Lobby group for non-elite European teams proposes drastic changes to UEFA revenue distribution

Sofia, Bulgaria — Europe’s footballing have-nots have thrown down a gauntlet to the continent’s super-clubs, unveiling a blueprint that would slice the Champions League’s financial pie in an almost unrecognisable way. Delegates from the Union of European Clubs (UEC), the lobby set up to represent more than 140 sides from 25 nations, told the European Leagues’ general assembly on Wednesday that UEFA’s near-£4 billion annual club-competition pot should be shared far more evenly, stripping the traditional powers of the guaranteed windfalls they currently regard as their birth-right.

Central to the UEC plan is the abolition of the so-called “value pillar”, introduced only last year, which assigns roughly 35 per cent of the €3.3 billion distributed among the 108 teams that reach the league phase of UEFA’s three tournaments. That mechanism, which replaced the old coefficient and market-pool payments, funnels tens of millions to clubs with storied European pedigree or from the largest TV markets, regardless of how they perform on the pitch. The UEC wants that money redirected into a vastly enlarged “starting fee” pool that would then be split equally among every professional club in a participating team’s domestic league.

Solidarity payments, currently worth 10 per cent of the overall €4.4 billion pot and handed down to non-participating clubs, would disappear under the proposal, with the cash instead swelling the prize-money fund to €3.5 billion. Performance bonuses would remain intact, but the competition-specific splits would be recalibrated from the present 74/17/9 ratio (Champions League/Europa League/Conference League) to a flatter 50/30/20.

UEC analysts modelled the impact on nine leagues — Azerbaijan, Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Ukraine — and claim the gap between top and bottom would shrink from an average of more than 40-to-one to 5.5-to-one. In Ukraine, where Shakhtar Donetsk currently earns 140 times more than the last-placed club, and in Portugal, where the ratio is 80-to-one, the levelling effect would be even more pronounced.

Using last season’s numbers, Paris Saint-Germain’s UEFA-related income would tumble from €149 million to €78 million; similar drops would hit Barcelona, Inter Milan and Real Madrid. By contrast, hundreds of smaller professional clubs would receive seven-figure uplifts, money the UEC argues would rejuvenate domestic competitions whose title races have become perennially predictable.

“Playing in Europe is a dream for thousands of football clubs but the concentration of money at the top poses a serious risk of UEFA club competitions becoming stale and predictable,” a UEC spokesperson told The Athletic. “Now, with the sales process under way for media rights from 2027 onward, is the time for fresh thinking.”

The lobby accepts its ideas are unlikely to advance in their current form; Europe’s heavyweights still wield decisive influence inside UEFA’s corridors and have spent three decades turning commercial dominance into sporting dominance. Yet UEFA is known to be increasingly uneasy about the erosion of competitive balance inside its own tournaments and within member associations. Officials inside the governing body are therefore expected to welcome the UEC’s intervention as a useful contribution to a debate that will intensify once the next commercial cycle is negotiated.

For the moment, the proposal remains a lobbying document rather than imminent policy. But by quantifying exactly how much the giants stand to lose and how much the rest stand to gain, the UEC has ensured the issue of revenue polarisation will dominate the run-up to the next round of Champions League reforms.