European Leagues Protest Over UEFA Champions League Changes
The European Professional Football Leagues (EPFL) has suspended its agreement with UEFA in protest of recent changes in the Champions League that gives more power to major clubs.
The move by the body means Europe’s 25 top leagues can now organise their own league games on the same day as Champions League matches.
Twenty-two of the 23 leagues present at the meeting voted for the suspension which will last until March 15, 2017, to negotiate a new one.
The current cooperation deal ensures European top-tier matches are not played on midweek evenings protected for the Champions League.
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The EPFL were angry that they were left out of talks on UEFA’s reforms agreed in September which guaranteed four Champions League places to England, Spain, Italy and Germany from 2018.
It also changed the prize money distribution for the three seasons from 2018.
“There is no other option but to terminate the currant MOU,” EPFL president Lars-Christer Olsson told a press conference after a meeting of the body, noting that Italy’s Serie A voted against.
“This will give us and UEFA sufficient time to negotiate,” Olsson added.
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Olsson said he is to meet the new UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin in the second half of November.
No league has yet announced that it will hold matches on Champions League days, but EPFL officials said each country was free to decide its own action.
Many European leagues complain that the Champions League has been turned into a “closed party” and that the prize changes will increase the wealth gap between the continent’s major clubs and the rest.
“It is about preserving the basic values that football fans love,” said Claus Thomsen, chief executive of Denmark’s league.
“Some clubs are making so much money that you don’t have a competitive balance anymore in your own championship,” said Claudius Schafer, chief executive of the Swiss Football League.
