The principal revelation about top clubs’ recent moves to form some kind of European super league, gleaned from the oceans of internal emails revealed by Der Spiegel, is how advanced the manoeuvres were in 2016. According to the emails, which the Observer has not seen or been able to verify, Bayern Munich in particular were seriously contemplating the commercial bonanza of an elite league and examining the sporting and legal complexities of forming it.

Uefa headed off that breakaway threat by agreeing tweaks to Champions League qualification and financial distributions, which run from this season’s competition until 2020-21. The principal changes made were not ultimately revolutionary, despite the clubs’ apparent exploration, led by Bayern, of breaking away completely from European football’s governing body and even from national associations.

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The number of clubs participating remained at 32, after Bayern’s consideration of reducing it to 24 and the discussions for top clubs to have a bigger share of the money, held with the US entrepreneur Charlie Stillitano. The main effect of the ensuing depressing and headache-inducing battle over financial distribution was to deliver some more millions to Bayern, Juventus, Real Madrid and Barcelona by allocating 30% of the money, a projected €585m per season, to recognise success over the previous 10 years.

That was a way to get more money to clubs that have dominated their own national leagues but are terrified by the financial power and global ubiquity of the Premier League. Qualification for the Champions League became automatic for the leading quartet of clubs from the four top-ranked national leagues – England, Spain, Germany, Italy – so guaranteeing their clubs regular participation and more of the €1.4bn revenue is now paid to clubs eliminated early.

Rich, dominating clubs demanding more money and sharing less has been constant for the past 20 years

Having agreed these concessions, and to form a joint strategic company with the European Club Association, Uefa kept the top clubs within its own Champions League, and in the football family of national and continental associations. Uefa stresses that one significant principle for maintaining the traditional collective membership system is that some of the money generated by the elite competitions is shared around smaller clubs, countries and the wider game. But the rich clubs’ perpetual agitations are specifically aimed at reducing this redistribution and the new Champions and Europa League systems brought the percentage shared in solidarity down to 7%.

This dispiriting process, the gathering together of already rich and dominating clubs to demand yet more money and share less of it, is a permanent tectonic feature of European football’s landscape. It has been constant for the past 20 years, since an advanced, serious threat by the then G14 clique to break away from Uefa produced the lucrative expansion of the Champions League from 16 to 32 clubs.

The modern driver for clubs has been the mushrooming of revenues principally from technological changes to broadcasting, as satellite and pay TV have aggregated earnings from terrestrial millions to today’s billions. English football has minted and encouraged the big clubs’ insatiability, having hosted the genuine breakaway in 1992 of the Premier League and wolfed down all the new TV riches from Sky.

Now clubs are eyeing a new wave of earnings from digital platforms and streaming of matches, which is said to be behind the Japanese telecoms giant Softbank’s proposals to Fifa for a new Club World Cup featuring 24 top clubs every four years or even every season.

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Der Spiegel’s “leaks” – its coverage includes a denial from the magazine’s source, given the name John, that the material is hacked – show that Europe’s top clubs are not sitting back, content with the concessions their pressure wrought for 2018-21. The magazine cites internal emails at Real Madrid showing that new plans are being explored already for a 16-club super league from 2021. Anyway, the Juventus and ECA president, Andrea Agnelli, told the Guardian in May that when the current calendar is renegotiated in 2024, he wants many more Champions League matches and diminished national leagues, itself a breakaway of sorts.

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The lesson of the 26 years since the Premier League breakaway is that the big clubs are never happy. They will keep looking for more money, no matter how many concessions are made. The national and continental associations, clubs, leagues and wider football population need to stand firm to maintain the game’s collective ethos, and sharing of money, on which its great historic development has always been founded.