Super League Causing Uproar As UEFA/FIFA Threaten Bans

Earlier in April, an announcement was made by a group of twelve teams for plans to establish a "Super League," or, "European Super League," which would essentially rival or replace the UEFA Champions League. The initial twelve teams are to be joined by at least another three and would all be permanent participants in the planned competition. 

The idea to form this new competition was based on a need for teams and their owners to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The league is to be financed by JP Morgan with a jaw-dropping grant for 3.5 billion euros.

The rogue clubs include six from the Premier League - Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tottenham; three from La Liga - Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, and Real Madrid; three from Serie A - Inter Milan, Juventus, and AC Milan; with an additional five teams that would come from the Bundesliga, Ligue 1, and others. The fifteen founding clubs would be staples in the Super League and would always be in the community, whereas the five remaining teams will need to qualify, which would most likely be based on their performance in the previous season. 

The format of the league is planned to split the twenty total teams in half with clubs playing a home-and-away, round-robin format. There would be a total of 18 matches per team in the competition. 

UEFA and UK Government Promise to Take Action

UEFA has made a number of statements about taking action against the teams, threatening to remove some of them from the Champions League competition already this season, and not allowing the players to represent their national teams. UEFA chief Aleksander Ceferin commented that the Super League goes against the core of the European soccer pyramid wherein all clubs have the opportunity of playing in the Champions League.

"We stand united against the disgraceful and self-serving proposal for a select few clubs in Europe motivated by greed. We are all united against this nonsense of a project," he said.

"As previously announced by FIFA and the six federations, the players... in teams that might play in the closed league will be banned from playing in the World Cup and Euros. "We're still assessing with our legal team but we will take all the sanctions that we can."

The UK Government is also beginning to flex its muscles and has said that it will do everything in its power to stop it, including penalizing the six founding English clubs, said UK Sports Minister Oliver Dowden. 

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Minister Dowden said the UK government would seek to block the project if football authorities were unsuccessful.

"If they can't act, we will," he told parliament. "We will put everything on the table to prevent this from happening."

Doe this Mean Better Soccer?

So what does this mean for the fans? Well, they would be able to watch the best teams in the world and the best players in the world going head-to-head regularly. Sounds like a dream come true, no? It may even raise the level among the best in the world making the action even better. It would be another way for punters to get in on a new competition meaning more chance for new wagering markets and odds.