European
football leagues on Friday suspended an accord with UEFA in protest at reforms
to the Champions League which gives greater power to major clubs.
By freezing the memorandum of
understanding the 25 championships can now organise their own league games on
the same day as Champions League matches.
The European Professional Football
Leagues (EPFL) is furious at 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 share out.
“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.
Twenty-two of the 23 leagues present at
the meeting voted for the suspension which will last until March 15 next year,
Olsson, head of Sweden’s professional league, said. Italy’s Serie A voted
against.
“This will give us and UEFA sufficient
time to negotiate,” Olsson added.
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.
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