Proposals for a European Super League in association football consist of recurring attempts by individual teams or consortiums of association football clubs to advocate for the creation of an additional tier of European football outside of the traditional footballing pyramids of each national football association.
Starting in 1968 with a theoretical proposal by then UEFA general secretary Hans Bangerter to replace the European Champions Cup and the Cup Winners' Cup for a unique pan-continental championship.Published in the UEFA Official Bulletin (September 1968 edition), cf. Since the late 1980s, various structural proposals — differing in format and eligibility rules — have been put forward at different times. Any proposals have traditionally been objected to by UEFA –despite its executives' involvement in favour of that– and FIFA as well as the national associations for being regarded potentially elitist.
Discussions about the potential for a sole European league gained force in the 1970s but drew legal traction only in the late of the following decade. The formation of the G-14 in 1998 and the rise of the European Club Forum (ECF), an UEFA task force composed by 102 clubs in 2002, including all G-14 members, both merged for constituting the European Club Association six years later; brought the collective bargaining power of Europe's biggest teams to obtain more income from the confederation, and combined with initial suggestions of a breakaway league concessions were earned. From 2009, Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez was a prominent public advocate for the idea; various discussions and proposals continued thereafter.
In April 2021, twelve clubs formally announced that they would be forming the European Super League to start in August of the same year. FIFA and the six continental confederations opposed the breakaway league. Many national associations, fan groups, players and other organisations publicly criticised the announcement. Following the withdrawals, the Super League project was suspended. The organisers subsequently initiated legal proceedings against UEFA, which became a matter for the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Definition In a stricter sense, the term "Super League" may refer to a US-style closed league, without a system of promotion and relegation. In a broader sense, it can also mean any kind of tier system in European football, where entry is offered not on the basis of titles, as it was done until 1997–98, but on the basis of good enough results and revenue. In this regard, the Champions League was defined by UEFA vice president Zbigniew Boniek in 2021 as an "open Super League" in terms of revenue and participating clubs.
In association football, the term "Super League" was introduced in the late 1980s by European mass media because the proposed format of that tournament was the same as that used in league championships, contrasted with the then-format of the seasonal European competitions, based exclusively on knockout phases since the mid-1950s.
Background
Beginnings
The first theoretical idea of a sole pan-European Football Championship for clubs, dubbed "European Football League Championship" was from the UEFA general secretary Hans Bangerter, who proposed a competition with a format based in a group and knockout stages in 1968 that would eventually replace the European Champions Cup and the Cup Winners' Cup. Despite that project was a novelty at the time, in that year UEFA approved expand the clubs' access to its competitions creating a third seasonal tournament: the UEFA Cup, which inaugural season took place three years later.
From 1971 to 1991, there were three seasonal European competitions, solely based on knockout rounds (double-legged single-elimination tournament), whose access was based on three distinctions (title holders not included): The European Champions Cup, which was reserved to national league champions only. The Cup Winners' Cup, which was mostly reserved to national cup winners. The UEFA Cup, which was reserved to a maximum of four best-placed teams from the best competing leagues (based on confederation coefficient score) that didn't qualify to either of the other two competitions, as well as national league cup winners from countries that organized one.
Although the European Champions Cup was regarded as the most prestigious, as its title holders were paired with their South American counterparts in the Intercontinental Cup for the inter-club world title and the UEFA Cup was the tournament that gained the most commercial revenue and the highest TV share, as well as described as the most difficult European competition to win due its unpredictability, its contestants' level and having different winning teams each season;Mostly from the early 1980s to early 1990, cf. the general level of the three competitions was even. Additionally, the European Champions Cup winners faced with the Cup Winners' Cup winners for the then-two-legged UEFA Super Cup.
Unlike the European Champions Cup and the UEFA Cup, the Cup Winners' Cup did not take into account the clubs' results in the national top league, so it eventually allowed the participation of clubs from lower division leagues should they won the national association cups; they could even qualify by just advancing to the final in the national association cups should the opponent had won the league title and entered the European Champions Cup.
