Top teams face transfer ban in Euro shake-up

A BAN on transfers between clubs involved in the new-look Champions League could be crucial in reducing costs within football.

That is the view of Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli, chair of the European Club Association, who yesterday said the expanded competition, with 36 rather than 32 teams involved from 2024, could be approved within a fortnight.

Agnelli said cost control remained a key issue the game needed to address and floated the idea of a Europe-wide Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) on salaries, similar to that used in US sports, and reducing spending on player transfers by barring deals between elite clubs.

‘The moment is fertile to think of new solutions. I think we should be looking at a wide range of reforms. I think there is space today to start thinking about a European CBA for sure... it could be a solution,’ he said.

‘We could think of (rules) for the transfer system, whereby clubs qualifying to specific tiers of competitions wouldn’t be allowed to buy each other’s players.’

The Premier League is understood to have concerns over the increased number of matches, rising from six to ten each autumn, but Agnelli suggested 20-team leagues might look at a reduction in domestic games to overcome the problem.

‘We do think that currently, for competitive balance purposes, 20 teams in leagues – it’s not just the big leagues, but in many leagues – there are too many,’ he said. The European Leagues group, of which the Premier League is a member, is opposed to the proposed idea of clubs qualifying via historical ‘co-efficient’ rankings rather than performance in the most recent domestic season for the four extra places on offer.

But Agnelli said: ‘Unprecedented events can turn to normality. When it once was a blasphemy to imagine not just the champions in the Champions Cup, now it’s normal, so I wouldn’t be too concerned about change.’