In the six-page letter, the leaders of football are also asked to hold ‘urgent’ talks to find a common way forward for a project that, according to football, will benefit football, even outside the close group that is unmatched. wealth will enjoy if the tournament starts. Under the plan, the 15 founding members of the European Super League would initially be provided with an equal share of 3.5 billion euros, about $ 4.2 billion, equivalent to about $ 400 million each.
The amount is more than four times what the winner of the European football’s marquee tournament, the Champions League, took home in 2020. In the letter, the founders of the Super League say that they do not want to replace the Champions League, but want to create a tournament. which would run at it.
However, the damage to the prestige and value of the Champions League would be immediate and long-lasting and would turn what had been the club football’s elite competition for decades into a secondary event, which is unlikely to retain much of its current commercial appeal. . UEFA ratified the biggest changes to that tournament since 1992 at a meeting of its executive council.
Nasser al-Khelaifi, the chairman of French champions Paris Saint-Germain, was among the officials who voted for the changes. He has so far resisted attempts to lure PSG, a club with some of the world’s best players, to the new league. Teams in Germany, including last season’s Champions League winner Bayern Munich, also did not want to join the new venture.
The significant changes to the Champions League can now be carried over to irrelevance if the breakaway clubs manage to get their way and take the field in a competition which, according to them, hopes to start only in the summer.
In the letter, the group said that their urgency stems from the huge losses that accumulate due to the coronavirus. The appearance of matches being played in hollow but empty stadiums has become the norm, and restrictions on public gatherings mean that hundreds of millions of dollars are lost on gate receptions, while broadcasters have also returned large sums of leagues and competition organizers.
UEFA and other groups opposed to the new competition banded together over the weekend to discuss their legal options and start talking to governments across Europe as well as the European Union. This has led to swift statements of condemnation of figures including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron.