'Manchester United's new owner Malcolm Glazer is expected to initiate a fresh attempt to form a breakaway European super league. The American tycoon has seen one avenue of increasing United's revenue closed after the European Commission ruled out any support for a legal challenge to the Premier League's policy of selling TV rights collectively.
The Glazer family are understood to have now instructed their advisers to sound out other members of the G14 group of 18 elite clubs about the chances of a breakaway European competition.
What the Glazer family would really like is for United to be able to negotiate their own TV deals but that door looks to be shut for both overseas and domestic rights, leaving a new European league as the only way to find new TV money.
Glazer's ideal scenario would be a league where clubs are guaranteed involvement every year without having to qualify, similar to the American NFL in which his Tampa Bay Buccaneers compete.
In his mind, that would cement United's long-term future and guarantee a permanent high-income stream. Glazer should have a powerful ally in Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. G14 was Berlusconi's idea, driven by his Milan-based company Media Partners, whose efforts to form a breakaway league in 1998 forced UEFA into expanding the Champions League and increasing TV money for the clubs.'