Premier League giants Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United are all in talks with American billionaire Stephen Ross to set up an exclusive league of football along with the other big clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and more.
Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis, Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck, Liverpool’s Ian Ayre, Manchester City’s chief executive Ferran Soriano and Old Trafford executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward all met at London's Dorchester hotel on Tuesday to discuss said league.
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Mr Stephen Ross's footballing CV includes the creation and running of the pre-season International Champions Cup that takes place in the United States of America, China and Australia. However, the five big English clubs have denied that there is a deal in place to create and run such a league but The Telegraph claim their sources said Manchester United and Arsenal believe and want the current UEFA Champions League to exist as is.
With the creation of such a 'super league', the top teams from the domestic leagues would seize participation in their leagues and play exclusively in the super league. This though would massively affect the television broadcasting deals in place already. With the Premier League and La Liga having only recently signed off a new on TV deal, the probability of the super league decreases but could start as competition to the Champions League.
Three years ago, Galatasaray chairman, Unal Aysal, said that the big teams of Europe were all planning a 'closed competition' along the same lines as the super league that was to be launched in five years. This would represent a massive boost to the teams on the competition especially given some of them can't always qualify for the Champions League every season.
West Ham United co-chairman David Sullivan is not a big fan of this proposed league pointing out that the owners of all these big clubs were foreigners who wanted what was best from a financial perspective. “It would destroy football as we know it. It’s so sad that five clubs all owned by foreigners are even considering it," he said.
“If the Premier League champions were not included, it would lose its gloss very quickly in the eyes of supporters.
“Also, if there was no relegation, everything other than the top of the division would be boring by mid-season.”
UEFA are under constant pressure from the representatives of the big clubs from the European Club Association to ensure that the clubs that bring the maximum television audiences be a mainstay in the Champions League irrespective of where they finish in their respective domestic leagues.
UEFA have acknowledged these demands and replied through a statement: “Uefa constantly reviews the format of its competitions in close consultation with stakeholders, including the European Club Association. There are no concrete proposals on the table at this stage as we have just begun a new three-year cycle (2015-18) for club competitions. There is, therefore, no further comment to be made at this stage.”
An ECA spokesperson – speaking to The Telegraph – said: “There’s a lot of discussion around the future of European competitions at the moment, as always ahead of a new competition cycle. Discussions are taking place at different levels but, for the moment, nothing concrete was brought up at ECA. However, there’s an agreement that, once an idea or proposal gets more concrete, it will be shared with the entire executive board.”
Back in January, when ECA and Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge brought up the topic of the 'super league' in public, Gianni Infantino – the then general secretary of UEFA – replied by saying, “The Super League already exists. It’s called the Champions League.”
