Uefa urged to rip up plans for club game

● League bosses from Europe tell governing body to start ‘from scratch’

The organisation that repre - sents 35 leagues in 28 Euro - pean countries has told Uefa to scrap its plans for reforming club fo otball from 2024 onward and start the project “from scratch”.

The stark message to European football’s governing body emerged from a meeting of European Leagues’ board of directors in Warsaw yesterday.

The outgoing bosses of the English Football League and Premier League, Shaun Harvey and Richard Scudamore, pictured, respectively, are among the 13 men on the board.

In a statement, European Leagues said the board “retained the strong opinion that the presented proposal for reforming the European club competitions benefits just a few rich and dominant clubs but damages the leagues and the great majority of clubs playing in the domestic competitions”.

This position, it said, follows last week’s European Leagues summit in Madrid and the subsequent meeting with Uefa’s executive committee in Nyon.

“The European Leagues are working on changes which cont ribute to the long-term sporting and financial sustainability of both European and domestic club competitions,” it continued.

“In this, the leagues believe that it is imperative for Uefa to start building the changes in theUe fa club competitions project from scratch.”

W hi leUe fa might be a little surprised at the direct language it can hardly say it did not see this coming – domestic leagues throughout Europe have been up in arms ever since details of the proposed changes first emerged.

Drawn up by Uefa and the European Club Association, the

organisation that represents more than 230 of Europe’ s richest clubs, the plans would lead to the Champions League group stage changing from eight groups of four to four groups of eight, meaning more games, with a promotion and relegation system from year to year which would reduce the number of places available via

the previous season’s domestic competitions.

The Premier League spoke out about this last month and, this week, league meetings in France and Germany both emphatically rejected the proposals, while the president of Spain’s Laliga, Javier Tebas, has also been a vocal critic.

The idea’s biggest champion is Andrea Agnelli, the chairman of the ECA and Italian side Juventus, but he was backed on Wednesday by ECA vice - chairman Dariusz Mioduski, who is also chairman of Polish champions Legia Warsaw.

In a letter to the b osses of clubs and leagues in Europe, Mioduski claimed the reforms are needed to tackle the increasing domination of Europe’s five biggest leagues – the top tiers in England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain – over the other 50 national leagues.

Singling out Tebas for criticism, Mioduski wrote: “In reality, any league not belonging to the top five richest countries should be aware that Mr Tebas is not representing or protecting them. He is really protecting and promoting the interests of the true oligarchs of a system that is increasingly unfair and unequal.”