• Europe's biggest clubs could start breakaway league in 2014
• Owners motivated by possibility of generating more money
Matt Scott, Wednesday 27 July 2011 22.57 BST
guardian.co.uk
Players like Chelsea's Fernando Torres can help generate huge amounts of money for clubs through sponsors and broadcasters. Photograph: Raf Sanchez/Getty Images
Who are the teams involved?
It is the biggest brands in football that are driving this agenda. Between them Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Internazionale, Milan, Manchester United, Liverpool and Barcelona have won 36 European Cup and Champions League titles, almost two-thirds of those played. Where these clubs play money will undoubtedly follow.
Added to this are Arsenal and Chelsea who, despite never having won Europe's elite trophy, boast international fanbases that would assist in driving the revenues of a competition. There would also be invitations to the other big names from across Europe: Juventus, Roma, Ajax, Porto, Marseille and a few others — Manchester City perhaps?
Why do they want to do it?
The short answer is: money. And lots of it. A new breed of football owner has emerged who does not see the proprietorship of their sporting assets as a benevolent activity. Men such as Silvio Berlusconi have used football club ownership to push a popular political agenda, or Roman Abramovich to raise his profile overseas with a trophy asset. Both have been content to sustain huge losses in support of their clubs. But the US owners who began entering the football market with the 2005 Glazer takeover of Manchester United are used to generating cash from their sports franchises. They consider it insane that almost every entity at the top of the world's most popular sport haemorrhages cash.
How could they make a breakaway actually happen?
Legally they would be entitled to break away from football's existing structures in 2014 when the current accord between the clubs and Uefa, which in the Champions League runs the club game's most lucrative competition, elapses.
Eyeballs follow Lionel Messi, Wayne Rooney and Fernando Torres wherever they go. And with fan interest come the dollars of sponsors and broadcasters – as Fifa has found with the explosion of its revenues over the past decade and a half.
In 1997 Fifa's entire annual revenue was $22.5m; by 2009, at the same stage in a World Cup cycle because it was also one year before a tournament took place, Fifa had generated $1bn from their events. With that amount of money to share between them the clubs could make anything happen.
How would a breakaway work?
To maximise revenues and to provide security of income for those clubs involved, access to the tournament is likely to be restricted. Although a closed league would probably not play well with European fans used to promotion and relegation, a simple play-off system for a single place may be the kind of sop that clubs aim to get away with.
Similarly to the existing Uefa Champions League, it would probably be a midweek tournament. Already Real Madrid and Barcelona operate B teams in lower leagues – top clubs would hope to employ such second strings in their national-league commitments. Domestic competitors may not like the elite breaking away but are unlikely to tell them they cannot play in traditional competitions since their incomes are tied to those of the big guns.
What about international football and the World Cup?
Arguably the biggest gripe among clubs is the international fixture calendar. The early‑August friendly date has angered the game's employers since they must release their players at exactly the time they want to be organising friendly matches of their own: lucrative pre-season tours overseas.
If 20 teams are to participate in a fixed tournament, as well as the introduction of an end-of-season knockout competition along the lines of US sports' play-offs, there will be no room for the top players to commit to biennial international tournaments. This, clearly, would be the most politically sensitive area of the elite clubs' plans but its impact may be softened by the clubs pooling their players in a separate tournament played in international shirts – but without Fifa involvement.
Why is it different this time?
Clubs have indeed been down this route before, when the combative Florentino Pérez of Real Madrid was chairman of the G14 movement. A strategy document developed in 2007 by the G14's then general manager, Thomas Kurth, talked of "a detachment of the top professional level from all remaining levels underneath, if this was agreed upon by the clubs".
The threat petered out after Uefa pledged to distribute a bigger share of Champions League income to the clubs. But they regretted not taking on Fifa at the time and, in the world governing body's moment of weakness, the clubs are sensing their opportunity anew. The arrival of US owners, Uefa's dirigiste financial fair play rules and the lack of profitability for clubs are combining to create a critical mass.
