Celtic and Rangers could benefit from the latest European Super League proposal according to A22 chief executive Bernd Reichart.
A22 is a sports management company backed by giants Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus, who were part of the 12 teams who attempted to set up the Super League around 18 months ago. The original plans laid out were hit with mass backlash with A22 forced to go back to the drawing board. And Reichart believes both Glasgow giants have the condition to be among the continents elite club's and acknowledges that a new agenda should include helping out "big club's in small leagues".
He told PA: “Analysing the situation of the Scottish top clubs, the situation they’re in is quite comparable to other European leagues where domestic revenues are not sufficient to grant competitiveness on the bigger European stage, although they have every condition to be one of the big European clubs – football tradition, modern stadia, passionate fan base, historic track record and trophies. What can change for big clubs in small leagues was one of the essential assessments we did over the course of the last six months.”
The new proposal would feature up to 80 teams, with each team guaranteed 14 matches per season. When questioned about how A22's propositions could benefit Scotland's leading clubs, Reichart responded by saying: "I see a big opportunity in a multi-divisional system which is granting access to 60 or 80 clubs to have a strong second column (of revenue) you can build your ambition on. Currently the recurrent, solid competition you’re building your project on is your domestic league.
“If those big clubs in smaller countries would have a chance of a stronger, more sustainable, more predictable European footprint, with a guaranteed amount of matches ahead of the season they qualified for, that could actually give them, step by step, an opportunity to have a more meaningful European path and build that project and their European ambition on something which is more predictable.
“It’s more stable than qualifying for the Champions League or trying to go through the previous rounds of qualification, because for a lot of clubs the Champions League and the other UEFA competitions are far from being wide open.”
The success and configuration of any prospective Super League endeavor depend on the result of a forthcoming ruling from the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice. A22 filed a lawsuit against FIFA and UEFA, contending that these regulatory bodies violated European competition laws by obstructing the establishment of the previous Super League and subsequently penalising its participants
And just weeks ago, A22 revealed the proposed competition would be open to “at least” clubs from the 27 European Union member states, however Reichart doesn't believe Brexit would be a barrier to Scottish Premiership clubs being included if they wanted to.
“It’s not an exclusive project, it’s an inclusive project,” Reichart confessed. “We mentioned the 27 because our legal certainty on what we can build and innovate on will be binding for 27 EU member states after the ECJ ruling and from there we try to design an attractive, appealing project for the territories beyond the 27 as well.”
READ NEXT
