KEIR RADNEDGE REPORTS: The spectre of a European Super League has raised its head yet again but without offering any improvement on the current three-competitions set up organised by UEFA.

Indeed, fewer clubs would be involved according to a statement from A22 Sports Management, the company behind the project and with close links to original remaining rebel clubs Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus.

However a broad hint from advisers has suggested that the organisers envisage a structure which does not depend on participation of all the main leagues, meaning the English Premier League which is in a comparative financial stratosphere compared with even the other members of the Big Five.

A statement from Bernd Reichart, the A22 ceo, said it had undertaken talks with 50 European clubs and stakeholders with a view to a divisional competition open to between 60 and 80 clubs.

It added: “The vast majority of [the clubs] share the assessment that the very foundation of European football is under threat, and it is time for change. Feedback suggests a European football league that is open, based solely on sporting merit, multidivisional with 60 to 80 clubs and a minimum of 14 guaranteed European matches per club.”

This is a major reversal of the original proposal, launched and crashed in April 2021, which proposed fixed membership for the giants.

A legal challenge to UEFA’s right to monopolise European club competition is likely to be rejected by the grand chamber of the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice.

Reichart added: “Our objective is to present a sustainable sporting project for European club competitions available to, at a minimum, all 27 EU Member States as soon as possible after receipt of the judgment.”

European Leagues, an association of Europe’s professional leagues, dismissed the proposal on which it had not been consulted and so did the European Club Association which represents more than 200 leading clubs.

ECA said the “rehashed idea” had already been “proposed, discussed and comprehensively rejected by all stakeholders in 2019.”

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