LAST UPDATE | 21 Dec 2023
THE PROMOTERS OF the breakaway European Super League have announced plans for a new 64-team tournament following the European Court of Justice ruling that Uefa broke EU law in blocking the rival competition.
A22 Sports Management, which was set up to promote the Super League after its initial failed launch in April 2021, offered no details yet of when the planned competition might start or how much backing it enjoys.
Our proposed new men's ESL competition is a league structure based on a true pan-European pyramid: It will consist of 64 participating clubs in three tiers. Watch the video to learn more about the key elements. #BetterForFootball pic.twitter.com/yHfhVaPTFt
— A22 Sports (@A22Sports) December 21, 2023
But it said the tournament would feature promotion and relegation and would be broadcast live for free “on a new streaming platform”.
The planned Super League project has been mothballed since it collapsed in early 2021 amid fan fury at the threat it posed to national league competitions, but after the ruling the promoters claimed victory and promised rapid announcements.
“We have won the right to compete. The Uefa monopoly is over. Football is free,” the A22 CEO Bernd Reichart declared in a social media post from the A22 account. “Clubs are now free from the threat of sanction and free to determine their own futures.”
But Uefa chose to emphasise a different part of the ECJ judgement, stressing that the ruling “does not signify an endorsement or validation of” the breakaway competition.
Uefa went on: “It rather underscores a pre-existing shortfall within Uefa’s pre-authorisation framework, a technical aspect that has already been acknowledged and addressed in June 2022.
“Uefa is confident in the robustness of its new rules, and specifically that they comply with all relevant European laws and regulations.”
Fans will ‘fight it’
Many football fans fear that a closed, US-style league with no promotion or relegation of clubs will destroy the hopes of glory for smaller teams and the prestige of beloved national competitions.
Football Supporters Europe (FSE), an umbrella lobby group also spoke out, saying “since 2021, FSE and fans across Europe have stood firm against a breakaway super league time and time again, and repeatedly called for the greater protection of our game.
“Whatever comes next, the super league remains an ill-conceived project that endangers the future of European football. FSE, our members, and fans across Europe will continue to fight it.”
The case goes back to April 2021, when 12 of Europe’s biggest clubs announced they had signed up to the planned Super League, a direct competitor to UEFA’s flagship competition the Champions League, which features the most successful clubs from Europe’s various national leagues.
The upstart league quickly fell apart in the face of a strong backlash from supporters and both UEFA and the world body FIFA threatened to take disciplinary action against the clubs involved.
English fans in particular remained loyal to their traditional domestic league model and nine of the 12 rebel clubs — including six from the English Premier League — threw in the towel within 48 hours.
Two years on, only Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona have stood by the dormant project, with Italian giant Juventus withdrawing in July.
Real Madrid’s chairman Florentino Perez hailed today’s court decision, declaring that: “European club football will no longer be a monopoly.”
But the club’s current parent league, La Liga, denounced the Super League idea as “a selfish and elitist model”
