Fury at super league proposal

The proposal for a breakaway European Super League has drawn a storm of protest from Uefa, the Premier League, La Liga, former players, fans and even prime minister Boris Johnson. Sir Alex Ferguson has condemned the plan in his first public intervention since retiring as Manchester United manager in 2013.

12 clubs have signed up to a plan backed by $6bn in debt financing from JP Morgan which would supersede the Champions League. It is claimed that another three clubs will sign up this week (thought to be Bayern, PSG and Borussia Dortmund). Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund have now issued a statement saying they will not join the Super League.

The breakaway clubs include England's top six; Barcelona and Real Madrid; and AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus. PSG and Bayern Munich have not signed up so far: PSG are said to be concerned that the initial novelty of the Super League would wear off after a couple of seasons. Real Madrid, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal are thought to the biggest drivers of the proposal.

The new league would include 15 teams on a permanent basis with five places awarded on merit, effectively a franchise system. There is no settled plan for how the five places would be awarded. It is anticipated that participants would receive a fixed payment of €264m a year.

The tournament, which would start in August, would feature two groups of ten, playing home and away fixtures, with the top three automatically qualifying for the quarter-finals. Those who finish fourth and fifth then compete for the remaining quarter-final places, before a two-legged knockout format is employed for the final eight, ahead of a single fixture final at a neutral venue.

In the past Super League proposals have been forward to extract more money for top clubs from the Champions League. Uefa's conference today is set to approve a new format for the Champions League which would include more money-spinning ties between top clubs.

However, leading clubs wanted more assurances over a new joint venture that would control all media and sponsorship rights for European club competitions.

Major broadcasters are prepared to enact legal action against clubs who break away or devalue national competitions, as the broadcasters believe the product they’ve invested in would be fundamentally different without the involvement of leading sides.

The clubs have hired InHouse Communications as a British public affairs agency to promote the launch. Katie Perrior, the chair of InHouse, was formerly head of communications for Theresa May during her period as prime minister, while she also worked on Boris Johnson’s 2008 mayoral campaign.

During the 2018-19 season, the live match audience for Champions League football dropped from an average of two billion during the previous three-year cycle to 1.3 billion in the last campaign. In a single year under the current operators, therefore, the Champions League experienced a traditional television audience fall of 35 per cent. The Europa League also experienced a 17 per cent drop.

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion. Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs. An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...

Spurs CEO attacks luxury training base

The Tottenham Hotspur chief executive Vinai Venkatesham has issued a withering assessment of the way the club was run under Daniel Levy, likening the state-of-the-art training centre to a five-star hotel rather than a centre of high performance. Venkatesham was appointed to his role in April 2025, having stepped down as chief executive at Arsenal the previous summer. However, he has said that some aspects of the club were “in a significantly worse state” than he expected. “Our training centre is amazing, one of the best, if not the best in the world,” Venkatesham told BBC Sport. “But when you look around, it looks more like a five-star hotel than it does a performance environment. That will change over the summer. I think there are many areas where the club hasn’t got the right level of expertise.” He explained that the football side of operations was the club’s main downfall when he arrived last year. [One Spurs fan wryly observed that it was like a water company sayi...

Fulham requires big funding from owner

After lengthy delays, Fulham’s shiny, new Riverside Stand has finally opened, creating “a unique Thameside destination with first class facilities for supporters and partners on match days, as well as for the wider community year-round”. This ambitious project has increased Craven Cottage’s capacity by around 4,000 to 29,600, while it has also taken advantage of the club’s fantastic location and wealthy catchment area by including two Michelin star restaurants, a rooftop swimming pool, corporate hospitality and event space, all benefiting from views of the Thames. Chief executive Alistair Mackintosh observed, “Fulham is the sort of club that can have a business class or first class and have fans that turn left on a plane.” Indeed, there is also an exclusive members club – with a football season ticket as an optional extra. It’s fair to say that “the times they are a-changing”, as this is a long way from the traditional pie and a pint. However, in a world where clubs face the tw...

The Political Economy of Football V2

Search This Blog