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Following the ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to stop UEFA and FIFA from blocking the breakaway football tournament, the sports development company A22 announced the new potential format for the European Super League (ESL) on Thursday, December 21. The CEO of A22, Bernd Reichart, declined to reveal the club names for the tournament on YouTube during a presentation.
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However, Reichart stated that the fans will be able to watch the matches of the ESL free of charge on a fan-centric streaming platform. The A22 CEO also informed that apart from the men’s tournament, there will be a women’s tournament for the European Super League too.
European Super League potential format
The new format of the European Super League will have 64 men’s and 32 women’s teams playing midweek matches in a league system across Europe. There will be three divisions in the men’s tournament with the Star League and the Gold League, each featuring 16 clubs, while the Blue League will have 32 clubs, based on sporting merit without any permanent members.
The annual promotion and relegation system will be present among the three divisions of the ESL, wherein eight clubs will play home and away matches in phases against each other to ensure a minimum of 14 matches for each one of them every year. At the end of the ESL season, the knockout stages will give champions of each league, which will lead to a promotion and relegation system coming into play.
Also, the women’s tournament will have two leagues of 16 teams each with a similar kind of pattern to determine the champions, promoted, and relegated clubs.
A22 stated the following in a statement about the European Super League, “Participating clubs stay in their domestic leagues which remain the foundation of European football. Now that clubs can determine their own future at European level, we look forward to further engagement with a broad set of football stakeholders to achieve the objective of all great sporting competitions.”
