Twelve great European clubs football made their launch “in August” Superliga, a competition that will clash with Champions League which is a declaration of war that UEFA promised on Sunday to respond harshly to those clubs and their players.
“Twelve of the most important European clubs announce that they have concluded an agreement for the creation of a new competition, Super League, governed by their founding clubs. AC Milan, Arsenal, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, FC Barcelona, Inter milan, Juventus, Liverpool, the city of Manchester, Manchester United, real Madrid Yes Tottenham they joined as founding clubs “, can be read in a communiqué posted on social networks.
“The inaugural season will begin as soon as possible.”, add text without setting a precise schedule.
Official announcement: The main European football clubs announce the new Super League.#Real Madrid
– Real Madrid CF (@realmadrid) April 18, 2021
This project, explains its promoters, is intended “Generate additional resources for the entire football pyramid”.
“In exchange for their commitment, the founding clubs will receive a single payment of the order 3,500 million euros ($ 4.19 billion), intended exclusively infrastructure investments and to offset the impact of the covid-19 crisis, “the statement added.
If this figure is confirmed, it would be much higher incomes those that clubs get from UEFA for all their club competitions (Champions League, Europa League, European Super Cup), which have generated 3,200 million euros ($ 3.88 billion) in television revenue in the 2018-2019 campaign, before the pandemic severely affected the European sports rights market.
The first president of the Super League is Spanish Florentino Pérez, the president of Real Madrid.
“We will help football at all levels, to get it where it deserves it. Football is the only global sport. Our responsibility as big clubs is meet fan expectations“Perez was quoted as saying.
The league is almost closed
The “beautiful sport” in Europe thus sees its future convulsed, in the Superliga it is in opposition to current philosophy redistribution of television resources between the Champions League and national leagues. Clubs promoting the new competition aspire to an almost closed league system, comparable to the North American Basketball (NBA) or American Football (NFL) championships.
According to its promoters, the Super League would work with a one-size-fits-all format regular season with 20 teams, fifteen of them called “founding clubs”, classified each year by trade and another five enjoy invitations “Through a system based on its previous season’s performance”.
At the end of this first phase, which would start in August, there will be a “playoff” at the end of the season, until May, to decide the champion.
Now it remains to be seen what response UEFA will give, very vehemently against the secession project, and FIFA.
The European body, in a statement signed by several national championships on its continent, threatened every “dissident” club on Sunday with exclusion from national and international competitions, also warning that the players of those clubs they could not play for their respective national teams.
It remains to be seen whether this threat is in line with European competition law, which heralds a possible legal battle.
The launch of this Super League comes when UEFA convened its Executive Committee on Monday (07:00 GMT), intended in principle to formalize the reform of the Champions League for the stage that should start in 2024.