Georges UEFA presidency (1983–1990) In 1987, then AC Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi, Real Madrid president Ramón Mendoza and Glasgow Rangers secretary Campbell Ogilvie concluded the European Champions Cup format "obsolete" and proposed to UEFA, led by its president Jacques Georges, to create a new competition with a single round-robin format –dubbed the "Super League"– that would be more attractive for international television broadcasters, would be able to allow the contestant teams to earn more income, and would give them more possibilities to progress through it for "economical and management guarantees". It would run parallel to the then three European competitions since the 1991–92 season. In 1990, Mendoza officially presented the project to the confederation and, according to an article published by Scotland on Sunday, UEFA was to agree with it after reach a deal with Bayern Munich, Madrid and Milan, among other clubs; but the confederation rejected that project in 1991 and, after being punished in economic terms, Berlusconi and Mendoza and announced sporting sanctions sine die for both clubs, reformed the competition introducing a group stage in that season, increasing the overall number of matches, and rebranding it as the UEFA Champions League in 1992 for commercial and media purposes. Despite that reform, the dissolutions of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia as well as the breakup of Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1993 drastically affected the sporting level in all these countries, significantly increasing the number of clubs involved in international competitions – representing up to 22 of its former constituent states – although all of them with a lower sporting level than that shown by Eastern European clubs until the early 1990s, which meant that their play-offs against teams from more powerful leagues generated lesser expectation from fans and media, with audiences for the UEFA competitions, as a consequence, significantly decreasing.
Johansson UEFA presidency (1990–2007) Under the presidency of Lennart Johansson (1990–2007), UEFA transformed the European competitions towards a two-tier system: In 1991–92, a late eight-team group stage replaced quarterfinals and semifinals. In 1992–93, the UEFA Champions League was set up, with a centralized broadcasting regime, branding, and prize allocation. In 1993–94, semifinals after the group stage were added. In 1994–95, the Champions League format was wholly revised, with a 16-team group stage in the Autumn, and knockout rounds in the Spring. In 1997–98, the Champions League format was expanded to 24 clubs, with entry allowed to eight league runners-up (for the first time), which up to then qualified for the UEFA Cup. The Cup Winners' Cup was abolished with the last competition held in 1998–99. In 1999–2000, the Champions League format was expanded to 32 clubs and two successive group stages, with entry now possible to 15 league runners-up, six third-placed, three fourth-placed. Special entry to the UEFA Cup knockout rounds was given to group stage losers as a consolation ticket.
In 1993, Johansson proposed, unsuccessfully, to merge all three seasonal competitions in a unique championship which the better teams in the continent would be involved. Three years later, clubs such as Ajax, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester United secretly planned to replace the Champions League, with a "Super League" with 36 "prominent" clubs split in three groups and a play-off stage for the title at the end of the season, as well as a second competition for 96 other teams, called the "ProCup", to replace the Cup Winners' Cup and the UEFA Cup. Both planned tournaments, based on the North American sports system, would be sponsored by Italian corporation Media Partners, but that project was abandoned after FIFA, UEFA and its affiliated national associations announced sanctions against all involved clubs in it.
In 1995, the continuity of the Cup Winners' Cup began to be officially discussed by the associations towards UEFA, due the competition's level, prestige and general interest (including among the strongest clubs in financial terms which benefited from the Bosman ruling) declining significantly compared to the other two confederation competitions, mainly during the decade, a period in which the format of its qualification system was frequent and was therefore not considered attractive for sponsorship, thus affecting the prestige of the domestic cups. This and the Super League project led to the transformation of the Champions League between 1997 and 1999 from a knockout competition restricted to league champions to a multi-phase system open to non-champions was influenced by the threat of a super league; an advocacy group not recognized by UEFA nor FIFA named the G-14, formed by the then-first 14 clubs in the continent in terms of official titles won and its potential international fanbase, had been set up in 1998, and threatened to form a break-away league if their demands were not met. As a reaction, UEFA created the European Club Football 2000, a task force led by then UEFA general secretary Gerhard Aigner and renamed in 2002 as the European Club Forum (ECF), that included 102 clubs from the continent including 11 elected clubs according their UEFA coefficient score. All those clubs to have won five of more official international titles were ECF's permanent members and gained representation in the confederation's Competitions Organising Committee.As of 2002, all G-14 clubs were also members of the UEFA's European Club Forum, which nine of them (the founding members Real Madrid, Milan, Juventus, Liverpool, Ajax, Bayern Munich, Internazionale, Barcelona and Manchester United) were the ECF's permanent members as long as Anderlecht, the only club not affiliated to G-14; cf. That same year, Media Partners seriously investigated the idea of a closed European Super League. The plan died after UEFA moved to expand the Champions League and decided the Cup Winners' Cup would be absorbed by the UEFA Cup in order to better accommodate clubs that were considering defecting in order to join the proposed Super League in an attempt to redesign of confederation competitions, in 1999.