• Owners motivated by possibility of generating more money
Matt Scott, Wednesday 27 July 2011 22.57 BST
guardian.co.uk
Players like Chelsea's Fernando Torres can help generate huge amounts of money for clubs through sponsors and broadcasters. Photograph: Raf Sanchez/Getty Images
Who are the teams involved?
It is the biggest brands in football that are driving this agenda. Between them Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Internazionale, Milan, Manchester United, Liverpool and Barcelona have won 36 European Cup and Champions League titles, almost two-thirds of those played. Where these clubs play money will undoubtedly follow.
Added to this are Arsenal and Chelsea who, despite never having won Europe's elite trophy, boast international fanbases that would assist in driving the revenues of a competition. There would also be invitations to the other big names from across Europe: Juventus, Roma, Ajax, Porto, Marseille and a few others — Manchester City perhaps?
Why do they want to do it?
The short answer is: money. And lots of it. A new breed of football owner has emerged who does not see the proprietorship of their sporting assets as a benevolent activity. Men such as Silvio Berlusconi have used football club ownership to push a popular political agenda, or Roman Abramovich to raise his profile overseas with a trophy asset. Both have been content to sustain huge losses in support of their clubs. But the US owners who began entering the football market with the 2005 Glazer takeover of Manchester United are used to generating cash from their sports franchises. They consider it insane that almost every entity at the top of the world's most popular sport haemorrhages cash.
How could they make a breakaway actually happen?
Legally they would be entitled to break away from football's existing structures in 2014 when the current accord between the clubs and Uefa, which in the Champions League runs the club game's most lucrative competition, elapses.
Eyeballs follow Lionel Messi, Wayne Rooney and Fernando Torres wherever they go. And with fan interest come the dollars of sponsors and broadcasters – as Fifa has found with the explosion of its revenues over the past decade and a half.
In 1997 Fifa's entire annual revenue was $22.5m; by 2009, at the same stage in a World Cup cycle because it was also one year before a tournament took place, Fifa had generated $1bn from their events. With that amount of money to share between them the clubs could make anything happen.
How would a breakaway work?
To maximise revenues and to provide security of income for those clubs involved, access to the tournament is likely to be restricted. Although a closed league would probably not play well with European fans used to promotion and relegation, a simple play-off system for a single place may be the kind of sop that clubs aim to get away with.
Similarly to the existing Uefa Champions League, it would probably be a midweek tournament. Already Real Madrid and Barcelona operate B teams in lower leagues – top clubs would hope to employ such second strings in their national-league commitments. Domestic competitors may not like the elite breaking away but are unlikely to tell them they cannot play in traditional competitions since their incomes are tied to those of the big guns.
What about international football and the World Cup?
Arguably the biggest gripe among clubs is the international fixture calendar. The early‑August friendly date has angered the game's employers since they must release their players at exactly the time they want to be organising friendly matches of their own: lucrative pre-season tours overseas.
If 20 teams are to participate in a fixed tournament, as well as the introduction of an end-of-season knockout competition along the lines of US sports' play-offs, there will be no room for the top players to commit to biennial international tournaments. This, clearly, would be the most politically sensitive area of the elite clubs' plans but its impact may be softened by the clubs pooling their players in a separate tournament played in international shirts – but without Fifa involvement.
Why is it different this time?
Clubs have indeed been down this route before, when the combative Florentino Pérez of Real Madrid was chairman of the G14 movement. A strategy document developed in 2007 by the G14's then general manager, Thomas Kurth, talked of "a detachment of the top professional level from all remaining levels underneath, if this was agreed upon by the clubs".
The threat petered out after Uefa pledged to distribute a bigger share of Champions League income to the clubs. But they regretted not taking on Fifa at the time and, in the world governing body's moment of weakness, the clubs are sensing their opportunity anew. The arrival of US owners, Uefa's dirigiste financial fair play rules and the lack of profitability for clubs are combining to create a critical mass.
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