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Taken together, the proposals amount to the biggest changes in English soccer in more than a quarter of a century. An 18-team Premier League. Hundreds of millions of dollars in extra payments from Premier League clubs to their poorer rivals. And an end of direct payment to clubs relegated from the top division.
The reform plan — the brainchild of the American owners of England’s two biggest and most successful clubs, Manchester United and Liverpool — would remake the structure that governs English soccer’s four professional leagues and replace it with what those behind the idea have pitched as a more sustainable model.