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• Europe’s biggest clubs could start breakaway league in 2014
• Owners motivated by possibility of generating more money

Who are the teams involved?

It is the biggest brands in football that are driving this agenda. Between them Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Internazionale, Milan, Manchester United, Liverpool and Barcelona have won 36 European Cup and Champions League titles, almost two-thirds of those played. Where these clubs play money will undoubtedly follow.

Added to this are Arsenal and Chelsea who, despite never having won Europe’s elite trophy, boast international fanbases that would assist in driving the revenues of a competition. There would also be invitations to the other big names from across Europe: Juventus, Roma, Ajax, Porto, Marseille and a few others — Manchester City perhaps?

Why do they want to do it?

The short answer is: money. And lots of it. A new breed of football owner has emerged who does not see the proprietorship of their sporting assets as a benevolent activity. Men such as Silvio Berlusconi have used football club ownership to push a popular political agenda, or Roman Abramovich to raise his profile overseas with a trophy asset. Both have been content to sustain huge losses in support of their clubs. But the US owners who began entering the football market with the 2005 Glazer takeover of Manchester United are used to generating cash from their sports franchises. They consider it insane that almost every entity at the top of the world’s most popular sport haemorrhages cash.

How could they make a breakaway actually happen?

Legally they would be entitled to break away from football’s existing structures in 2014 when the current accord between the clubs and Uefa, which in the Champions League runs the club game’s most lucrative competition, elapses.

Eyeballs follow Lionel Messi, Wayne Rooney and Fernando Torres wherever they go. And with fan interest come the dollars of sponsors and broadcasters – as Fifa has found with the explosion of its revenues over the past decade and a half.

In 1997 Fifa’s entire annual revenue was $22.5m; by 2009, at the same stage in a World Cup cycle because it was also one year before a tournament took place, Fifa had generated $1bn from their events. With that amount of money to share between them the clubs could make anything happen.

How would a breakaway work?

To maximise revenues and to provide security of income for those clubs involved, access to the tournament is likely to be restricted. Although a closed league would probably not play well with European fans used to promotion and relegation, a simple play-off system for a single place may be the kind of sop that clubs aim to get away with.

Similarly to the existing Uefa Champions League, it

It’s a packed pod today with John Ashdown, Paul Doyle, Sean Ingle and surprise guest David Conn joining James Richardson to chew over the action from the last few days.

Naturally we look at the midweek fixtures and, after Blackpool inflicted a second successive defeat on Kenny Dalglish, we ask: is it time a big club came in for Ian Holloway?

Elsewhere, we hail Ipswich for their thrilling Carling Cup semi-final win over Arsenal – and there’s also time for Paul Doyle to argue why English owners are just as bad as foreign owners and to get the nitty-gritty on Uefa’s fair play proposals.

Sid Lowe is in glorious technicolour via Skype from Madrid. We discuss the fallout from the Ballon d’Or and renewed interest in Copa del Rey. Meanwhile Ewan Murray runs us through the latest developments over the bullets sent in the post to SPL players and plans to cut the league to 10 teams.

We end by looking ahead to the weekend’s fixtures and ask: can Spurs finally end United’s unbeaten Premier League record?

James RichardsonDavid ConnSean IngleSid LoweJohn AshdownPaul DoyleEwan MurrayAndy Duckworth

• Aston Villa play Rapid Vienna, Celtic face Utrecht
• Manchester City drawn against Romanian minnows Timisoara

Liverpool will play the Turkish side Trabzonspor in the Europa League play-off after the draw in Nyon this afternoon. Manchester City received probably the most straight-forward draw of all the British sides when they were picked to face Timisoara, who finished fifth in the Romanian top flight last season.

Europa League play-off draw
PSG v Maccabi Tel Aviv

Leverkusen v Tavriya

CSKA Moscow v Anorthosis

Hajduk Split v Unirea Urziceni

Feyenoord v Gent

Genk v Porto

Debrecen v Lovech

Aris v Austria Vienna

Galatasaray v Karpaty

Palermo v Maribor

Club Brugge v Dinamo Minsk

Omonia v Metalist

Vaslui v Lille

Napoli v Elfsborg

Sporting v Brondby

GC v Steaua Bucharest

Liverpool v Trabzonspor

Celtic v Utrecht

Dortmund v Qarabag

AIK v Levski

Sturm v Juventus

Getafe v Apoel

Dundee United v AEK

AZ v Aktobe

Dnipro v Lech

Rapid Vienna v Aston Villa

CSKA Sofia v TNS

Besiktas v HJK

Slovan Bratislava v Stuttgart

Sibir v PSV Eindhoven

BATE v Maritimo

Lausanne v Lokomotiv Moscow

Gyor v Dinamo Zagreb

Odense v Motherwell

PAOK v Fenerbahce

Villarreal v Dnepr

Manchester City v Timisoara

First leg to be played 19 August, second leg 26 August

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