Attempts to resuscitate the European Super League are focused on persuading clubs outside the continental elite to join, as a crucial month for momentum in the project awaits.
On a day when the Premier League’s opposition to the proposals was reaffirmed by its chief executive, Richard Masters, at a meeting of the 20 clubs, fresh detail of the organisers’ plans emerged.
Sources close to the project admit part of the reason for publishing a new 10-point Super League manifesto lies in influencing debate before a European court of justice ruling expected at the end of March. But meanwhile attempts to recruit clubs to the cause continue.
The Netherlands is one country that A22, the company charged with fulfilling Super League plans, hopes will be receptive to the idea. The country has great European pedigree and is placed sixth in Uefa’s league ranking but only the Eredivisie winners qualify automatically for the Champions League group stage and a maximum of one other club can join them. The co-founder of A22 John Hahn travelled to Amsterdam for talks after the announcement of the manifesto on Thursday.
Although Super League plans were met with scorn from much of the football establishment, with the European Club Association calling them a “dispatch from an alternate reality”, A22 believes it has a receptive audience in some European countries where dissatisfaction with the status quo is higher. That could apply to clubs on the fringes of qualifying for the Champions League in bigger leagues and those from smaller leagues who regularly fail to make it through the qualifying rounds.
Next month, the ECJ is due to rule on a claim brought by the Super League Company that Uefa does not have the right to block its members from joining unauthorised competitions. If it finds against the Super League the competition will almost certainly have run out of road. If the ruling is more favourable, or even ambivalent, it will be seen as a massive boost to its hopes; it would then be expected that some of the clubs who have been in consultation with A22 would speak up more favourably about the project.
In London the 20 Premier League clubs were briefly shown details of the A22 presentation by Masters. Only a part of “Any other business” on the meeting’s agenda, it continued the message that the English top flight is not troubling itself overly with any renewed threat of a breakaway. Sources insisted all 20 clubs remained on board with the league’s opposition to the proposed competition.
The charges hanging over Manchester City were not mentioned during the two-day gathering of officials. Mood at the meetings was described by outsiders as convivial and representatives of all 20 clubs dined together in London on Thursday.
Other topics discussed at the meeting included the possibility for increasing transparency on refereeing decisions. The chief refereeing officer, Howard Webb, presented to the group and Professional Game Match Officials Limited is watching closely trials that will broadcast communications from the referee on VAR decisions. Webb has begun to brief rights-holding broadcasters on the ins and outs of key decisions, continuing a scheme of post-matchday interviews he implemented in a similar role at Major League Soccer.
The league confirmed it would be donating £1m to the Disasters Emergency Committee to help victims of the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, with players sporting black armbands at matches this weekend. Players in the EFL will do likewise.
On Thursday an eight-hour session was dedicated to strategy and future growth opportunities. At the top of that agenda was the question of how the league’s media rights could be delivered in future, with a number of the league’s American owners offering insights.
