UEFA denies negotiations with European Super League promoter

UEFA on Thursday denied ongoing talks with Super League promoter A22 Sports Management but it admitted it had met the body, after the promoter told AFP it was “negotiating” with UEFA to create a new Champions League format.

“What A22 and the Super League clubs have done is to propose an agreement to UEFA that essentially consists of providing a free broadcasting platform and making very slight changes to the current competition format,” said an A22 spokesperson.

In this version, a far cry from the initial semi-closed competition project that nearly tore apart European football in 2021, the 36 teams currently qualified for the Champions League would be divided into two groups of 18 clubs, with the highest-ranked teams then competing in the round of 32.

UEFA acknowledged several “public meetings” between its general secretary Theodore Theodoridis and A22 co-founder Anas Laghrari but said they “produced no official results”. 

“There are no plans to change the UEFA Champions League format,” UEFA said, having introduced a new format which came into effect from the 2024-25 season.

The developments come after Barcelona president Joan Laporta, who has long been at the forefront of the Super League project, expressed his desire for “an agreement with UEFA” to “pacify” European football.

Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser al-Khelaifi, the chair of the rebranded European Football Clubs (EFC, formerly European Club Association) welcomed Laporta’s shift at the EFC meeting in Rome.

For Al-Khelaifi, Barca’s rapprochement with the EFC and UEFA does not mean the end of the Super League project, because “it was already dead before”.

“We don’t need other competitions, we already have the best competitions,” the Qatari added.