Newcastle United beat Leicester City 4-0 on Saturday
Newcastle United beat Leicester City 4-0 on Saturday
A new European Super League is set to be relaunched - over three years since the last failed attempt, it has been claimed. Reports have suggested that the new Super League will be rebranded as the Unify League with some big changes to the original proposal that lasted just a matters of hours.
Back in April 2021, the ESL was set to motion to rival or replace in the Champions League, with Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham among the teams involved. However, the idea sparked huge backlash and owners decided to withdraw from the process.
Now, there has been a revival of the ESL. The newly-formed 'Unify League' will have a new system where clubs qualify for the competition based on annual domestic performance which A22 explain aligns with the UEFA definition of the "European Sports Model" of "open competition".
It's a development that Newcastle United - as well as other Premier League clubs - will be keeping an eye on, but what will it mean for the Magpies? Our Business of Football Writer Dave Powell has explained the impact.
He said: "Newcastle have already tasted Champions League football under the ownership of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) after finishing fourth in 2022/23 Premier League, but the riches they had hoped for didn’t manifest in the way they would have liked through a group stage exit, two seasons before the arrival of the newly-formatted ‘Swiss Model’ competition.
"Newcastle and their owners, similar to owners at the likes of Aston Villa, remain frustrated in their attempts to close the gap on the established elite of the Premier League by financial controls that have made breaking up the stranglehold on European qualification incredibly difficult, but that is more a Premier League problem than a UEFA one.
"While noises from A22 may be centred around some disdain for the new ‘Swiss Model’ from fans, the results thus far, UEFA chiefs feel, have vindicated the decision, with a series of remarkable games thrown up already. That, allied with two additional games to the calendar, and the fact that there has been jeopardy created already, with both Manchester City and Real Madrid not certain of a place in the knockout phase, means that the new model has been deemed a win so far in many quarters, as viewed by European football’s governing body.
"A22’s plans for the ‘Unify League’ centre on the creation of a streaming platform, where games will be shown for free with ads, and for a fee without. How strong the take-up will be for such a competition will be determined by who the competing teams are. If they cannot manage to convince the so-called ‘big six’ in England, or Italy and Germany’s big teams, then the competition cannot succeed in a way that would make it even competitive with the UEFA Europa League.
"UEFA sought to bend in some respects to the big clubs with the Swiss Model, but they didn’t get it all their own way. But for Barcelona and Real Madrid, who remain wedded to the idea, that is because they are huge fishes in a pond that cannot deliver the broadcast revenues that the Premier League can, and that is a problem for them, hence the desire to have more control over broadcasting revenue.
"It is hard to see Newcastle abandoning UEFA competition in favour of such a newly created competition if the calibre of teams are not strong enough, because the value would not be there as the broadcast rights could not support it.
"The idea of a European Super League will be presented at some stage in the future and in a more tolerable way for the fans of the biggest clubs, but this does not appear to be it, and that means that clubs like Newcastle will likely take their chances with the far greater certainty of a financial boost from UEFA, although that may heighten the tension between them and the Premier League over financial controls."