When Premier League chief executive Richard Masters addressed a parliamentary hearing on 10 November, he delivered a line all English football could agree on, despite the fierce opposition that followed Project Big Picture’s unexpected unveiling a month before.
“Change is coming.”
Masters was talking about the situation in Europe, where negotiations around the expansion of Uefa’s club competitions have been taking place for 17 months now.
However, if England’s so-called ‘big six’ clubs have their way, that “change” will be far more extensive than what appears set to happen on the continent – an expanded format for all European club competitions, including the Champions League group stage.
An 18-team Premier League, no more EFL Cup or Community Shield, B teams, the scrapping of FA Cup replays. All these were mentioned within the Project Big Picture proposals, which became public ahead of schedule at the beginning of October when they were leaked to the Daily Telegraph.
“Everything is up for discussion. Nothing is off the table,” Football Association chairman Greg Clarke told the same Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee, exactly 27 minutes before he came out with theĀ words that consigned his tenure to the bin.
These options are all controversial. But most contentious of all, in a document that laid out plans to address the massive funding gap between the Premier League and the rest of English football, was the demand for voting power to be concentrated in the hands of a minority of clubs.
Following the widespread criticism that met its public release, it might have appeared to some observers as if the proposed changes in Project Big Picture had been scrapped.
As we will see, this is not the case. The story is far from over.
This is the messy reality now facing elite English football, where unity and compromise are in short supply, during a financial crisis threatening the wider game.
To understand how we got here, and where we are headed next, we need to wind back to 2019. Our starting point is in the south Mediterranean.
Over two days of talks in Malta, in June 2019, it became clear the writing was on the wall. The status quo could not last.
European Clubs’ Association members from 48 countries had met to discuss their issues with the continent’s competition structures.
Several men in particular had arrived in a hurry. Five representatives from England’s ‘big six’ left a Premier League meeting in Yorkshire early to jump on a private plane and head straight to Malta.
The sight of Tottenham’s Daniel Levy, Chelsea’s Bruce Buck, Manchester City’s Ferran Soriano, Ed Woodward of Manchester United and Arsenal’s Vinai Venkatesham arriving en masse showed they meant business. Liverpool chief executive Peter Moore had not been in Yorkshire and travelled independently on Ryanair.
The proposals being discussed – and favoured by a large majority – would mean more European games. That would mean more money for each participant in an expanded Champions League.
The Premier League had made its feelings known the day before. ‘More Europe’ was definitely not to its liking. “We believe the proposals would be detrimental to domestic leagues across the continent,” a statement read.
Nonetheless, those present understood what was in the air. On leaving the meeting, a senior English club executive came out with the line that Masters was to repeat 15 months later: “Change is coming whether we like it or not. We have to work with it, not against it.”
Various ideas have been mooted, on European expansion. Four groups of eight teams, six groups of six, a 36-team group phase where each team plays 10 different opponents. Even a repeat of last season’s ‘Super Eight’ knockout tournament. This would be replicated across the Champions League, the Europa League and Uefa’s new competition to be launched in June 2021, the Europa Conference League.
This expansion is aimed at increasing broadcasting revenues – at a time when England’s have started to dip. It is also trying to address concerns shared by some of Europe’s most historic clubs, over being left behind because they do not compete in the continent’s five richest leagues, with the Premier League at its head.
Liverpool’s Moore reported back to owner John Henry, Woodward did the same with Manchester United co-chairman Joel Glazer. By the time Uefa’s next club tournament broadcasting contract begins in 2024, they all realised, clubs were going to be asked to play more European matches on spare dates that – in England’s congested calendar – simply do not exist.
Henry had known this problem was brewing. And he believed the Premier League’s voting structure would work against what he saw as the solution. With decisions requiring a two-thirds majority, he felt there were 14 clubs working against the ‘big six’.
Between them, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham are England’s richest and best-known clubs. They have most of the top players. They are the teams TV subscribers worldwide want to see at home. Yet they cannot drive the Premier League for their own objectives. Reaching agreement is a frustrating process, as with the return of five substitutes, which City’s Pep Guardiola and Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp are desperate for, but others, including Aston Villa manager Dean Smith, reject.
From a wider perspective, the ‘six’ feel commercial decisions are repeatedly taken on a short-term basis, which restricts their ability to grow their income and compete with the likes of Netflix in an expanding digital media world.
In their view, the voting structure gives disproportionate weight to the opinions of clubs who may not even be in the league in 12 months’ time and whose financial outlook is framed by what happens now, not in 10 years.
Occasionally, breakaways have been threatened – around Project Big Picture a mass move into the Championship was mentioned – but have never gone anywhere. In the short term, it is likely that without ex-FA chairman Clarke’s involvement earlier this year, Henry, Glazer and the rest would have kept grumbling and done nothing.
However, Clarke changed the narrative by reaching out to Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck in January to chat about the future of English game amid what he considered to be a very real prospect of a breakaway European Super League (ESL).
This concept is felt by many to be the threat Europe’s biggest clubs routinely use in an effort to get their own way.
Indeed, in his exit speech as Barcelona president in October, Josep Maria Bartomeu said he had signed the club up to the idea – but no evidence has been presented to show this is the case. A clear issue is that operating outside the umbrella of world governing body Fifa would deny the players of those clubs access to their national teams.
Beyond that, those who refuse to believe an ESL is possible wonder if any of the clubs likely to be involved had ever thought of the consequences of finishing last in such a competition – as someone would have to – given their entire existence is built around success at the top end of elite football.
Clarke adopted a more cautious view, saying it would be “foolish in the extreme” to discount the potential for private equity investors to view top-level football as an investment vehicle. In other words; with enough money involved all obstacles might be overcome, and perhaps Fifa’s power would be marginalised. Maybe the very best international footballers would simply no longer play in competitions like the World Cup if alternative structures were more lucrative. After all, cricket witnessed similar in the late 1970s withĀ Kerry Packer’s World Series.
In suggesting to Buck that talks should be opened up to include another couple of clubs and the Premier League and EFL, Clarke was trying to address the situation as he saw it, while finding a solution for structural problems further down the pyramid. There was no Premier League representation in the talks that took place, and eventually resulted in Project Big Picture.
Then Covid-19 took the game in its grip. The ‘big six’ had something they could offer and virtually everyone else desperately needed – money.
On 5 May, EFL chairman Rick Parry told a DCMS committee his member clubs were staring at a “Ā£200m black hole”. But the vastly experienced former Liverpool chief executive, the first person to run the Premier League, knew he had a wider challenge: trying to smooth what has become a cliff edge between the Premier League and Championship.
The Championship play-off final is billed as football’s ‘richest game’. Its estimated Ā£170m value highlights the issue Parry is facing. The gap between the leagues is so wide, the entire future of the competing clubs could be shaped by one bad decision or mistake. Instead of a cliff, Parry’s aim is to turn the difference between England’s top two leagues into a slope.
For Parry, Project Big Picture, as it came to be known after Clarke had persuaded Henry to change the name from ‘Revitalisation’, contained many of the solutions to his problems. He engaged enthusiastically. By the time talks were halted and put on ice on 19 May, 18 meetings had been held. Differing narratives have since emerged but it is understood all parties had agreed they would resume at some stage.
With the hoped-for return of fans delayed, and Premier League losses at Ā£100m-a-month, that stage arrived in late September.
By that point, Parry’s plea was for Ā£250m. Progress in talks with the Premier League had been minimal. EFL clubs were getting desperate. A meeting of the ‘big six’ was convened on 8 October. Three days later, the plans were leaked to the Telegraph
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