A new FIFA-backed tournament dubbed the ‘European Premier League’ could be created, with Liverpool and Manchester United in talks to become founding members.
Teams from England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain are all in talks with FIFA in becoming a founding member of the European Premier League.
This new tournament, which has a provisional start date of 2022, is said to comprise 18 teams. Regular fixtures will be played during a club season in Europe. The top-placed sides in the standings will then take part in a knockout format to conclude the competition.
The prize money on offer for any title winner could arise up to hundreds of millions for every single campaign.
BREAKING: Over a dozen teams from England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France are in negotiations about the formation of an 18-team ‘European Premier League’ backed by FIFA, reports @SkyNews pic.twitter.com/0TuXMED22v
— B/R Football (@brfootball) October 20, 2020
Sky Sports has reported that a formal announcement could be made by the end of October should several key details be resolved.
While talks for funds of $6 billion are in progress with Wall Street bank JP Morgan, FIFA needs to get enough top clubs on board for the project.
Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, and Tottenham have been approached about joining the league. No club has signed a contract of any sort, though. But Liverpool and Manchester United, on the other hand, are keen on the idea.
The two English giants recently engineered a proposal to hand more power to the biggest clubs while dealing with how to bail out teams outside the top-flight during the coronavirus pandemic.
EXCLUSIVE: The Wall Street bank JP Morgan is in talks to provide a debt package worth around $6bn (£4.6bn) to a new FIFA-backed European Premier League, which Liverpool and Manchester United – and clubs from Germany, Italy and Spain – are in talks to join. https://t.co/R4pmvZnIYJ
— Mark Kleinman (@MarkKleinmanSky) October 20, 2020
Real Madrid, meanwhile, are allegedly one of the ‘principal architects’ behind the European Premier League. Fellow Spanish sides Barcelona and Atletico Madrid have also been invited.
Other big names that FIFA has potentially approached over joining the project are Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus, and Bayern Munich.
The biggest question, though, is what will happen to the Champions League?
Sky Sports state the European Premier League ‘would effectively usurp’ the biggest club competition in Europe. It’s unclear if UEFA has endorsed this new project to date.
If it has, the tournament could instead become an ‘enhanced version of the Champions League and an example of unprecedented cooperation between two governing bodies.’
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