European Super League leaks set to turn up heat in key Premier League meeting

Forget yesterday’s Manchester derby: the biggest clash of the Premier League season is looming this week.

On Thursday, the owners and chief executives of the 20 top-flight clubs meet at a London hotel. These get-togethers can be fractious. This one threatens to be explosive.

Last week, the release of Football Leaks documents revealed that Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and both Manchester United and Man City have allegedly been involved in secret discussions about the creation of a European Super League. It is hardly a surprise.

These five have been agitating for a bigger proportion of the Premier League overseas television money — which had been shared equally since 1992 — for some time. They achieved a limited victory in the summer, when the rules were changed to create a sliding scale of reward, based on League position. It was clearly not enough to satisfy them.

They have hinted at breaking away from the domestic League in the past, but most people thought it was posturing. That was until the publication of a leaked Super League “binding term sheet” that includes 11 “founder members” and five “initial guests”; 16 of the most powerful teams in Europe in a division slated to start in 2021. The split just got real.

Anger and fear is widespread among the other 15 Premier League clubs. Betrayal is often in the air at these meetings. Daniel Levy and Tottenham will feel particularly aggrieved. The idea of a ‘Big Six’ has become commonplace in English football, but Spurs are outside the cabal.

They have not even been included among the “guest” clubs. It should come as no surprise to Levy. Tottenham have been excluded from a series of meetings involving their supposed peers. The conspirators have scant trust in Levy and do not think Spurs have much international appeal.

There is little sympathy for the Spurs chairman from the other 14 clubs. At a previous summit, Levy articulated the case for giving a greater proportion of the spoils to the ‘Big Six’. Essentially, his argument boiled down to a simple idea: they deserved it. Quite a few people around the table on Thursday will take pleasure in Levy’s comeuppance.

Much of the ire will be directed at Ferran Soriano. Manchester City’s chief executive has a haughty attitude towards the clubs he considers inferior to his own — just about everyone else — and his ambition is boundless. The Catalan poses a significant threat to the game’s status quo.

Standing alongside Soriano are the American owners of Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool. The Glazers, Stan Kroenke and John W. Henry come from a different sporting culture and would happily dispense with quaint customs like relegation and being made to qualify for lucrative competitions like the Champions League. A closed-circuit Super League would solve both issues.

The Americans have come to believe, too, that the lack of competitiveness in the Premier League is caused by the paucity of ambition among the division’s lesser lights. There are too many teams whose only aspiration is to remain in the top flight and pick up their annual cheques, their theory suggests. Fear of the drop is the driving force for the majority of clubs.

There is some truth in this. City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal and United have played 51 games against non-‘Big Six’ teams so far this season and have surrendered just 21 of the available 126 points. The gap between this sextet and the rest is growing. It is a difficult sell, however, to convince anyone that giving more cash to the dominant clubs would help.

Henry, Liverpool’s principal owner, is one who argues that a fundamental restructure of the English game and its finances is necessary, but the votes of 14 clubs are needed to change the direction of the Premier League. It would take a serious threat for clubs to agree to anything that threatens their interests.

Is the Super League that threat? Probably not. There are too many legal issues to consider. But the leak has widened existing rifts.

There is likely to be more drama around Thursday’s meeting than in a month of Super Sundays. It is just as well it happens behind closed doors, because it will be a pretty unedifying spectacle.