By Paul Nicholson
January 22 – New detail of the proposed European super league, to be funded via a £3.5 billion start-up fund led by JP Morgan, has leaked including that 12 clubs would automatically qualify for FIFA’s new 24-team Club World Cup.
The super league proposal, reported in The Times, would see the 15 founding member clubs sharing an “infrastructure grant” of £3.5 billion ranging from £310 million to £89 million per club.
A projected annual prize fund of £2.66 billion would guarantee founder clubs between £130 and £213 million.
As well as the 15 founder clubs, the super league would have a further five clubs who would gain entry via a qualification process.
Split into two groups of 10, the league would be played mid-week, pitching it directly against UEFA’s Champions League. The top four from each group would go through to two-legged quarter finals and semi-finals with a single match final to complete. Clubs would play between 18 and 23 games a season.
The structure would allow clubs to continue in their domestic leagues at weekends but rule them out of UEFA competition. UEFA’s current prize money system guarantees €82.45 million for the winners of the Champions League.
FIFA and its six confederations yesterday issued a statement warning that any clubs joining the super league would not be allowed to play in, or have their players compete in, any FIFA or confederation competition, including the World Cup.
But if the super league proposal in front of clubs includes 12 slots in the FIFA Club World Cup, then there is the suggestion that FIFA is already speaking to the super league backers and was prepared to offer up the slots.
Certainly the financial attraction for the clubs would be great giving them guaranteed entry and more revenue from their own super league than they currently have from UEFA, as well as half the slots at FIFA’s club moneyspinner. For FIFA it would guarantee entry of those clubs into its competition and potential for a serious assault on UEFA TV and commercial revenues.
If FIFA had offered the 12 CWC slots then yesterday’s statement looks like an enforced change of position brought on them by confederation presidents who need to protect their own competitions and commercial deals that fund football in their regions. The quid pro quo is that FIFA will likely get more support, from UEFA in particular, for its own global club competition.
For the 15 founder clubs, the carrot of the even bigger money of their own super league will be hard to give up. Income breakdown in the super league proposal would see money from TV and sponsorship shared 32.5% equally between the 15 founder clubs, a further 32.5% between all 20 clubs.
20% would distributed as ‘merit’ money based on league position while 15% would be a “commercial share based on clubs awareness”, reports The Times.
Six English clubs would be among the founder members (Manchester City and United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs); three Spanish clubs (Barcelona and the two Madrid clubs), Bayern and Dortmund from Germany; Juventus, AC Milan and Inter from Italy, plus PSG from France.
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