This is an unprecedented earthquake in nearly 70 years of European competition.
Twelve of the biggest European football clubs announced in a statement on Sunday (April 18th) that they had reached an agreement for the creation of a new competition, the "Superleague", intended to compete with the traditional Champions League.
Among the founding clubs of the "Superleague" are the six biggest teams in the Premier League, the English Premier League - Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham - as well as Real Madrid, FC Barcelona or again Juventus Turin.
No French or German club is on the list.
UEFA, moreover, publicly thanked them for their loyalty.
The rebel clubs apparently claim to institute a controversial near-closed league system comparable to the North American basketball (NBA) or American football (NFL) championships.
Generate additional income
The new competition, explain its promoters, is doomed to "generate additional resources for the whole football pyramid".
"In return for their commitment, the founding clubs will receive a one-off payment of around 3.5 billion euros intended solely for infrastructure investments and to offset the impact of the Covid-19 crisis", continue the organizers.
If this figure is confirmed, it assumes revenues much higher than those obtained by UEFA for all of its club competitions (Champions League, Europa League and European Supercup), which had generated 3.2 billion dollars. euros in TV revenue in 2018-2019, before a pandemic which severely affected the European sports rights market.
"We are going to help football at all levels and put it in the place it deserves in fashion. Football is the only sport in the world with over four billion fans and our responsibility as big clubs is to respond to their wishes, "said Real Madrid boss Florentino Perez, founding president of this" Superleague ".
Matches in competition with the Champions League
According to its promoters, this competition would operate in the form of a regular season between twenty clubs, fifteen of them (the founding clubs and three additional ones to be determined) being automatically qualified each year and the other five chosen "through a system based on their performance from the previous season ".
"The inaugural season (...) will start as soon as possible", continues the text, without setting a precise timetable.
Matches would in principle be held midweek, competing directly with the boxes reserved for the Champions League, but not with the national championships traditionally held on weekends.
A women's "Superleague" will also be launched once the men's competition is established.
Opposition by FIFA and UEFA
The International Football Federation (FIFA) reacted by expressing its "disapproval" of this project for a closed European league outside "any structural framework".
UEFA, in a press release co-signed by several national championships, warned on Sunday that any dissident club would be excluded from national and international competitions, and that their players could no longer play for the national team, for example at the Euro or at the World Cup.
The launch of this "Superleague" comes as UEFA meets on Monday its executive committee (9 am in Paris) to endorse an overhaul of its Champions League by 2024.
There have also been many positions taken among political leaders, from the Elysee Palace in France to Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the United Kingdom.
The French presidency thus castigated a project "threatening the principle of solidarity and sporting merit" and the Minister for Sports Roxana Maracineanu denounced a "VIP club of a few powerful".
With AFP and Reuters
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