Uefa is considering allowing clubs with the same owner to play in the Champions League simultaneously ? a move that could have significant ramifications for the takeover of Manchester United.
Aleksander Ceferin, the president of European football's governing body, said a rethink was needed and that two options ? to keep the present rule banning clubs with the same owner playing in the same competition, or to allow them to take part ? would be explored.
The two main offers for United have come from owners who have relationships with clubs in France's top flight. Sir Jim Ratcliffe's Ineos group also owns Nice, while the other bid has been submitted by Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, the chairman of one of Qatar's biggest banks, raising concerns about links to the Qatar-owned Paris Saint-Germain.
In an interview with Gary Neville's The Overlap YouTube channel, Ceferin also apologised for last season's Champions League final turmoil involving Liverpool fans, and revealed that Manchester City and Chelsea had been "hesitant" in joining the European Super League ? which he insisted could not exist without English clubs.
Asked about the potential conflict with owning two clubs in the same competition, Ceferin said: "We are not thinking about Manchester United only. We've had five or six owners of clubs who want to buy another club. We have to see what to do.
"The options are that it stays like that or that we allow them to play in the same competition. I'm not sure yet.
"We have to speak about these regulations and see what to do about it. There is more and more interest in this multi-club ownership. We shouldn't just say no for the investments for multi-club ownership, but we have to continued from back see what kind of rules we set in that case, because the rules have to be strict."
Ceferin suggested that two clubs with the same owner could still compete properly in the same competition.
"From one point of view, it's true if you are the owner of two clubs and they play in the same competition you can say to one club to lose because you want the other to win," he added. "But for you, as a football player, do you think it's so easy to do that, to tell a coach, lose because the other wants to win?"
In his first response to an independent panel's report, which found Uefa "primarily responsible" for the chaotic scenes at the Champions League final in Paris, Ceferin offered his apologies. Fans were pushed into bottlenecks and tear-gassed, and Ceferin said the French police "had not communicated" with Uefa. "I feel sorry for what happened and we will make sure that it doesn't happen again," he said.
"When I went to the match, I had a meeting with the King of Spain and someone came and said there is a problem with some entrances with the fans. We didn't know how serious that was, because Uefa does not have jurisdiction outside the stadium. The French police did not communicate with us. There is not a single person in Uefa who is not terribly sorry and the main topic of conversation is how to make sure it does not happen again. We have to have better communication with the local authorities because in London [at the Euro 2021 final] again it was not Uefa who should protect outside the stadium, it was local police and, obviously, not very successfully."
Ceferin accepted that Uefa's initial statement blaming ticketless fans was "a mistake". The Uefa president also told The Overlap that City and Chelsea had been "hesitant" to join the European Super League in April 2021 but that the owners of Liverpool and United had been "very much involved". "Two clubs were hesitating in England, they said we want to stay friends with you, we will be friends with you from within," he said, confirming that they were City and Chelsea. "I had a phone call from one, I will not say which. I lost it a bit and said, 'You go to hell, from tomorrow you are my enemies, I don't want to speak to you any more.' It was tough."
Ceferin added there was "no way" a Super League could exist without English clubs and that he was not concerned about the Premier League's financial dominance compared with other European leagues. "I am not worried, the Premier League is doing a good job and the other leagues should do a better job," he said. Ceferin also defended Uefa's new Financial Fair Play rules ? clubs will be limited to spending 70 per cent of revenues on transfers and wages ? and said he would like to reduce further the gap in financial distribution between the Champions League and Europa League but accepted that it could prove difficult. ? The full interview with Ceferin is out on Neville's The Overlap YouTube channel at 3pm today.