FIFA is reportedly working on a professional league that will shake the professional football structure in Europe.
Top Premier League clubs, Liverpool and Manchester United, are reportedly in talks to join the professional tournament backed by a $6 billion financial package.
Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham are reportedly among the potential clubs to be drafted into the league, states a Skysports report.
The publication has reported that more than 12 leading European football clubs from across England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France are engaged in talks to be the members of the league right at its inception.
The ‘European Football League’ is reportedly raising a fund of $6 billion, to have a strong financial muscle to change the landscape of club-based professional football and become the largest professional football competition.
The tournament might come up by 2022 with 18 renowned football teams, including five from the Premier League.
As many as five English clubs could sign up to join it, with a provisional start date said to have been discussed as early as 2022. The tournament will run parallel to the regular European season.
Wall Street bank JP Morgan is reported to be in talks to provide $6 bn funding for the tournament, which is tipped to usurp the Champions League and have hundred of million dollars in prize money every year.
A formal announcement might be made by the end of this month, the publication has reported citing a source, which described the tournament as “potentially the most important development in world club football for decades”.
“FIFA does not wish to comment and participate in any speculation about topics which come up every now and then and, for which, institutional structures and regulatory frameworks are well in place at national, European and global level,” FIFA has reportedly said.
The giant Wall Street bank JP Morgan is in talks to provide $6 billion of debt financing to help launch the European Premier League, with the proceeds repayable from future broadcast income generated by the tournament, according to a football executive.
Other banks are expected to join the financing of the new project, which would become one of the world’s richest annual team sports competitions if it gets off the ground.
Each of the founding teams is expected to earn fees of hundreds of millions of pounds to participate, with clubs such as Manchester United and Real Madrid receiving the biggest sums for joining.
If the discussions are successfully concluded, the European Premier League would effectively usurp UEFA’s Champions League competition, which has been a mainstay of the continent’s football calendar for decades.
The potential creation of a European Premier League would see ‘FIFA against UEFA’, according to Sky Sports News chief reporter Bryan Swanson
A UEFA spokesperson has told Sky Sports News they are against any proposals for a European league, adding that any such tournament would become “boring”.