Nasser Al Khelaifi tells doubters of European football model they were wrong

European clubs now enjoy greater affluence and influence after rejecting the Super League breakaway, the president of the European Club Association has said.

Nasser Al Khelaifi, who is also the president of Paris Saint-Germain who resisted calls to join the hugely controversial breakaway competition last April – hailed the joint commercial and marketing venture established between the ECA and European football’s governing body Uefa which is set to make the sale of Champions League rights in the first cycle post-2024 the most lucrative yet.

Revenue from Europe’s club competitions in 2024-27 is understood to be projected at five billion US dollars (£3.8bn) per season, up from 3.6bn US dollars (£2.7bn) per season in the current cycle.

Al Khelaifi says the orchestrators of the Super League were prepared to walk away from the mainstream of European football for a fraction of that.

“We have seen an amazing 39 per cent increase in the forecasted commercial value of the men’s Uefa club competitions for the post-2024 cycle, and while we still need to explore additional untapped revenue streams together, this is a historic increase in revenue,” the Qatari told the ECA’s General Assembly in Vienna.

“This deal also proves that the doubters of the European football model were wrong. More influence and more affluence for clubs, more progressive governance and more European togetherness – I remember some people trying to tear down the system for a fraction of these things last year.”

Al Khelaifi described the joint ECA and Uefa process to identify marketing partners to sell commercial rights for the European competitions as “more than a tender – it represented a tectonic shift in the role that clubs now play in the decisions that shape