ZCZC
BSP-15
FBL-EUR-UEFA-SUPERLEAGUE-CEFERIN-AGNELLI
There will be no Super League, UEFA chief says
LONDON, Nov 20, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – There will be no breakaway European Super
League, UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin and Andrea Agnelli, the chairman of
the influential European Club Association has told the BBC.
Instead their joint plans for the future of European football from 2024
onwards will see a revised football schedule which will possibly involve less
domestic football and more European competition.
German news magazine Der Spiegel claimed to have documents which showed
Europe’s biggest clubs planning for a Super League from 2021.
“The Super League will not happen. It is in a way a fiction now or a
dream,” Ceferin told the BBC.
Agnelli, whose body represents over 200 leading teams, said the clubs and
UEFA are “united” in their views on how the game should progress over the
coming years.
“I can confirm we have never seen, never discussed, never been involved in
the creation of this document (about a Super League),” said Agnelli, who is
also chairman of Juventus one of the clubs reportedly due to be a founding
member of the Super League.
“We are fully engaged with Uefa in shaping the game going forward.”
Ceferin — who is due to be re-elected to his post unopposed next February
— and Agnelli says discussions are taking place about how to change the
format of European club football’s premier competition, the Champions League.
This is being done in order to obtain a more financially attractive
broadcasting deal.
“We have some ideas,” said Ceferin. “All I can say is that any Super League
is out of the question.
“Participation stays. And everybody will have an opportunity to compete in
every European competition,” added the 51-year-old Slovenian lawyer.
Ceferin said a planned third European competition with 32 teams will be
appreciated by European clubs.
It is not the first time there have been three European club competitions
as prior to it being reduced to the Champions League and Europa League —
formerly the UEFA Cup — there was the Cup Winners Cup.
The new competition is due to be voted in at a UEFA meeting in Dublin in
early December.
“It will be our duty to safeguard the great heritages of European football
but on the other side I think we are very well aware that we have to
safeguard markets, we have to think about upcoming markets,” said Ceferin.
“Fans can rest assured that if we put our hands to making a new product
it’s because we want to make sure that fans across Europe engage.”
BSS/AFP/ARS/1634 hrs