Boris Johnson says government will try to stop European Super League
Boris Johnson has promised the government will “look at everything we can do” to block a plan by six leading English football clubs to join a breakaway European Super League, amid rising anger among politicians and fans over the idea.
Officials in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport are understood to be urgently examining possible options for preventing the scheme and looking at wider ideas to reform the governance of English football.
While it remains unclear what powers ministers may have to impose change, possible options include action to stop the plan under competition laws, or imposing club ownership structures with greater fan involvement.
Further details are expected when Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, makes a Commons statement at about 5pm on Monday.
Speaking on a visit to Gloucestershire, the prime minister said: “I don’t like the look of these proposals, and we’ll be consulted about what we can do.”
Johnson added: “We are going to look at everything that we can do with the football authorities to make sure that this doesn’t go ahead in the way that it’s currently being proposed. I don’t think that it’s good news for fans, I don’t think it’s good news for football in this country.
“These clubs are not just great global brands – of course they’re great global brands – they’re also clubs that have originated historically from their towns, from their cities, from their local communities. They should have a link with those fans, and with the fanbase in their community. So it is very, very important that that continues to be the case.”
Separately, the chair of the Commons culture, media and sport committee condemned what he called “a dark day for football” and said his committee would examine what more could be done in a meeting on Tuesday.
The Conservative MP Julian Knight said: “What’s needed is a fan-led review of football with real teeth and here we have more evidence to strengthen the case for it. Football needs a reset, but this is not the way to do it. The interests of community clubs must be put at the heart of any future plans.”
Labour has called on ministers to use the announcement of the plan, made late on Sunday night, as the impetus to tackle wider governance issues in the English game, a change some Conservative MPs had already been calling for.
Under plans for the midweek competition, which its organisers want to start in August, Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal,
Chelsea and Tottenham would join three teams from Italy and three from Spain, and three more to be confirmed, as “founder” clubs, which would always take part.
The merchant bank JP Morgan announced on Monday it would be financing the proposed new league.
Ahead of the announcement of the format, Johnson tweeted that the plan would be “very damaging for football and we support football authorities in taking action”.
Alison McGovern, the shadow sports minister, said the government must step in immediately, and introduce wider changes for the sport in
England.
“For too long, the very fans who built football in this country have been treated as an afterthought,” she said. “We’ve seen communities lose their clubs, foreign owners strip assets and wealth, the neglect of the women’s game and fans priced out.
“That must now change. The government must get on with the fanled review it has promised. There must be an independent regulator established. And these must all focus on long overdue action to ensure that fans can never again be separated from their clubs.”
Also commenting before full details of the plan emerged, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, said the idea of a super league with some clubs guaranteed participation “cuts across all the things that make football great. It diminishes competition. It pulls up the drawbridge.”
Johnson is also set to face pressure from his own benches. In January, the Conservative MP and former sports minister Helen Grant proposed a bill for an independent football regulator for England, with powers to review finances and redistribute incomes.
In a statement on Monday, Grant said the clubs’ plan “only reinforces the need” for such a watchdog. She said: “A regulator is urgently needed to stand up for the interests of the wider game of football in our country and to put football’s governance on a fairer and more sustainable footing.”