Football's inevitable march towards a European Super League appears to be one step closer following talks between the top brass at Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal, as reported by The Sun.The meeting took place at London's Dorchester hotel on Tuesday and was attended by United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward, Liverpool's Ian Ayre, Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck, Ferran Soriano of City, and Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis.They were brought together by American billionaire Stephen Ross – the majority owner of NFL side the Miami Dolphins – to discuss breaking away from the Champions League and the Premier League to form a competition that unites Europe's top clubs. Ross, however, was not present yesterday.It is easy to speculate that the clubs joining them from overseas would include the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, and Juventus.The timing of the talks is no coincidence: three of the five clubs at the meeting look unlikely to qualify for next season's Champions League, with United, Liverpool and Chelsea all outside the top four. Liverpool have only played Champions League football once in the past six seasons.The situation has been made more worrying this term by the rise of Leicester City – who seem almost certain to gatecrash the Champions League next term – and Spurs, who have been transformed from perennial top-six challengers into title protagonists. The north London club also looks certs for Champions League football.Speaking to the BBC's Dan Roan last week, Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu said he was in favour of wildcard entries for the Champions League. Such a system would prevent clubs like Chelsea from dropping out of the tournament following poor domestic showings.Obviously this flies in the face of what sport should be about – rewarding success on the pitch, rather than profile – and would likely be met with outrage by a large number of fans.However a European Super League would be detrimental to domestic divisions across Europe. England's TV deal would be worth considerably less without United, Chelsea et al, which would have a trickle down effect on the entire Football League.Maybe they're just posturing to get what they want, but the move towards a European Super League does seem that bit closer. You can blame Leicester for all this – how dare they have the temerity to put together an excellent season on a comparatively small budget and challenge English football's chosen elite…
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