If the executive committee decides in December on a 2000 start rather than 1999, “I think the clubs would have to live with it,” Aigner said at the end of a special Uefa meeting.
Last month representatives of major clubs agreed not to join a breakaway Super League after Uefa proposed changing its Champions’ League, offering teams more money.Uefa promised to expand next season’s League from 24 to 32 clubs, playing in eight groups of four teams in the first stage. It also proposed to merge the Uefa Cup and Cup-Winners’ Cup into one competition, called the Uefa Cup. Leading clubs want the new competitions to begin next season to maximise potential earnings.”There were some reservations about an early start,” Aigner said. Uefa stressed that both revamped competitions would have to start the same year. The 17 dates needed to stage the new-look Champions’ League in an already tight season could prove a problem for some of Europe’s larger leagues.Uefa presented to associations two alternatives for the new Uefa Cup, one of which would see eight teams who did not qualify from their Champions’ League group joining the competition in its third round. “The feedback that we get is overwhelmingly positive for that move,” Aigner said.The wealthier associations favoured a group stage in the Uefa Cup, but smaller federations backed a straight knockout format, he added.In other business, Uefa members agreed a memorandum backing its regulations to prevent two or more clubs owned by the same company taking part in the same European club competition.In July, the Court of Arbitration for Sport provisionally suspended the regulation, ruling that Uefa had not given clubs enough time to adjust when it was introduced in May.The ruling came in response to an arbitration request from the Greek club AEK Athens and Czech club Slavia Prague, both controlled by the British company ENIC.The associations “reaffirm our unqualified support for the Uefa rule, and the sporting principles which underlie it,” the statement said.

They also agreed to lobby the European Union for an anti-trust exemption to allow Uefa to market television rights centrally.”Unless a means to redistribute income is recognised, there is a real danger that the existing disparities between the rich and poor will become a yawning gulf,” they said in a memorandum, adding: “The marketing of competition matches by individual clubs will inevitably disrupt the league structure, as investors would focus only on the best teams.”. TOTTENHAM SUPPORTERS will urge their chairman, Alan Sugar, to make more money available for transfers instead of buying back shares in the club at today’s annual meeting. One resolution to be debated at White Hart Lane proposes to allow the club to buy back some of its own shares from shareholders.
However, some Spurs fans feel the money involved in the scheme, thought to be worth around pounds 8m, would be better spent on strengthening the side.And Bernie Kingsley, co-ordinator of the Spurs Independent Supporters’ Association and a shareholder himself, intends to make his objections known to Sugar at the meeting. “It seems to me that they’re talking about pounds 8m to buy their own shares.

Why?” Kingsley said.”It will be of benefit to the shareholders who have their shares bought and it benefits the other shareholders in that the value of the shares will probably rise. But why can’t we use the money to buy players or make the ground bigger? It seems to me it’s taking money out of the club.”Why not add it to the pounds 18m that’s supposed to be available and make it pounds 26m? You don’t get much for your money these days and we need another centre-half, some midfielders and cover at full-back.”The meeting is, however, likely to be one of the most positive for years at White Hart Lane with the club finally looking like putting seasons of turmoil behind it.George Graham, the new manager, has apparently won over the majority of supporters opposed to a former Arsenal manager taking over and has the club up to 10th in the Premiership and through to the quarter-finals of the Worthington Cup.Kingsley said: “It’s quite positive at the moment Things are looking up. We have got over the shock of having a Gunner as manager and he’s got them playing quite well. I don’t think there will be a lot of people against George Graham. I think that’s in the past and people are looking forward.”But one contentious issue that is almost certain to be raised is the debate over tickets for the Premiership meeting with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.The club is alleged to have turned down the chance to buy more tickets from Chelsea for the match on 19 December and increased the price of tickets to watch the match on a big screen at White Hart Lane.Kingsley said: “I think they will get a bit of stick for that and quite rightly.