The FA will act to ban any clubs that breakaway, from signing foreign players as part of their new rules. These rules are designed to prevent the Big Six Premier League clubs from attempting to set up any new European Super League.
The English FA’s chief executive Mark Bullingham said that the governing body, which recommends to the Home Office whether work permits should be issued for any foreign player coming to England, insisted that no club playing outside official leagues would be allowed to sign any foreign players.
Bullingham said in a statement: ‘We may tweak some aspects of the visa system to make sure that people only get visas for our competitions which we accredit.”
‘So, you can’t pull in talent from abroad to play in competitions that we don’t sanction. They couldn’t bring in foreign players to play in that [breakaway] competition.’
The ‘big six’ clubs of Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham and Chelsea were among the 12 founding members of the breakaway plans. The Premier League clubs that were initially involved have been fined £3.67 million each and a future attempt from any club could result in an individual fine of £25million along with a 30-point deduction.
The European Super League is a proposed breakaway competition from the UEFA Champions League that initially had the support of 12 founding clubs. However, three days after the unveiling of plans to commence the league were announced; the league suspended its operations due to massive protests in England by fans of English clubs who opposed the league and the subsequent exit of 9 founding members. A major criticism of the league by the fans and media was that it promoted elitism and a lack of competitiveness.
Only 3 clubs out of the original 12 founding members remain – Juventus, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. On 31 May 2021, the Super League company filed a complaint to the Court of Justice of the European Union against Swiss-based FIFA and UEFA for their proposals finalized to stop the organization of the competition.
