Premier League: clubs and officials to meet at power summit

Premier League power brokers meet today in London and Sky Sports reports that it will be a packed agenda for the representatives of the 20 clubs that comprise England’s top-flight.

The most pressing item is what Sky Sports calls as the proposal “to make the most significant changes to the European football calendar in a generation”.

That’s how the broadcaster describes the discussions ongoing this week in Geneva at the European Club Association (ECA), when delegates will consider Uefa’s proposed changes to European competitions from 2024.

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The Premier League has been staunch opponents of the idea of a European super league, as have their Spanish counterparts, both fearful that such a competition could be the death knell for their domestic leagues.

But there will be other important items on the agenda, reports Sky Sports, including:

Summer transfer window

Sky Sports News understands that the bulk of the Premier League clubs “are keen on a return to a summer deadline day three weeks later than the present August 8 closure”.

Displaying a touch of conceit, perhaps, the Premier League introduced the changes last year in the expectation that where they go the rest of the Europe follows.

But the other leagues resisted the idea of moving their own transfer deadlines to 8 August and consequently the English elite feel at a disadvantage, “allowing for their European counterparts to unsettle and, in some cases, sign players they would prefer to keep”.

It’s expected a decision to move the summer deadline back to the end of August will be approved today or at the latest at their next meeting in November.

Video assistant referees (VAR)

The success - or otherwise - of VAR will be discussed but it’s not expected that there will be any moves to scrap the system that was introduced at the start of the season. According to Sky, the Premier League clubs have accepted that “it might take up to three years for everyone to adjust to VAR”.

Search for a new chief executive

Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck will brief the 20 clubs on the ongoing hunt for a new Premier League chief executive to replace Richard Scudamore, who left ten months ago.

The search has proved problematical after the initial replacement, Susanna Dinnage, a senior executive from the Discovery Channel, withdrew just weeks before she was due to take up the lucrative position.

According to Sky Sports, the net has been widened “to include management talent from across the globe, not necessarily with expertise in football or TV rights”.