ABSTRACT
On 9 November 1977, there was an informal meeting of club, national and UEFA representatives in London to discuss the possibility of creating a European league once again:
The divide which emerged in this meeting about the possible transformation of the UEFA Cup highlighted the battlelines in professional European football at that time. The national federations defended the autonomy of their leagues against any increase in European club competition: There were of course adversaries to the idea, like Mr Bangerter, Mr Hardaker and Mr Croker. All of these are secretaries of their organisations. They talked about the complica tions of these fixtures and the other commitments of the World Cup, the European Nations Cup and the rest’ (ibid.). By contrast, the big European clubs advocated increased European competition as the solution to their economic difficulties. Matt Busby promoted the development of European competition strongly: ‘We are now living in a different era. This is an age for progress. The problem of fixtures should be nothing compared to the opportunities that it offers to others’ (ibid.). Yet, the clubs were too weak in the 1970s to implement their proposals and the London meeting was rapidly forgotten. The UEFA Cup and the other European competitions remained unchanged, though Green’s article concluded with a prophetic sentence: ‘As Busby says, there must be progress and one day, though most of us will be gone, it will come to pass’ (ibid.). In fact, the conditions for the development of a European league appeared sooner than Green anticipated.
