Football in European competitions will never be the same again after 12 major clubs including Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, AC Milan, Inter Milan & Juventus announced a new league on Sunday.
Called the European Super League, the clubs plan to boycott playing in the existing UEFA Champions League and start their own mid-week competition. Apart from playing in their respective domestic leagues, the 12 clubs will play in the new competition starting 2024.
In a joint statement, the consortium named Real Madrid President Florentino Perez Perez as the founding chairman of the proposed league as it aims to provide a larger chunk of money to clubs for development.
Almost 3.5 billion euros is promised to all the 12 clubs who have agreed so far with a few more from Germany & France expected to join. The business model of the new league is fairly simple, the clubs who formed the league want a larger share of broadcast earnings.
All clubs will get more matches as compared to the original model of the Champions League with a much larger share of the earnings as currently UEFA, the European football authority controls the cash flow.
The disruption of the current model could undermine the domestic leagues as the stakeholders are worried that it will change the way football is run in Europe but the new consortium wants more financial control and independence. Fans too are not very happy as they feel that the essence & purity of football might get lost when money controls the beautiful game.