Global InformationProposals for a European Super League in association football information
Proposals for a European Super League in association football consist of recurring attempts by individual teams or consortiums of association football clubs to advocate for the creation of an additional tier of European football outside of the traditional footballing pyramids of each national football association.
Starting in 1968 with a theoretical proposal by then UEFA general secretary Hans Bangerter to replace the European Champions Cup and the Cup Winners' Cup for a unique pan-continental championship,[1] different outlines have been proposed in legal terms in several occasions since the late 1980s, with different variations of structure, eligibility and competition. Any proposals have traditionally been objected to by UEFA –despite its executives' involvement in favour of that– and FIFA as well as the national associations for being regarded potentially elitist.
Discussions about the potential for a sole European league gained force in the 1970s but drew legal traction only in the late of the following decade.[2][3] The formation of the G-14 in 1998 and the rise of the European Club Forum (ECF), an UEFA task force composed by 102 clubs in 2002, including all G-14 members, both merged for constituting the European Club Association six years later;[4] brought the collective bargaining power of Europe's biggest teams to obtain more income from the confederation, and combined with initial suggestions of a breakaway league concessions were earned.[4] There were subsequently recurring discussions, led for the most part by then-Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez since 2009.
In April 2021, twelve clubs formally announced that they would be forming the European Super League to start in August of the same year. In response, FIFA and all six continental confederations, including UEFA, rejected the formation of a breakaway league, and the concerned clubs received widespread condemnation from each national association, fans, other clubs, players, and associated organisations. Following the backlash, the six English clubs announced their withdrawal from the competition and, subsequently, also Juventus, resulting in the project becoming dormant, and starting a legal dispute between the Super League and UEFA to be taken up by the Court of Justice of the European Union.
- ^ Published in the UEFA Official Bulletin (September 1968 edition), cf. Vieli (2014, p. 90)
- ^ Mason, Nicholas (1975). Football!: The Story of All the World's Football Games. Drake Publishers. p. 24. ISBN 0-8473-1024-8.
- ^ King, Anthony (2003). Ashgate Publishing (ed.). The European Ritual: Football in the new Europe. Farnham, Surrey. p. 14. ISBN 0-754-63652-6.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ a b Vieli (2014, pp. 123, 125)