Lyon: European football got a bolt from the blue on Sunday as twelve of the continent’s top football clubs launched a Super League in order to breakaway from the UEFA’s traditional football system.
The announcement came as a shock before UEFA’s plans of a reformation of the Champions League structure beginning in 2024 which they would probably announce Monday.
As per reports, each of the founding clubs would receive 350 million for joining this new set-up with the tournament taking place in midweek.The clubs who are included in this group would withdraw from the European Club Association games.
“We will help football at every level and take it to its rightful place in the world”
said Real Madrid president Florentino Perez who heads this new initiative.
” Football is the only global sport in the world with more than four billion fans and our responsibility as big clubs is to respond to their desires.” he further added.
The 12 teams who are currently founding members are Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City,Manchester United,Tottenham Hotspur, Atletico Madrid,Barcelona ,Real Madrid, AC Milan,Inter Milan and Juventus. The teams joining the Super League do not intend to leave their domestic structure although they could get banned from competing in those if UEFA and FIFA force the leagues to do so as a response to the movement.
Apart from these dozen , the founders stated about including three more permanent teams alongside additionally allow five teams per season from the rest of Europe.
Assumptions are there that the giant clubs in the continent have a feeling of not having enough power to speak up within the Governing body and thus have gone ahead with the talks about breaking away from the current set-up.
However, FIFA and UEFA are determined go against it thinking this could potentially destroy the purity of the sport with several fans and former players of the clubs already protesting against it.
