Sunday April 18, 2021
What will happen to Bavaria and BVB?
Super league dispute shortly before the final escalation
Five top English clubs alone are to take part, including FC Barcelona and Real Madrid: Shortly before the reform of the Champions League is passed, European football is once again threatened with an escalation in the dispute between UEFA and clubs. They are now clearly planning a split.
Shortly before the decision on a far-reaching reform for the Champions League, there is again a great power struggle over a possible super league. Clubs from Italy, Spain and England are once again creating the threat of an international split, the European Football Union UEFA and the national leagues reacted a little later with a sharp threat. The clubs would be excluded from all other competitions and their players would no longer be allowed to play for national teams, said UEFA. The world association FIFA and the other continental associations had already announced this in the past.
According to the English Times, Manchester United, Liverpool FC, Arsenal FC and Chelsea FC and Tottenham Hotspur are among the clubs planning a super league. According to other media reports, Juventus Turin, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid should also be among them.
The German record champions FC Bayern and Borussia Dortmund are reportedly not involved in the plans – as is the French champion Paris Saint-Germain. “We would like to thank the clubs in other countries, especially the French and German clubs, who have refused to join,” said a UEFA statement.
Christian Seifert, Managing Director of the German Football League, promised UEFA support. “The economic interests of a few top clubs in England, Italy and Spain must not result in the abolition of established structures in European football as a whole,” said Seifert. “It would be particularly irresponsible to irreparably damage the national leagues as the basis of European professional football in this way.” The English Premier League warned their clubs against joining a super league and referred to the statutes, which are intended to prevent exactly that. The top management of the Italian Serie A should have come together for an emergency meeting.
Super league has long been a constant topic
There was sharp criticism from the European fan network Football Supporters Europe (FSE). “This closed competition will be the last nail in the coffin of European football and destroy everything that made it so popular and successful,” it said in a statement. “These plans are fundamentally illegitimate, irresponsible and against any competition. What is more, they are being pushed solely out of greed.”
The UEFA Executive Committee will decide during its meeting on Monday to increase the premier class from 32 to 36 participants and to introduce a new mode. This should apply from the 2024/25 season. Two of the four new places are no longer to be awarded, as has been the case up to now, based on performances from the previous season. Instead, the placements of the clubs in the UEFA five-year ranking should be decisive. This was a wish of the powerful club association ECA, which sits with two representatives on the executive branch of the Continental Association.
The details were reported on Friday by a consensus between the ECA and the UEFA Club Competitions Committee (CCC). The decision therefore seemed a formality. The establishment of a super league was always discussed in recent years when it came to the distribution of TV money in the European Cup.
According to the AP news agency, the plans for the Super League should include 15 permanent members, plus five more teams. A total of 3.5 billion euros should initially be available for the 15 founding associations, of which the top six should each receive 350 million euros.
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