Late in the night, a big announcement came out of Real Madrid, which joined forces with 11 top soccer clubs, including Barcelona, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, AC Milan, Inter Milan, and Juventus, to announce that they will be working together to form a European Super League. The new league is chaired by Real Madrid president Ferrentino and is expected to launch in the 2022/23 season.
The birth of this new league was not authorized by UEFA, but was initiated by 12 clubs on their own initiative, with the intention of "rebellion". The motivation behind it is complex, but the unequal distribution of funds is undoubtedly the main reason.
As it turns out, UEFA is planning to increase the number of Champions League places to 36 and the number of matches to 10. The 12 clubs chose to announce the formation of the new league before the UEFA vote, clearly protesting the expansion. They are dissatisfied that UEFA is taking too much out of the equation, and now with the epidemic, fans are unable to get in, ticket revenues have plummeted, and many teams are facing a business crisis, even the giants. After UEFA forced the expansion policy, this "conspiracy" finally surfaced.
Described as a closed UEFA Champions League, the newly formed UEFA Superleague will begin in August each year and will feature 20 teams, 15 of which will be founding members, with the other five places being created through a qualifying tournament.The 20 teams will be divided into two groups of 10 teams playing home and away matches, with the top three teams from each group progressing to the last eight and the remaining two places being decided by the 4th and 5th place finishers via a play-off, with the final to be played at the end of May.
While this may look like a scaled-down version of the Champions League, there are actually more matches, and crucially, revenue distribution will be directly in the hands of the participating teams, eliminating the need for UEFA to take a cut.
The total revenue of the Champions League and the UEFA Super Cup for the 19/20 season is €3.25 billion, but after deducting expenses, the actual prize money distributed to the participating teams is only €2.04 billion. The UEFA Super League's prize money distribution scheme is even more attractive, with a maximum of €245 million per game, and the founding teams are expected to earn €150 million even if they lose each game, which is undoubtedly attractive to most of the giants.
However, UEFA did not sit idly by. In the face of the establishment of the new league, they quickly made a counterattack, not only decided to expand the Champions League to 36 teams, but also issued a statement to sue these giants for 60 billion euros, and banned them from participating in all the tournaments under the umbrella of UEFA. In addition, UEFA has teamed up with FIFA and national soccer associations to ban these giants from participating in national team competitions, including the UEFA Nations Cup and World Cup. If these teams return to their domestic leagues, they will also have to start in the fifth division and take four years to return to the top flight.
