Super League revived as 96-team 'Unify League'

Super League promoter A22 Sports said on Tuesday that it had submitted a proposal to UEFA and FIFA, asking football's governing bodies to formally recognise its right to organise a new European competition.

The move follows a ruling by the European Court of Justice in December 2023 -- after the Super League sought protection for its plans under EU law -- which held that UEFA and FIFA had been "abusing a dominant position," calling their rules governing new formats "arbitrary."

UEFA then said it believed rules brought in since the Super League's attempted launch in April 2021 had ensured it now complied with EU law.

On Tuesday, A22 said it had applied to UEFA and FIFA for "official recognition for its new cross-border European club football competitions," arguing that the ECJ ruling meant that "any competition where qualification is inclusive and meritocratic, and which complies with the overall match calendar can be officially established."

A22 said its latest proposal included changes to its model -- which was most recently set out hours after the December 2023 ruling -- after consulting with football clubs, leagues and other groups.

ESPN has approached UEFA for comment.

"A key feature is a revised qualification system in which club participation is based on annual, domestic league performance," the A22 statement said.

"Our extensive engagement with key stakeholders revealed a number of pressing challenges facing the sport including increasing subscription costs for fans, an overloaded player calendar, insufficient investment in women's football, and dissatisfaction with the format and governance of the current pan-European competitions," A22 CEO Bernd Reichart said. "Our proposal is designed to directly address these challenges."

A22 has said Super League matches would be broadcast on a new streaming service, Unify, which would offer a free-to-air model supported by advertising.

On Tuesday, the firm said the Super League would now be known as "Unify League" to reflect that.

In December 2023, Reichart said the new format would involve a three-league, 64-club men's competition and a two-league, 32-club women's competition -- with promotion and relegation between leagues -- to replace the UEFA Champions League and Women's Champions League.

On Tuesday, A22 said the latest plans for the Unify League would see 96 clubs take part in the men's competition in four leagues. The top two leagues, "Star" and "Gold," would each include 16 clubs, divided into groups of eight. The "Blue" and "Union" leagues would host 32 clubs each, also in groups of eight.

In the league stage, teams would face the others in their group, home and away, before qualifiers progress to the knockout stage. The semifinals and final would be one-off matches, played at neutral venues. Clubs would qualify based on annual domestic performance, with matches taking place in midweek.

The Super League project was initially backed by 12 member clubs: Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atlético Madrid, AC Milan, Arsenal, Chelsea, Inter Milan, Juventus, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.

However, the Premier League clubs soon distanced themselves from the plans under pressure from fans and the U.K. government.

After the December 2023 ruling, the Premier League, Bundesliga, LaLiga and Serie A -- as well as a number of top clubs and the European Club Association -- all reiterated their opposition to the Super League, and their support for competitions organized by UEFA.

LaLiga president Javier Tebas said in a post on X on Tuesday: "Those from @A22Sports are back with a new idea: they produce formats as if they were churros, without analyzing or studying the economic and sporting effects on the competitions. The television model they propose only favors the big clubs, (and they know it...) while endangering the economic stability of the national leagues and their clubs."