ROME - Huge controversy has been caused in the footballing world after plans were announced by 12 of the biggest European football teams. including Italian clubs Inter Milan and Juve, for the creation of a breakaway European league, the Super League. 

  On Sunday the founding clubs, AC Milan, Arsenal, Atlético de Madrid, Chelsea, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Juventus, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Real Madrid announced their intention to form a new, midweek, European league, with three more teams yet to join, to start in August.

  In total there will be 20 teams in the competition, with five teams qualifying annually to add to the 15 founding clubs. The first phase of the competition will have a league format in two groups of ten teams, with the top three from each group qualifying for the quarter finals, with the final two quarter final spots filled by two of the teams who finished fourth or fifth, decided by a two-leg playoff. It will have an NBA style format, with the 15 founding clubs not being able to be relegated.  

  The biggest French and German teams, including the two finalists from last year’s Champions League, PSG and Bayern Munich, have declined an invitation to join. German clubs are to a much higher extent run by the fans, with no one billionaire controlling the future of the club.

  In the 24 hours since news hit the footballing community, there has been almost universal criticism for the idea. Fans were outraged over the decision by the boards of these clubs to create a league based purely on the history of the clubs, not merit or form.

  Tottenham and Arsenal are currently seventh and ninth respectively in the Premier League, leading many fans to ask what justification they have for forming an elite European league, without the likes of Leicester and West Ham, currently occupying third and fourth.

  The organisation Football Supporters Europe described the plans as “illegitimate, irresponsible, and anti-competitive by design”, adding, “it is driven exclusively by greed. The only ones who stand to gain are hedge funds, oligarchs, and a handful of already wealthy clubs, many of which perform poorly in their own domestic leagues despite their in-built advantage.”

  The organisers, led by Florentino Pérez, president of Real Madrid and the first chairman of the Super League, and his vice-chairs Joel Glazer of Manchester United and Andrea Agnelli of Juventus, have said, “we will help football at every level and take it to its rightful place in the world. Football is the only global sport in the world with more than four billion fans and our responsibility as big clubs is to respond to their desires.”

  However, many have hit back at the idea, saying it is purely created by the greed of the clubs’ owners, without caring about the fans. The 12 founding teams will each “receive an amount of €3.5 billion solely to support their infrastructure investment plans and to offset the impact of the Covid pandemic… and [solidarity payments] are expected to be in excess of €10 billion during the course of the initial commitment period of the clubs.”

  UEFA have issued a statement, co-signed by the English FA, the Premier League, the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), La Liga, the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) and Serie A, saying they are united in “efforts to stop this cynical project, a project that is founded on the self-interest of a few clubs at a time when society needs solidarity more than ever.

  “As previously announced by FIFA and the six Confederations, the clubs concerned will be banned from playing in any other competition at domestic, European or world level, and their players could be denied the opportunity to represent their national teams.

  “We thank those clubs in other countries, especially the French and German clubs, who have refused to sign up to this. We call on all lovers of football, supporters and politicians, to join us in fighting against such a project if it were to be announced. This persistent self-interest of a few has been going on for too long. Enough is enough.”

  A separate Premier League statement added: “Fans of any club in England and across Europe can currently dream that their team may climb to the top and play against the best. We believe that the concept of a European super league would destroy this dream.”

  Though there would be an increased number of top-level international club matches, the countries’ top leagues would be left without their best clubs, drawing money and support away from the league, and smaller clubs that need it most, and the Champions League would perhaps lose it magic as a rare chance to see the biggest teams in Europe compete.

  TV pundit Gary Neville said, “I’m disgusted with Manchester United and Liverpool the most. They’re breaking away to a competition they can’t be relegated from? It’s an absolute disgrace. It’s pure greed, they’re impostors. The owners of Man United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Man City have nothing to do with football in this country. They’re an absolute joke. Time has come now to have independent regulators to stop these clubs from having the power base.”

  Democratic Party Secretary Enrico Letta tweeted on the subject, saying it as “wrong and decidedly untimely. In Europe the NBA model cannot work. In football and in sport, the strength is in the spread, not the concentration. And in the beautiful stories of Atalanta, Ajax and Leicester.”

  Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson, along with many other European politicians, have also expressed their disgust at the idea.

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