Euro League Storyline

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

The leadership behind the UL was Florentino Pérez (president of Real Madrid). The other founders, Andrea Agnelli (chairman of Juventus), Joel Glazer (co-owner of Manchester United), John W. Henry (owner of Liverpool) and Stan Kroenke (owner of Arsenal), withdrew shortly thereafter in the face of rejection by their clubs. By 2023, Pérez and Joan Laporta (president of Barcelona) remained the strongest advocates of the UL. The European Super League announcement in April 2021 was met with significant opposition from various groups: fans, players, managers and football clubs. The league also faced opposition from UEFA, FIFA and some national governments. Critics of the league raised concerns regarding potential exclusivity and reduced competitiveness within the ESL, as the league would consist of high-ranking teams from selected European countries who would be permanent contestants in a semi-closed league format. The backlash against the announcement of the league's plans resulted in nine of the clubs that were supposed to participate, including all six English clubs, announcing their intention to withdraw. However, eight clubs maintain a degree of involvement in the project as stakeholders. In April 2021, the ESL announced that it was suspending its operations, and a legal dispute followed. National courts have ruled that FIFA and UEFA must not interfere with the development of the ESL. In October 2022, A22 Sports Management, a company formed to "sponsor and assist" in the creation of the European Super League, announced it would be exploring plans to relaunch the competition. On 21 December 2023, the European Court of Justice issued a ruling that a ban on the ESL could be in conflict with certain European Union regulations.

In Their Own Story

The idea for a unique pan-European club competition was first discussed in the 1970s and gained legal traction at the end of the following decade. In 1987, Milan, Real Madrid and Rangers executives planned a league competition with a single round-robin format – dubbed a "Super League" by European mass media since the proposed format of the tournament was the same as that used in league championships, contrasted with the format of the European competitions, based on knockout phases since the mid-1950s – that would be more attractive for international television broadcasters, and would ostensibly allow the participating clubs to earn more income for "economic and management guarantees". The competition was supposed to run parallel to the then three European competitions from the 1991–92 season onwards, but the project was abandoned in 1991 after UEFA announced sporting sanctions sine die for the clubs involved. Three years later, Ajax, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester United secretly planned a "Super League", to rival the Champions League. It would have 36 "prominent" clubs split into three groups and a play-off stage for the title at the end of the season. There would also be a second competition for a further 96 teams, called "ProCup", which would replace the UEFA's Cup Winners' Cup and the UEFA Cup. The planned tournaments, based on the North American sports system, would have been sponsored by Italian corporation Media Partners. The project was abandoned after UEFA and its affiliated national associations and FIFA announced sanctions against all involved clubs. In 2009, Florentino Pérez, president of Real Madrid, began planning for a "super-league competition," stating that the Champions League was too "obsolete and problematic" for the quality of the sport, and was "an obstacle preventing clubs from growing their businesses and developing infrastructure". In 2018, Pérez began discussions with other clubs in Europe, mostly clubs from Spain, England and Italy, about the idea of a "breakaway" competition meant to provide "strong financial backing" for all the clubs involved. The idea of a new competition again surfaced in 2020, as big-name football clubs suffered financially from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, especially with ongoing debts. Real Madrid was amongst those hardest hit financially by the pandemic in Spain, which led to Pérez advancing the concept once again. The announcement of a new competition eventually drew interest from American investment firm JPMorgan Chase, which pledged US$5 billion towards its formation. On 18 April 2021, the eve of a UEFA Executive Committee meeting whose objective was to revamp and expand the UEFA Champions League by the 2024–25 season in order to increase the number of matches and revenues. Pérez announced the "formation of the Super League," also referred to as the "European Super League" or ESL, via a press release by the twelve clubs that had signed up to be involved. These included English clubs (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur), Italian clubs (Inter Milan, Juventus, and Milan), and Spanish clubs (Atlético Madrid, Barcelona, and Real Madrid).

Reader's Guide

The proposed European Super League (ESL) intended to offer participating clubs uncapped 'solidarity payments', which would increase. Following the format for the initial stages of the European basketball's EuroLeague, the proposed competition would feature 20 clubs that would take part in matches against each other. 15 of these clubs would be "permanent members", and were dubbed "founding clubs". The founding clubs would govern the competition's operation, while five places would be given to clubs through a qualifying mechanism focused on the teams who performed best in their country's most recent domestic-league season. Each year, the competition would see the teams split into two groups of ten clubs, playing home-and-away games in a double round-robin format for 18 group games per team, with fixtures set to take place midweek to avoid disrupting the clubs' involvement in their domestic leagues. At the end of these group matches, the top three of each group would qualify for the quarter-finals, while the teams finishing fourth and fifth from each group would compete in two-legged play-offs to decide the last two quarter-finalists. The remainder of the competition would take place in a four-week span at the end of the season, with the quarter-finals and semi-finals featuring two-legged ties, while the final would be contested as a single fixture at a neutral venue. Each season of the competition would feature 197 games: 180 in the group stage and 17 in the knockout stage. On 15 October 2021, it was announced that the European Super League Company, led by Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus, was planning an open league with two divisions of 20 clubs each, intended to compete with the Champions League and Europa League.

Did You Know?

• The European Super League announcement in April 2021 was made on the eve of a UEFA Executive Committee meeting whose objective was to revamp and expand the UEFA Champions League by the 2024–25 season.
• American investment firm JPMorgan Chase pledged US$5 billion towards the formation of the European Super League.
• The proposed competition would feature 197 games per season: 180 in the group stage and 17 in the knockout stage.
• In 1987, Milan, Real Madrid and Rangers executives planned a league competition with a single round-robin format, dubbed a 'Super League' by European mass media.
• On 21 December 2023, the European Court of Justice issued a ruling that a ban on the ESL could be in conflict with certain European Union regulations.