16 European top clubs planning to establish a new Super League (Football Leaks)

According to Football Leaks, 16 European top clubs including Real Madrid, Barcelona and co. plan to sign a letter of intent later this month to start plans of establishing a new Super League. 

This idea had been floated in the open before, but according to the trans-national investigation resulting from hacked emails obtained by Der Spiegel, there were and above all still are concrete steps taken to make it a reality.

The clubs allegedly involved on the ground floor in this Super League plot starting in January 2016 were Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Chelsea, Arsenal, PSG, Manchester City, Liverpool and Milan.

It is claimed they “went behind the backs of UEFA and other clubs to work on the option of leaving their national leagues and associations.”

There are even emails in the hacked Football Leaks information dump warning “we need to be very careful moving forward and avoid at all costs the perception of a cartel.”

That was eventually used as part of negotiations with UEFA for the bigger clubs to get a larger cut of revenue from the Champions League.

However, the Super League idea has not gone away, with claims an email was sent only days ago with a draft 13-page ‘binding term sheet’ of 11 European clubs.

The plan would be to effectively eliminate the Champions League by 2021.

Along with the 11 founding clubs, who would not be at risk of relegation and guaranteed a place in it for 20 years, another five clubs would be invited for a 16-team league.

The five ‘initial guests’ would be Atletico Madrid, Dortmund, Olympique Marseille, Inter and Roma.

“The document even lists the ownership stakes held by the individual clubs in the joint European Super League company, with Real Madrid holding 18.77 percent, Barcelona 17.61 percent, Manchester United 12.58 percent and Bayern Munich 8.29 percent. There is no mention of UEFA in the entire draft contract.”