Premier League clubs face LOSING a Champions League place and over £25m of guaranteed payments

Premier League clubs could lose one of their automatic Champions League qualifying places and over £25million of their income from the tournament as the battle to control the future of European football continues to intensify. 

Under proposals developed by the European Leagues Association all the top leagues would be limited to just three automatic qualifiers from 2021, whilst the group which represents 36 leagues and over 950 clubs also want UEFA to abolish payments based on the clubs’ historical success.

The four Premier League clubs in this season’s Champions League are guaranteed payments totalling £89m as a result of UEFA’s ‘historical ranking’ distribution mechanism, with Chelsea getting the most at £27.9m on the basis of their recent track record in the competition, but the ELA want to replace this system to one based purely on current performance. 

The news would provide a blow to the finances of teams like Liverpool and Chelsea 

Almost a third of UEFA’s £1.75billion prize fund for this season is based on clubs’ ‘co-efficient ranking’ over the previous 10 years, with Chelsea currently fifth and European champions Liverpool down in 10th.

Speaking at the Leaders conference in London the president of European Leagues Lars-Christer Olsson called for such historical payments to be redistributed to all competing clubs, as well as for the leading leagues to lose one of their four automatic qualifying places. 

The Premier League have had four spots since 2015, but under the new proposals which would need to be ratified by UEFA the fourth-placed finisher would face a two-legged play-off to reach the Champions League group stage from 2021.

‘We are saying we should look into the financial distribution as a whole and our message is that the solidarity has to increase,’ Olsson said. ’20 to 25 per cent of the money has to go to solidarity payments. The historical coefficient would be a good place to look for money.

‘The big leagues are prepared to participate in this discussion for something new if they are treated the same. But if you are giving four positions to the Premier League and taking one away from the Bundesliga then you have a problem.’

Chelsea receive the most money out of English clubs this season due to recent records 

Manchester City and Tottenham are the other English Champions League teams this season

The European Leagues remain locked in a stand-off with the European Clubs Association over proposals to reform the Champions League, with some of the biggest clubs pushing for an expansion to guarantee more games and even the establishment of a closed European league. 

Juventus chairman and head of the ECA Andrea Agnelli told Leaders that change is needed to keep football relevant to children due to the threat posed by e-sports and gaming, but he has yet to gain the support of the majority of clubs.

‘If we are not progressive, we are simply protecting a system that is no longer there, a system that is made of domestic games that will have little interest for our kids,’ Agnelli said. ‘We want to see more European matches with higher sporting quality.’