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European super league plans run into trouble

Plans to revamp the Champions League have encountered increasing criticism, but Uefa may still press on with them: Battle over Champions League

The proposals have been put forward by the European Club Association representing top European clubs. The intention is to make it a more exclusive competition in which top clubs would have a more or less permanent place and intruders like Ajax this year would be kept out.

The top 24 clubs in the Champions League would automatically qualify for next year's competition, creating an effective elite cartel. Four places would be given to teams 'promoted' from the Europa League. Just four sides would qualify based on performances in their domestic competitions.

It's really an adaptation of an American model of professional sport in which the same franchises stay in place, even if they move city. American owners of European clubs have always found the idea of relegation and promotion odd. For example, if you take baseball, where some of them own franchises, there is a clear dividing line between major league and minor league teams.

A good account of the proposals can be found here: Super league

The European Leagues’ normally mild-mannered president Lars-Christer Olsson has given it large to ECA president and Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli. 'I believe that our member leagues and their member clubs are grown up enough to make their own judgements without getting “orders” from the ECA-President,' Olsson charged as the rift became personal.

Similarly, the president of La Liga, Javier Tebas, has said that 'it could destroy domestic competition and the sporting and financial stability of the vast majority of clubs in Europe.'

There are those in England who like it in the hope that the top six clubs could be permanently booted upstairs, creating a more competitive but less lucrative Premier League. I don't like the idea of adopting an American model and in any case I think it is at odds with EU competition law.

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