
Liverpool
and Manchester United are in talks about a bombshell plot involving Europe's
biggest football clubs to join a new FIFA-backed tournament that would
reshape the sport's global landscape.
Sky News has learned that financiers are assembling a $6 billion (£4.6
billion) funding package to assist the creation of what could become known
as the European Premier League.
More than a dozen teams from England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are
in negotiations about becoming founder members of the competition.
As many as five English clubs could sign up to join it, with a provisional
start date said to have been discussed as early as 2022.
Sources said that FIFA, football's world governing body, had been involved
in developing the new format, which is expected to comprise up to 18 teams,
and involve fixtures played during the regular European season.
The top-placed teams in the league would then play in a knockout format to
conclude the tournament, with prize money for the winners expected to be
worth hundreds of millions of pounds each year.
One football industry figure said that a formal announcement about the plans
was possible as soon as the end of this month, although on Tuesday a number
of key details - including the full list of participating clubs - had yet to
be finalised and the plans could still fall apart.
The source described it as "potentially the most important development in
world club football for decades".
Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City and Tottenham
candidates to join
According to insiders, a handful of English sides have been approached about
joining the league, with the other candidates comprising Arsenal, Chelsea,
Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur.
It is not thought that any of the English clubs have yet signed legally
binding terms to join, and it was unclear which member of the so-called 'big
six' would miss out if only five are ultimately involved.
flag of FiFA are seen prior to the UEFA U21 Championship Qualifying match
between Wales U21 and Germany U21 at the Racecourse Stadium on September 10,
2019 in Wrexham, Wales. 0:55
The news will drop a fresh bombshell into the fracturing landscape of
English football, which has spent recent weeks at loggerheads over proposals
- engineered by Liverpool and Manchester United - to hand more power to the
biggest clubs while providing a coronavirus bailout for teams below the top
flight.
A blueprint, dubbed Project Big Picture, would have seen the Premier League
reduced in size from 20 to 18 clubs, reducing the number of domestic
top-flight fixtures each season.
The plan, denounced as "a backroom deal" by government ministers, was
rapidly abandoned last week.
If the latest plans bear fruit, they would effectively constitute the
European super league that has been subject to on-off discussions for many
years.
The giant Wall Street bank JP Morgan is in talks to provide $6 billion of
debt financing to help launch the European Premier League, with the proceeds
repayable from future broadcast income generated by the tournament,
according to a football executive.
Other banks are expected to join the financing of the new project, which
would become one of the world's richest annual team sports competitions if
it gets off the ground.
Founding teams set to earn joining fee
worth hundreds of millions
Each of the founding teams is expected to earn fees of hundreds of millions
of pounds to participate, with clubs such as Manchester United and Real
Madrid receiving the biggest sums for joining.
They added that the European Premier League was likely to feature either 16
or 18 teams - meaning a likely minimum of 30 matches for each club, based on
a format of round-robin home and away fixtures - although that is said to be
among the details being finalised ahead of a formal announcement.
If the discussions are successfully concluded, the European Premier League
would effectively usurp UEFA's Champions League competition, which has been
a mainstay of the continent's football calendar for decades.
It was unclear whether the new tournament had the backing of UEFA, the
European governing body, although some insiders claimed that it did not.
If it did have UEFA's support, it is likely to be unveiled as an enhanced
version of the Champions League and an example of unprecedented cooperation
between two governing bodies which have historically found themselves in
opposition on key issues affecting football's global governance.
However, football insiders said that if UEFA was not involved, the new
tournament would represent an "incendiary" move from FIFA that would
undermine the European governing body's principal annual revenue-generating
tournament.
In that scenario, there could be a string of legal challenges to prevent it
from getting off the ground, given the complexity of existing tournament
agreements involving Europe's top clubs.
One source cast doubt on the prospect of a successful launch of the European
Premier League without UEFA's backing, particularly before 2024, when the
existing Champions League structure is expected to be revamped.
Neither FIFA nor UEFA would comment.
Other clubs which are said to have been invited to take part in the new
league include Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, according to Vozpopuli, a
Spanish publication.
Real Madrid has been one of the principal architects of the European Premier
League's creation, with a plan to get the new competition launched as
rapidly as possible.
Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus and Bayern Munich are also likely to have been
approached.
Key Capital Partners, a Spanish finance house, and Florentino Perez, the
veteran Real Madrid president, are also understood to have been driving
forces behind the latest project.
Mr Perez and Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, were reported last year
to have held talks about reforming elements of the club game.
The latest version of the European Premier League project is understood to
have been in gestation for well over a year.
Providence Equity Partners, a global private equity firm which owns
companies in Britain such as Ambassador Theatre Group, is understood to have
held talks about becoming a shareholder in the new league, but football
sources cast doubt on whether it was still involved.
Talk of a European Super League has been a ubiquitous feature of football
politics for many years, but has invariably faded amid trenchant opposition
from national football associations, politicians and supporter groups.
