakaway but is now involved in urgent talks with other football bodies about the new development.

Uefa had succeeded in winning the support of the European Club Association (ECA) board and the European Leagues but it emerged today that the Super League threat had been revived with the ECA chairman Andrea Agnelli, also the Juventus president, appearing to throw his hat in with the breakaway clubs led by Manchester United and Real Madrid.

Other members of the ECA board, who had agreed to the new Champions League format, and Uefa officials have attempted to contact Agnelli since Saturday evening but one source said he "has gone off the radar".

Uefa insiders insist they will press ahead with the announcement for the new-look Champions League which will see clubs playing 10 group matches instead of six.

If the Super League clubs do not back down then the dispute is likely to end up in courts given that Uefa and Fifa have promised to ban any clubs and players who take part in breakaway competitions from their tournaments such as the Euros and the World Cup.

The Times revealed in January that a proposal document showed founder members of a proposed European Super League would be offered up to 350million euros (£310million) each to join the competition.

There would be among 15 permanent founding members and five other clubs, who would qualify on an annual basis. They would be split into two groups of 10 and play between 18 and 23 European matches a season.

The Super League proposals include:

• The 15 founder clubs sharing an initial 3.5billion (£3.1billion) euro "infrastructure grant" ranging from £310million to £89million per club which can be spent on stadiums, training facilities or "to replace lost stadium-related revenues due to Covid-19".
• The format would see two groups of 10 clubs who play home and away, with the top four from each group going through to two-legged quarter-finals, semi-finals and a one-legged final.
• Matches would be midweek and clubs would still play in domestic leagues
• Clubs would have rights to show four matches a season on their own the digital platforms across the world
• Income from TV and sponsorship would favour the founding clubs: 32.5% of the pot would be shared equally between the 15 clubs, and another 32.5% between all Super League clubs including the five qualifiers
• 20% of the pot would be merit money "distributed in the same manner as the current English Premier League merit-based system" according to where clubs finish in the competition or group if they don't make the knock-out stage
• The remaining 15% would a "commercial share based on club awareness"
• A cap of 55% of revenues permitted to be spent on salaries and transfers (net)
• A 'Financial Sustainability Group' would monitor clubs' spending

The emergence of the written proposals led football's authorities to take unified action to combat the threat. A Super League would be disastrous for the Champions League which relies on the glamour of the top clubs to attract broadcasters.

European Super League: Big Six breakaway plot sparks outrage

The new Super League — including England’s ‘big six’ clubs — has written to Uefa and Fifa warning that it has already filed motions in courts to prevent the foo

www.thetimes.co.uk

 

[Snoops]

Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur have signed up to the breakaway plan with only Manchester City among the Big Six yet to do so, sources with knowledge of the development have told The Times.

Man City have since backed it too.

PSG and Bayern out though.

 

[Crabtree]

Neither this or the proposed changes to the champions league are good things, not for the fans anyway.

I don't even like the way the champions league format is now (and I think many others would agree).

Obviously we aren't going to go back to the European Cup days, too much money to be made. But all this stuff just feels soulless

 

[Bandit]

 https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1383799566361718784

If the "big 6" are forced to leave that kills the Premier League as a global interest league so hardly seems likely.