FootBiz newsletter #112: UEFA's crocodile tears, ECA general assembly and Laporta's return?

The great and the good of European football will not be short of topics to discuss when owners and executives from over 700 clubs gather at Rome’s Cavalieri Waldorf hotel for the annual European Clubs’ Association general assembly over the next few days.

In recent years the ECA summit has been transformed from a small business meeting to the biggest gathering of football powerbrokers outside a World Cup draw. Star guests including Zlatan Ibrahimovic and other big-game pundits will front a live show tomorrow which has been designed to have the razzmatazz of a Champions League draw without the inconvenience of the tedious process of picking balls from a fishbowl, before the suits take over for the AGM on Thursday. The billionaire founder of merchandise juggernaut Fanatics, Michael Rubin, will be the guest speaker.

Such is the significance of the General Assembly, that the matter of who will attend has become a big story, particularly reports in Catalan newspaper SPORT last week that Barcelona president Joan Laporta will be present as the personal guest of Chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi.

The pair held talks around Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League game in Barcelona last week, but Laporta’s presence in Rome could be far more significant and signal his club’s move back into the UEFA/ECA-led mainstream following their dalliance with the European Super League. While Barcelona have not formally withdrawn from the rebranded ESL, the Catalan club have conspicuously left Real Madrid and Juventus to do the heavy lifting, and any reintegration into the ECA would be a hammer blow for the project. 

It is unlikely to be a coincidence that, following the Laporta news, other reports emerged in Spain last week that UEFA have been engaged in substantive talks with A22, the company which represents the ESL clubs, over a compromise solution to remodel the Champions League in a way that would supposedly prevent a breakaway (though given only two or three clubs remain ‘committed’ to going it alone, the latter prospect appears remote anyway.)

A report in Spanish newspaper Mundo Deportivo claims the result of those talks is a competition which looks very much like the current Champions League, with two crucial differences.

Whilst remaining a 36-team tournament, the group stage would apparently be split into two pools of 18, with the highest ranked all in group one to ensure more elite club meetings. The top 8 from group one would advance directly to the round of 16, while eight more from group one would join the top eight from group two in an additional play-off round to reach the last 16.

Beyond the lopsided format that would quite obviously and necessarily ensure the elimination of many of Europe’s biggest clubs, the other supposed innovation similarly makes the idea a non-starter, with A22 insisting that the so-called Super Champions League would be broadcast free-to-air globally on their new UNIFY platform.

Given UEFA have recently put the next set of Champions League broadcast rights from 2027 onwards out to tender, with the sales process in the biggest markets expected to be completed by Christmas, it seems fair to conclude that their involvement in these discussions was perfunctory at best.

It’s also worth noting that the only source of information on this trumpeted ‘merger’ is a Barcelona-based newspaper. Given Laporta is seeking to have the most influence possible either with the breakaway lobbyists or returning to the establishment fold, the fact that it’s coming from Mundo Deportivo simply can’t be ignored.

Unlike the story itself, which can likely be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Table of Contents

• Spurs (non-)takeover latest

• UEFA’s ‘regrettable’ decision

• Gone till November

• Kogan confirmed atop regulator 

• Arsenal in Rwanda extension talks 

• 49ers mea culpa on Martin

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