[article]The Big Six Premier League clubs are privately supporting radical plans to expand the Champions League group stage to a 32-team league in a threat to the unity of English football, Sportsmail has learned.
To create space in the calendar for additional Champions League games from the 2024-25 season Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham are prepared to push for dramatic changes to the structure of the domestic game, including the abolition of FA Cup replays and removing the second leg of the League Cup semi-final.
They would even consider cutting the number of teams in the top flight.
The attraction for the bigger clubs is more match-day revenue and a bigger Champions League TV deal which should not affect the value of the Premier League contract, as European games would continue to be played midweek, in contrast to an earlier proposal which involved moving the Champions League to weekends.
With combined domestic and overseas rights deals worth over £9billion the Premier League’s TV contract is far more valuable to English clubs than that covering the Champions League, and they would be loath to jeopardise that.
The Premier League’s smaller clubs are concerned by the ECA’s proposals, however, as in order to accommodate the additional games some domestic fixtures will have to be sacrificed.
The Big Six have already begun to alienate other clubs by holding private meetings away from the larger group and often travelling together to Premier League summits.
And the growing sense of schism will provide a huge challenge to new Premier League chief executive Richard Masters, who was appointed earlier this week.
Masters’ predecessor, Richard Scudamore, occasionally struggled to keep the clubs together during the latter days of his two-decade reign and bowed to pressure to give the Big Six a greater share of the overseas TV revenue last year. Maintaining unity will not be any easier for his successor.
While the Premier League, EFL and FA are working to safeguard the existing structure of English football there is a growing acceptance that an expansion of the Champions League is inevitable by 2024 due to the demands of European heavyweights such as Real Madrid and Juventus.
That date is significant as it is when the International Match Calendar agreed with FIFA expires and is also the start of a new Champions League broadcast deal, presenting an opportunity for UEFA and the leading European clubs to implement major changes.
The Big Six are increasingly supportive of such proposals and will demand changes to the domestic game in order to facilitate them, with the FA and League Cups most vulnerable.
Premier League clubs remain committed to playing in both the FA and EFL-run Carabao Cup as part of a Memorandum of Understanding signed when the league was formed in 1992, but there is nothing to stop them changing the competitions’ structure.
The FA scrapped replays from the fifth round last season and may be willing to do away with them entirely after 2024 — freeing up two midweeks for additional Champions League matches — but they would demand that smaller clubs are compensated by altering the distribution of TV and appearance money.
The EFL resisted calls to change the two-leg semi-final format for the Carabao Cup during talks with the FA and Premier League over introducing a winter break two years ago, but could do so in the future.
The first two rounds of the League Cup had two legs until 2001 and the EFL have not ruled out making further alterations to the format, although they insist that is not on the table at present. A change in 2024 would also fit in with the EFL’s timetable as their five-year deal with Sky Sports expires that year.
The Big Six have also held talks about seeking to reduce the Premier League to 18 teams, which would create another four fixture slots in the calendar, but such a change would require the support of 14 top-flight clubs, making it harder to introduce.[/article]
