Agnelli: ‘Third competition after 2024’

By Football Italia staff

European Club Association President Andrea Agnelli expects a third UEFA club competition “after 2024”, but reiterates a breakaway isn’t in the works.

The two bodies have agreed to work together until at least 2024, killing off the prospect of a European Super League in the near future.

“This is an important day for European football,” Agnelli, the Juventus President, said at the joint Press conference with UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin.

“FIFA has accepted the UEFA and ECA proposal, we have signed a letter of intent that will extend our agreement until 2024.

“We’ve made a statement of our willingness to develop European football together. The meeting had been scheduled before these recent leaks [about a Super League] and that was positive in reaching a joint declaration today.

“There has been a lot of speculation in recent weeks, and this is definitely a great opportunity to show that we have the desire to continue to work together not just until 2024, but also beyond.

“Since 2015 there has been a lot of talk of getting to Financial Fair Play 2.0, and we have worked for to develop a third European-level competition for which we’re now waiting for the approval of the Executive Committee in December.

“If it’s approved there will be a third competition after 2024. Let’s look further though, our intention is to change the international match calendar.

“We need to organise the leagues to fit with the tournaments which take place in even years we must also consider how to manage the transfer windows and keep the same number of games.

“We need to balance domestic competitions with international ones, maintaining periods of rest. Once all this has been decided, we will be able to choose the competition format.”

Agnelli was then quizzed on the Super League idea, with leaked documents suggesting the top clubs in Europe were working on a breakaway.

“The future is still to be written, but a Super League is ruled out. As far as the ECA is concerned, and Juventus too, we can’t talk about a Super League in 2018.

“I spoke with President Ceferin and made it clear we have nothing to do with the documents which emerged about a Super League project, I can rule it out as the President of the ECA and of Juventus.

“The last time we spoke about it was in 2015, but since then a lot of things have changed, starting with Ceferin’s election and mine.

“We’ve started thinking about what to do, and for now they’re only ideas, but it was important to find an agreement.

“In January we’ll start working on what will happen after 2024.

“The pre-conditions are clear: rest periods, managing international transfer windows and so on, the things I said before.

“These are the crucial things for big clubs, but they also concern the medium and small ones.

"What we already have today should exclude all the big clubs from this talk, we are happy with what we have.

"The format, access and distribution of competitions are to be managed jointly between the ECA and UEFA. All the club competitions have been jointly managed for a year-and-a-half, which offers assurance that future competitions will be in the interest of clubs.

"On a financial level, yes, but not only that: being part of the oldest family in the football world I understand the social aspect of football.

"UEFA is not only the centre of European football, but world football."

The leaks came from Football Leaks, with speculation that servers were hacked to get the documents.

"I can say that didn't happen to the ECA servers or those of Juventus," Agnelli insisted.

"I can't say who the guilty party was, but it was done to pit the club against each other, the small-to-medium ones and the big ones.

"Most of us didn't know what was happening, I remember the afternoon the leaks came out because I was with my newborn son at the time.

"I was very calm though, because most of the documents referred to the 2015 Super League project. I have nothing to fear or be ashamed of, if my e-mail was hacked I would have no problem.

"I won't talk about hypotheses, that's for you with television and newspapers. What I will do is reassure you about the relationship that exists between the clubs and UEFA.

"I think we can bring the national leagues and FIFPro to the table too, and we'll look to do that in the future."

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