The idea of a European Super League is nothing new. It has been mentioned several times since the European Cup became the Champions League 18 years ago. However I believe it is the way forward and it should now be implemented as soon as possible.
The league should consist of 18 clubs who would play each other on a home and away basis every weekend between the end of August and the end of April. The league would be made up of the top four clubs from England, Spain and Italy along with the top two from Holland, France and Germany.
The domestic leagues of those countries would otherwise remain the same, so if we take England as the example this is how it would work; Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and say Liverpool would go into the Super League leaving 16 clubs remaining. If six were promoted and two relegated it would bring the total back up to twenty. That would then be repeated further down the leagues to bring the total back up to 92. Promotion and relegation after that would be the same as it is now.
The Super League itself would not be a closed shop and would have promotion and relegation in the following way. Lets say the bottom three were from France, Italy and England then the Champions of those three domestic leagues would be promoted into the Super League while those bottom three would all be relegated back into their own domestic league again.
With regards to TV, well Sky could show all the Super League games live simultaneously with the viewer free to choose which game they want to watch. If these games were played on a Sunday then the domestic games could still be live at 12.45 and 17.30 on a Saturday as they are now. MOTD and The Football League Show would remain unchanged and there could be a highlights package for the European league on a Sunday night in the MOTD 2 slot.
What of the FA Cup I hear you ask? Well it would have to be moved to midweek but other then that nothing would change. Same with the Carling Cup. Obviously the Super League would make the need for a Champions League redundant but the Europa League would carry on with all the sides who would now be in the Champions League plus the others currently in that competition anyway.
So what benefit would it have? Well for a start it would make the domestic leagues more competitive. Clubs like Manchester City, Spurs, Aston Villa and Everton would all have the chance to win the Premier League title while even the smaller clubs like Bolton, Blackburn and Birmingham would all have a decent opportunity to play regular European football. The same would be the case in the other leagues around Europe.
So what about the logistics of the Super League? Well plenty of fans make the trips to Champions League away games already so selling 4,000 away tickets would not be a problem as we are talking about the top clubs in Europe here. From an English point of view our clubs would still have six games a season against their English counterparts and these would be so much more widely anticipated. Plus I'm sure fans of the big four in England would much rather see their club playing AC Milan and Real Madrid as opposed to Stoke and West Bromwich Albion on a cold November evening...
Okay, so that is the idea and this is how it would be set up. The first Super League would consist of the best 18 clubs from the five leagues mentioned above. So from England we would have, say, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool, from Spain there could be Barcelona, Real Madrid, Villarreal and Valencia, from Italy it would be Juventus, AC Milan, Inter and Roma, Holland would have Ajax and FC Twente, France would be represented by Lyon and Marseille and from Germany we would have Bayern Munich and Schalke. Imagine how exciting that would be?
If we have a two week break over Christmas and the New Year the 34 league games could be played from the last weekend in August to the end of April with the domestic leagues running alongside. To be honest I cannot see too much wrong with this idea and I am convinced it would work but I'm sure some of you will disagree. So, come on lets have the debate...
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