Napoli President Aurelio De Laurentiis is proposing a new European League ‘worth €10 billion,’ but qualification would be based on merit, unlike the Super League. ‘The system doesn’t work anymore, we need a more modern and lucrative tournament.’
The movie producer has long been critical of the Champions League and above all the Europa League, the competition that his club qualified for this season.
Ahead of Thursday’s opening fixture against Leicester City, De Laurentiis sat down with the Daily Mail to outline his vision for the future of club football.
“The system doesn’t work any more,” said ADL. “The Champions and Europa League don’t generate sufficient income for the clubs to justify participating in it.
“To be competitive, you need more top-class players. That means you have to spend more money — and the prize money from the European competitions doesn’t account for that.
“That is why the clubs need to speak to each other to come up with a more modern and lucrative tournament for everyone in it.”
De Laurentiis shares Serie A plans to cut the league from 20 clubs to 18, opening up more dates for a different approach to European competition.
“We need to reduce the number of games by reducing the size of the top divisions across Europe. Also, we create a European league with a democratic system of entry, based on what teams achieve in their domestic competitions.
“I have examined a project ready to bring €10bn to the European game, but we need willingness and total independence.”
De Laurentiis is at pains to point out this is nothing like the Super League project that is still backed by Juventus, Barcelona and Real Madrid, despite all the others pulling out within 48 hours of the announcement in April.
The Super League was a closed shop, with clubs invited to participate regardless of their sporting results that season.
Napoli had not been part of the planned Super League roster of teams.
EXCL: Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis proposing radical £8.5bn European football league | @TomCollomosse https://t.co/GvcI3L0vvI
— MailOnline Sport (@MailSport) September 14, 2021
Hope it happens. A true euro league, level playing field across the continent
De laurentiis with an actually good idea. This sounds the best solution to escape both Uefa’s corruption and Super League’s sleaziness
this is stupid. football need less money – not more. it doesn’t matter how much money the clubs will earn, cause all of it will goes to higher player contracts and higher transfer fees. every average player will cost 60 million euro. no, more money is not the solution. the solution is to cap the transfer fees and the salaries players
the Super League in inevitable, it should happen, and the revenue of European football should go directly to clubs not an organization in between.
and nobody wants to see mediocre and small clubs play, everybody wants to watch top clubs play each other. sorry but only people from west-ham want to see west-ham vs Manchester United. but international football fans don’t want that, they want Real Madrid vs Manchester United. and international fans bring in millions of dollars, ten folds that of current club revenues.
There’s more than enough money in football. Clubs should be spending it more wisely and within their means, make a stand against ridiculous agent fees and players wages, prioritize their youth sectors and training facilities etc.
Agree with rans. The solution isn’t to put even more money into this never ending upward spiral of ridiculous wages and transfer fees, but to reduce it. If they could come up with a way that reduced these crazy wages and fees, all clubs would be more financially sound. Only the players and agents would have less, but the players will still be on their multi million salaries, just maybe fewer millions, and no one cares about the agents.