Ian Ayre was among five Premier League bigwigs who held a meeting with Miami Dolphins billionaire owner Stephen Ross to discuss a potential breakaway European Super League, reports the Daily Mail.
Man. United’s Ed Woodward, Arsenal’s Ivan Gazidis, City’s Ferran Soriano and Chelsea’s Bruce Buck were all in attendance at the Dorchester Hotel in London.
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According to the report, the meeting was aimed at preliminarily discussing the idea of 20 huge European clubs entering a European Super League which would take place instead of the Champions League.
This would guarantee them enormous profits and get rid of the risk of not qualifying for the Champions League every year.
During his tenure as UEFA Secretary General, before being elected as FIFA President, Gianni Infantino said on that matter, “We are having discussions about how we can improve club competitions.
“I don’t see any particular issue with this particular topic. The Super League already exists. It’s called the Champions League.”
When the Mail contacted UEFA, they said: “UEFA constantly reviews the format of its competitions in close consultation with stakeholders, including the European Club Association.
“There are no concrete proposals on the table at this stage as we have just begun a new three-year cycle (2015-18) for club competitions.
“There is therefore no further comment to be made at this stage.”
For us, we hope this story is nonsense. Football is brilliant because of its unpredictability. No club should have automatic right of passage into a competition, it should be earned instead. The Champions League is already growing stale because the same teams play each other every year, and this new proposal would be grossly unfair and only further alienate fans of smaller sides.