Europe’s elite clubs ‘would be offered up to £310million’ to become founder members of a proposed European Super League – as it emerges Manchester United chief Joel Glazer ‘is driving the idea’.
United would reportedly be one of six Premier League clubs among 15 permanent founding members of the breakaway competition, which would replace UEFA’s Champions League.
Liverpool, Real Madrid and AC Milan are also involved in the Super League plans, according to The Times.
It comes after the New York Times reported the Glazer family ‘are promoting the idea of a Super League’.
But FIFA and UEFA are attempting to block the move by threatening any player who participates in the competition with a ban from future World Cup and European Championship finals.
Manchester United and Liverpool were reportedly involved in plans to set up a European Premier League – but FIFA and UEFA have moved to block any such idea
The European Premier League would have been a rival to UEFA’s Champions League, won last season by German club Bayern Munich
Manchester United owner Joel Glazer is ‘promoting the idea of a European Super League’
According to an 18-page proposal document for the Super League, there would be 15 founder members and five other clubs who would qualify on an annual basis.
Split into two group of 10, they would play between 18 and 23 European fixtures a season.
The potential revenue for taking part could potentially be enormous and club would have the rights to show some of their games on their own digital platforms.
The Times report the document does not provide a specific breakdown of the 15 clubs or which countries they come from but it could be the English ‘big six’, three from Spain, three from Italy, two from Germany and one from France.
Wall Street giant JP Morgan Chase is understood to be in talks to finance the project, with the 15 clubs sharing an initial £3.1bn ‘infrastructure grant’ with which to make stadium improvements and replace lost revenue caused by Covid-19.
World football’s governing body FIFA has distanced itself from any Super League idea and introduced the deterrent that any player involved would be barred from flagship international tournaments.
A statement released jointly by FIFA and its six confederations read: ‘In light of recent media speculation about the creation of a closed European ‘Super League’ by some European clubs, FIFA and the six confederations (AFC, CAF, Concacaf, CONMEBOL, OFC and UEFA) once again would like to reiterate and strongly emphasise that such a competition would not be recognised by either FIFA or the respective confederation.
‘Any club or player involved in such a competition would as a consequence not be allowed to participate in any competition organised by FIFA or their respective confederation.
‘As per the FIFA and confederations statutes, all competitions should be organised or recognised by the relevant body at their respective level, by FIFA at the global level and by the confederations at the continental level.
The decision means players like Kylian Mbappe would not be able to play for France at the World Cup or the European Championship if he played in the European Super League
France are the reigning world champions and most of their victorious squad play for club sides likely to be invited into any new Super League
‘In this respect, the confederations recognise the FIFA Club World Cup, in its current and new format, as the only worldwide club competition while FIFA recognises the club competitions organised by the confederations as the only club continental competitions.
‘The universal principles of sporting merit, solidarity, promotion and relegation, and subsidiarity are the foundation of the football pyramid that ensures football’s global success and are, as such, enshrined in the FIFA and confederation statutes.
‘Football has a long and successful history thanks to these principles. Participation in global and continental competitions should always be won on the pitch.’
The proposals, which emerged in October last year, were reportedly backed by the Wall Street giant JP Morgan and would include a huge prize pot of several billion pounds.
Between 16 and 18 teams from England, France, Germany, Spain and Italy would be invited to play in the European Premier League from 2022.
They would play home and away matches against each team in the league in a round robin format, meaning a minimum of 30 games, followed by a knockout competition to determine the champion.
It would be a direct rival to UEFA’s Champions League competition and would likely cause immense damage to the five leading domestic leagues in Europe.
Reports at the time said Liverpool and Man United were in talks over the tournament and the other members of the Premier League’s ‘Big six’ – Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham – had been approached.
It came out of the Project Big Picture proposals that threatened a seismic shake-up of the football landscape in England.
Shortly afterwards, plans to revamp the Champions League along the lines of a ‘Swiss system’ emerged.
From 2024, this would mean all 32 Champions League group stage participants playing 10 group games against teams of differing strengths supposedly to make things more competitive.
All 32 teams would be in one big group with the top 16 qualifying for the knockout rounds, the next eight going into the Europa League and the bottom eight eliminated.
Real Madrid and Barcelona would be two more European heavyweights likely to be involved