The company set up to manage the failed European Super League, A22 Sports Management, has written to UEFA demanding pre-authorisation of its Unify League concept “within eight weeks”.
In an 18-page letter sent to UEFA general secretary Theodore Theodoridis on Friday, A22 chief executive Bernd Reichart said its revamped idea is “fully consistent” with the Court of Justice for the European Union’s (CJEU) landmark ruling in December 2023, which found that UEFA’s approach to potential competitors breached EU law.
That ruling has since been applied by a commercial court in Madrid, with UEFA recently failing to overturn that decision in a Madrid appeal court.
As a result of these three legal victories, A22 and Real Madrid — the ESL’s most enthusiastic supporter and the only club to openly back the Unify League — have started legal action against UEFA in Madrid for claimed financial damages caused by the governing body’s refusal to approve the proposed new league.
According to Reichart, by refusing to approve the Unify League as a competition that complies with global football’s calendar and sporting criteria, UEFA has continued to break the law.
“To date, three different EU courts, including the EU’s highest court, have issued consistent rulings that leave no room for doubt: UEFA’s abuse of its dominant monopoly position cannot stand, and its exclusionary practices must cease,” wrote Reichart.
“Despite this clarity, UEFA continues to maintain statutes which are contrary to EU law. Incredibly, UEFA implemented its most recent non-compliant rules in June 2024, six months after the CJEU ruling.
“As a result, UEFA is now exposed to substantial damage claims from injured parties, including clubs, players and A22.”
Reichart is the former CEO of German media company RTL Deutschland (Angel Martinez/Getty Images)
Real Madrid revealed their intention to sue UEFA last month, when it emerged that they believe they are owed €4.5billion (£4billion, $5.2billion) in lost revenue over the stalled project’s potential lifetime.
Speaking at the club’s annual general meeting on Sunday, Real Madrid president Florentino Perez said: “In 2021, UEFA was able to threaten the (12 ESL) clubs with expulsion, and they opened disciplinary proceedings against us.
“Today, after our legal victories, the situation is radically different. La Liga and UEFA try to take away their importance but they treat us like fools. The strength of our case allows us to claim damages from UEFA.
“We have initiated legal proceedings against UEFA, seeking compensation and the right to organise the competition in the future. We are not here to win a judgment but to put it into practice.”
The Athletic has asked UEFA for its response to A22’s letter and Perez’s claims but has not received an answer.
In his letter, which The Athletic has seen, Reichart also sets out the “compromises” A22 has made to its proposals, which have gone through several iterations, during seven months of talks with UEFA this year.
Last December, A22 published its first Unify League plan, which called for a men’s competition comprised of four leagues: Star, Gold, Blue and Union, with 32 teams each in the first two of those, and 16 in the last two.
The clubs would then be split into groups of eight, playing each other home and away, guaranteeing a minimum of 14 games, before proceeding to a knockout competition. Unlike the deeply unpopular and short-lived ESL idea, clubs would qualify for these competitions via their domestic leagues in the traditional manner.
But A22, citing feedback from clubs, has now tweaked its proposal again as it has said it is willing to stick to UEFA’s three-competition format, which means the Union League has been dropped and the Star, Gold and Blue leagues would have 36 teams each.
The only difference from what we have now is that the leagues would be split into two 18-team groups with the clubs playing eight games each — four at home, four away — against eight different opponents, as per UEFA’s new league-phase format.
Clubs would qualify for these three leagues in the same way they qualify for the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League, but the two groups would be seeded. The Star League’s group A would be made up of the previous season’s winner and the champions of the six strongest leagues, according to UEFA’s coefficient rankings, with the remaining 11 spots filled according to the coefficient.
Group B would comprise of the next 18 teams by coefficient, with the Star and Blue leagues’ groups decided entirely via coefficients.
After the group stage, the top six in the three group As would advance to the last 16, with the next eight entering a seeded play-off round. The top two in each group B would proceed to the last 16, with the next eight going to the play-offs.
Its proposals for the women’s competitions — an 18-team Star League and 16-team Gold League — are indistinguishable from the status quo, as are A22’s plans for when all these games would be played.
A22 also says it has made significant concessions to UEFA and European Football Clubs, the new name for the European Club Association, in terms of its governance proposals.
Instead of overhauling the entire current structure, it now only wants to create a new “league board of directors” that would be made up of a “majority of participating clubs, with additional seats for player representatives, UEFA and EFC”. This board would have veto rights regarding format changes, revenue distribution and commercial decisions.
And in regards to the latter, A22’s third and final “key objective” is the “launch and utilisation of the Unify streaming platform”, which was its big, fan-friendly announcement last year. This global platform would have an advertising-funded offer that A22 claims will be free to view, with an ad-free option for subscribers.
“We saw free-to-air football on television at the Club World Cup,” said Perez on Sunday, referring to DAZN’s coverage of FIFA’s revamped club competition this summer.
Perez had been one of the driving forces behind the Super League (David Ramos/Getty Images)
“I want to thank FIFA, which allowed a poor child in Africa to watch the matches. We have Unify, which would allow us to broadcast the matches for free. FIFA understood this is the way forward.
“I can only think of one reason why UEFA wouldn’t do it, because delaying it for a year means another year of million-dollar salaries for them.”
That said, UC3, UEFA’s new joint venture with EFC to market the Champions League and other club competitions, has recently enjoyed considerable success in selling its broadcast and sponsorship rights from 2027 onwards.
It should also be noted that DAZN’s decision to make its Club World Cup coverage free of charge followed a $1bn investment from the sports arm of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and the only major football league that is currently going to direct-to-consumer with a streaming offer is Ligue 1, a decision that has resulted in a dramatic drop in broadcast revenue for French clubs.