An earlier iteration of the current project was reported by German news
outlets to have been drawn up almost exactly two years ago, and featured 11
'founder' teams with a number of 'guest' teams.
As part of that blueprint, the founder clubs could not be relegated for 20
years, although the remaining teams would be subject to being replaced
depending upon their league position at the end of each season.
A version of those rules is expected to form part of the new league,
according to insiders, with a possible cap on agents' fees also said to have
been one of the ideas under discussion.
American-style approach to European
football
Such an American-style approach to European football would reflect the
sport's shifting power-base following an influx of US-based owners into the
English game during the last 20 years.
Manchester United, whose largest shareholder remains the Glazer family, is
listed in New York; Arsenal is owned by a US-based businessman; and
Liverpool's parent company, Fenway Sports Group, is in the process of being
taken public through a Special Purpose Acquisition Company.
Despite being named in leaked documents about the proposed league, Bayern
Munich, the current Champions League holders and German Bundesliga
champions, denied any involvement in the plans in 2018.
According to people close to the latest plans, the European Premier League
would not be a breakaway in the sense of ending clubs' involvement in their
domestic leagues.
Nevertheless, its creation would have profound implications for the value of
domestic broadcasting and sponsorship rights across Europe, at a time when
the finances of the entire football pyramid have been hit hard by the
Covid-19 crisis.
English Premier League clubs have complained that they are collectively
losing more than £100m every month, while many EFL clubs have warned that
they will not be able to survive much longer without fans in attendance,
unless they receive emergency support.
Earlier this month, the EFL rejected a £50m grant proposed by the Premier
League.
Sources said the result of the new format, if it gets off the ground, would
be to give England's wealthiest clubs greater leverage in future
negotiations with the Premier League and with broadcasters and sponsors.
They added that the possibility of outright club defections from domestic
leagues was not on the new tournament's "short-term agenda".
Nevertheless, a decision to join the new European tournament will leave its
participants exposed to the suggestion that they were enriching themselves
at the expense of domestic rivals, exacerbating the already-vast financial
gulf between teams at the top and bottom of the Premier League.
That risks particular damage to clubs' reputations during an economic crisis
which has resulted in the UK's unemployment rate increasing and millions of
people becoming concerned about their livelihoods.
One person close to the project said there would need to be "very
substantial" solidarity payments built into the European Premier League
structure to demonstrate that its creation would benefit the wider game.
Even that, though, is unlikely to be sufficient to appease critics of the
biggest clubs, who have long-sought to find ways of preventing 'smaller'
sides breaking their stranglehold on the domestic leagues - as Leicester
City, did, for example, in 2016, when it won the Premier League.
Central to the new league would be the question of whether its fixtures are
played in the existing slots allocated to Champions League matches, or
whether the prize of drawing vast live audiences in Asia and the US, as well
as Europe, means there is an attempt to play them throughout the day at
weekends.
It emerged [this month] that Liverpool and Manchester United were leading a
quest to reform the Premier League by cutting the number of teams from 20 to
18 and giving the so-called 'big six' and other long-standing shareholders
in the top flight enhanced voting rights that would effectively hand them
outright control.
The League Cup, currently sponsored by Carabao, and the Community Shield,
would also have been expunged from the calendar or played without the
involvement of clubs taking part in European competitions.
Their plot was immediately denounced by the Premier League and the
government, leading to a statement from all 20 clubs that they would reject
Project Big Picture.
Gary Neville, the former Manchester United and England defender, said the
extent of the divisions about how to reform and financially protect the game
meant that an independent football regulator should be established.
The prospective involvement of some of the top flight's elite clubs in a
European super league format would help to explain their desire to curb the
number of domestic fixtures to which they are committed.
Ministers have applied pressure to the Premier League to formulate a
financial rescue package for lower league clubs, but those talks have been
far from straightforward, with some top-flight executives complaining that
they are being held to a different standard to wealthy companies in any
other industry.
One football insider also raised the prospect of legal challenges to the new
league from excluded rival clubs, although one club source said they were
confident that they were able to strike a deal that could not be overturned.
The Champions League's existing format is said to be locked in place until
2024, with an expansion possible after that, although its name, and
existence, would be cast into doubt if the continent's elite clubs decided
to abandon it.
The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the potential shake-up of football.
In Italy, CVC Capital Partners, the former owner of Formula One motor
racing, is in exclusive talks alongside fellow investment firm Advent
International to take a stake in the commercial rights to the country's
Serie A league.
A number of alternative structures have been proposed in England to inject
funds into the financially struggling lower leagues, including a plan tabled
by TPG Capital, a private equity firm, to acquire an equity stake in the
EFL.
Liverpool, Manchester United, JP Morgan and Providence all declined to
comment, while Key Capital Partners could not be reached for comment.