Clubs in European breakaway league have signed 23-year contracts

The 12 soccer clubs forming a breakaway European Super League have signed 23-year contracts for the new format.

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has joined the chorus of opposition to the breakaway

The 12 soccer clubs forming a breakaway European Super League have signed 23-year contracts for the new format with insiders “categorically” denying that the proposals are simply a negotiating tactic.

A senior figure close to the new league said that the clubs were determined to push on despite a huge backlash from fans, politicians and players past and present.

The source insisted it was not an effort to press UEFA, the European governing body, to offer the clubs more money and games in the Champions League, the leading club competition.

“There are signed agreements — 23-year contracts”, the source said. “This is categorically not a bargaining chip. I can see why people might come to the conclusion but I am happy to correct it. This is proper, it’s happening.”

JP Morgan, the US investment bank, confirmed that it was financing the new league, which will hand an initial £3bn ($5.4bn) to the founding clubs. It declined to elaborate or explain how the deal was structured or funded.

The bank has a longstanding relationship with Ed Woodward, the chief executive of Manchester United, who is understood to be one of the driving forces behind the Super League. Woodward used to work for JP Morgan’s mergers and acquisitions team, where he brokered the Glazer family’s controversial takeover of United in 2005 before moving to the club.

The news that contracts have been signed appears to rule out the idea that the clubs are bluffing to secure better terms from UEFA. The announcement of the league came a day before UEFA was due to announce reforms to the Champions League after protracted negotiations with the big clubs.

A former director of communications for Theresa May is leading the publicity campaign for the new league. Katie Perrior, who led the press team at No 10 for nearly a year, is one of the founders of iNHouse Communications, which has the contract to conduct PR for the Super League.

The iNHouse website quotes Boris Johnson as saying that the company is the “Fortnum and Mason” of communications. Perrior led Johnson’s winning London mayoral campaign in 2008 and has written for The Times. On Sunday the Prime Minister criticised the Super League plan. The Times understands that Perrior is relaxed about his intervention but the barrage of negative publicity has raised questions about the company’s strategy.

James Swan, a senior account director at the PR firm Hope and Glory, said that silence from most club owners had undermined the league’s reputation by allowing politicians and sporting bodies a chance to “position themselves on the side of fans against the clubs”.

He added: “The backlash is not going to be good news for sponsors either, who don’t like to be associated with bad news — there are going to have to be a lot of reassuring calls from clubs to their financial backers to try and keep them on board with promises that weathering the storm the clubs have created will pay off in the long run.”

However, other industry figures believe the PR strategy is going to plan. One agency executive who did not want to be named said: “The prize is not the affection of their legacy fanbase, it is the teenage boys at home in Shanghai, Seoul or Sydney who will badger their parents for a pay TV subscription. There are millions more of them than people who go to the stadiums.”

He added: “They will think the criticism will be worth it if it drives a huge increase in the value of the assets they own.”

Shares in some of the biggest clubs have soared; a handful are run as publicly traded companies. Juventus, the Italian champions, whose shares are traded on the Milan stock exchange, climbed nearly 20 per cent and Manchester United leapt 10 per cent as the opening bell rang on Wall Street. It added the best part of $US300m ($386m) to United’s market value, which now stands at nearly dollars 3 billion.

One source at iNHouse said: “Once we get over the initial hurdle in terms of the news breaking there are good points about solidarity payments to be told and English football will take a lot of that money for the grassroots game.”

The Times understands that Perrior’s involvement is not making her popular at home; her husband and children support West Ham United.

Elsewhere, anger over the Super League plans continues to grow, with Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp and the clubs vice-captain James Milner declaring their opposition.

Klopp undermined the club’s American owners by adding his voice to the backlash against the proposed competition.

Speaking before his team’s 1-1 draw in the Premier League away to Leeds United, during which home players and supporters protested against the ESL, Klopp spoke of his affection for the UEFA-run Champions League and the fact that teams have to qualify for it through domestic leagues. He said that he had not been consulted by the club’s Boston-based owner, Fenway Sports Group (FSG).

“People are not happy with it, I can understand it,” Klopp said. “We were not involved in the process — not the players, not me — we didn’t know about it. I have no issues with the Champions League. I like the competitive factor of football. I like the fact that West Ham might play in the Champions League next year.”

However, having voiced his opposition to the plan, Klopp made clear after the match at Elland Road that he would not walk away. “It is not about letting me down,” he said. “I am here as a football coach and manager and I will do that as long as people let me do that.

“I heard today that I will resign. That makes me more sticky that I will stay. I feel responsible for the team, I feel responsible for the club and the relationship we have with our fans. It is a very tough time but I will try to help to sort it somehow.”

Klopp added that he planned to speak with FSG, whose members he described as “reasonable people, serious people”.

Milner, 35, became the first player at one of the “big six” clubs to publicly criticise the idea. Asked for his view on the ESL, he told Sky Sports: “It’s the same as everyone’s, there’s a lot of questions. I don’t like it and hopefully it doesn’t happen.”

Klopp’s comments led the Sky pundit Gary Neville to observe that the German had “destroyed his owners on national television”. The Liverpool manager attacked the former United defender for his criticism of the club, saying post-match: “I wish Gary Neville would be in a hot seat somewhere and not where the most money is.”

This all came at the end of a remarkable day during which United’s executive vice-chairman, Ed Woodward, one of the men leading the breakaway, was labelled a “snake and a liar” by Aleksander Ceferin, the head of UEFA. It also emerged that players at United and at least one other rebel club have raised concerns over the decisions taken by their owners, while fans’ groups at the six teams have expressed anger at the behaviour of their clubs’ owners.

The other 14 teams in the Premier League will hold an unprecedented meeting without the “big six” this morning to discuss the matter, with the Crystal Palace co-owner Steve Parish urging the rebels to enter conciliatory talks. Parish claimed the public and political outcry over the ESL meant it was already “dead in the water”.

Leeds players warmed up for the Liverpool game wearing T-shirts with the slogans “Earn It” and “Football is for the fans”, and The Times understands that the 14 teams will all wear the same T-shirts before matches against the six breakaway clubs.

The British government said it would take all necessary steps to block the new league, and announced a fan-led review of football chaired by the former sports minister Tracey Crouch.

UEFA is taking legal advice over excluding the ESL clubs from the semi-finals of this season’s Champions League and Europa League, a sanction that could lead to Chelsea and City being removed from the elite competition and United and Arsenal from the secondary one.

The ESL has launched a pre-emptive strike against sanctions and has written to UEFA and FIFA warning that it has already filed motions in courts to stop the authorities imposing bans.

Ceferin claimed that Woodward had misled him last week and that the Juventus president, Andrea Agnelli, had “lied” to him persistently. Ceferin, who is godfather to Agnelli’s daughter, raised the possibility of players being banned from the European Championship and next year’s World Cup but said UEFA would need to consult lawyers to see when such a ban could be imposed.

He said: “If I start with Ed Woodward, he called me last Thursday evening saying he’s very satisfied with and fully supports the (Champions League) reforms and the only thing he wants to talk about was Financial Fair Play, when he had already signed something else. Andrea Agnelli is the biggest disappointment of all, I’ve never seen a person that would lie so many times.

“We didn’t know we had snakes so close to us. Now we know.”

Ceferin confirmed UEFA is pressing ahead with a new 36-team Champions League format from 2024.

The Times understands that the ESL does not have a broadcast partner in place.

The Times