ZURICH: Domestic matches could be scheduled to clash with Champions League games after the European leagues’ association threatened to pull out of a deal with UEFA in a cash row writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

The European Professional Football Leagues group added its voice to complaints from small and middle-ranking FAs about the 2018-21 Champions League coup by the elite clubs which hands them more money and influence.

Europe’s top four federations will not only gain four guaranteed slots apiece in the Champions League group stage but the European Club Association will own a half-share in the new company to control it.

Aleksander Ceferin, the new Slovene president of the European federation, appears to have reined back on earlier promises about trying to unpick the deal.

The 25-member EPFL voted overwhelingly today in in Zurich to terminate a Memorandum of Understanding with UEFA by which the European leagues agree not to stage senior domestic fixtures on Champions League dates.

Chairman Lars-Christer Olsson, a former UEFA chief executive, said at a media briefing that the EPFL had been left with no alternative way to express its concern but to submit a notice of withdrawal from the agreement by next March.

Olsson is also chairman of the Swedish professional league.

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