23rd December 2024
December 23 – The European Club Association, the influential body representing hundreds of clubs across Europe, have dismissed the latest plans to launch a 96-team breakaway league.
The original European Super League (ESL), backed by 12 of the continent’s biggest clubs, evaporated almost overnight after it was controversially launched in 2021.
Under the proposed revamp announced last week and dubbed the Unify League, sports development company A22 said the new format would be merit-based and more competitive than UEFA’s current club competitions.
But the ECA insist the project will unify absolutely no-one and is merely a publicity-seeking disruptive venture.
A memo from ECA chair and Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi (pictured), obtained by Sky News, and apparently circulated to the ECA board, accuses the architects of the rebranded Unify League of “desperately craving” publicity.
A22 announced last week that the Unify League – designed to usurp the Champions League and primarily backed by Real Madrid – had submitted proposals for a 96-team, four-division competition to FIFA and UEFA.
It plans to show the games on a bespoke free-to-air streaming platform rather than selling the rights to broadcast partners.
But in his memo to the ECA board Al-Khelaifi is claimed to have charged: “This is the third Christmas period where completely unrepresentative management consultants and separatist self-interested clubs have sought to break up European and world football, each time with a slightly adapted and re-branded project, but always underpinned by the same motivations and solely created for their own benefit.”
The ECA chair said Unify League proposal was “nothing new at all” and “just the latest in a long line of PR attempts by A22 to draw attention to their disruptive cause, which is to undermine the constructive and progressive partnership that ECA has with UEFA.”
“In response to a cynical communications campaign against European club football, we must be smart – and make sure all our 731 club members know our position and the facts,” he wrote.
“UEFA and FIFA, for their parts, will review the latest communications from A22 and respond – only if necessary – in the New Year.”
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