Last year’s botched European Super League plot involving the Premier League’s so-called ‘big six’ remains fresh in many in English football.
The plans were as short-lived as they were dramatic, with the Manchester clubs, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham quickly falling on their swords amid the weight of a revolt by fans across the country.
For one former football administrator, the plot was no surprise and nothing new. The saga brought back memories of a similar, but even more drastic plan involving some of the biggest clubs in Europe. It convinced him to write a book about his life in the game.
It was the mid-1980s and Dick Chester was club secretary at Sheffield Wednesday, then of the top-flight and one of the biggest clubs in the country. He was asked to accompany his chairman, Bert McGhee, to Villa Park for a secret meeting which also involved leading figures from Arsenal, Aston Villa, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Everton, Newcastle, Liverpool and Tottenham.
The matter up for discussion? The creation of a new Super League that would change the face of the domestic game.
Unlike the Super League plan of 2021, which would have seen the ‘big six’ continue in the Premier League but not UEFA competitions, this plot would have seen the clubs break away from the Football League entirely, more than seven years before the creation of the Premier League.
More secret meetings followed and the conditions of the new league were set out. The new league would be restricted to clubs with a ground capacity of 30,000 or above. Any club that wanted to join would have to apply and meet certain criteria.
That wasn’t all. Old Firm duo Rangers, Celtic and Dutch giants Ajax were approached about joining at some stage. Chester believes Real Madrid and Bayern Munich were also sounded out.
“There was an emphasis on encouraging European sides to join,” Chester tells Daily Star Sport. “On one afternoon, I was in Peter Robinson’s [his counterpart at Anfield] office in Liverpool and he was involved in a conversation with Ajax. The other clubs that were interested were Glasgow Celtic and Glasgow Rangers.”
The English clubs wanted a greater share of the game’s television income, among other things, although it was generally accepted that the plan would have a detrimental impact on clubs lower down the leagues. Still, they pressed on.
The finer details of the new league were prepared, with Chester, a former referee, drawing up requirements for officials. He asked top-flight referee Keith Hackett to read through his proposals which included abolishing the upper age limit for officials. The mantra was, 'if you were fit enough, you could carry on'.
“The [new] league was looking at being more condensed with better teams. Accordingly, they wanted better referees,” explains Chester.
Incredibly, according to Chester, the plan had the backing of then Football Association secretary Ted Croker. The Super League teams planned to continue playing in domestic cup competitions but would have surely received a hostile reception from the fans of clubs not involved.
As a former secretary at lower league Lincoln City, one of the many clubs which would have potentially lost out, the plan left Chester with mixed feelings and fearful for the future of the game as a whole.
“What reaction those teams would have got had it been played, had they drawn the likes of Lincoln City or Notts County, you can’t imagine they would have been warmly received,” suggests Chester, who also had a spell as club secretary at Sheffield United.
But in the end, the plans fell by the wayside in a much less spectacular way than in 2021. Chester believes the clubs got cold feet, fearing a potential backlash from the game as a whole.
“I was sat there in a meeting waiting for the issue to be raised and for the clubs to resign [from the Football League], but nothing happened,” recalls Chester.
“The night previously the people involved had met up and there didn’t seem to be an issue. This is my assumption, but I think they might have been nervous about an outcry from Graham Kelly [then secretary of the Football League] about it not being in the best interests of football.
“It left me dumbfounded because, throughout the negotiations, you would never have thought there were any doubts whatsoever [about the league going ahead]. Whether there was something in the wind about better TV contracts, I don’t know.
“My feelings were mixed. I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be serving a club in the real top, top flight, but quite relieved that football, as an industry, had been saved.”
Fast forward to 1992, by which time Kelly was chief executive of the FA, having left the Football League in 1989, and the Premier League was formed.
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