Quietly, with strangely very little fuss, the landscape of European football is changing.
Right beneath everyone's noses, a plan is being put in place to transform the Champions League by as early as 2024.
Tony Evans wrote about the new format in the
Independent.co.uk, which proposes four leagues of eight 'super' teams whose places in the new elite structure would be completely unaffected by performances in domestic competitions. Instead, you could only lose your place there with relegation from the Champions League and you could only gain your place there through the Europa League.
It's the Super League they've all been dreaming up and it deems the English title more redundant. Eventually, you have to wonder if the six English teams beginning in the European structure will care too much about the Premier League trophy - or even top 4 - as the continental factor takes over and the money moves from local to international football.
That would have a major ripple effect through English football - in particular, the Championship teams who are investing like crazy on the idea their risk will be rewarded with a payday in the Premier League and all the TV money that comes with it. If that TV money goes somewhere else, everything changes.
On Friday night's post-game The Football Spin episode, Tony Evans broke down what's happening, from 17:20 below.
"What UEFA are looking at is the like of Netflix coming in and Amazon," Evans said here.
He continued.
"They don't particularly care about domestic games, they don't want to see Liverpool playing Norwich on a Friday night - they don't want to broadcast that because their global audience doesn't care.
"But they do care about Liverpool against Barcelona or Liverpool against Bayern Munich or Man United against Real Madrid. It's a European Super League to be quite honest and the expectation is that the money will move away from the domestic game to this.
"No-one seems to have picked up that this is happening. No-one seems to care and no-one seems to be fighting it.
"The 14 other Premier League clubs are powerless."
This idea of a Super League could not be coming at a worse time for Manchester City though and Evans went into detail about that too.
Also on the show:
- Liverpool v Norwich analysis
- A revisit to a Divock Origi clip
- Signing of the season
- The best full-backs in football
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