European Club Association (ECA) chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has defended UEFA's Champions League reforms, labelling criticism as "fake news" while denying the changes only serve to increase the wealth gap between competing clubs.
UEFA's key upcoming change automatically guarantees four Champions League group-stage places each to Europe's top four countries from 2018-2021, which are currently Spain, Germany, England and Italy.
"It's totally false that [the] rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer," Rummenigge said at a news conference in his capacity as chairman of the ECA after a two-day general assembly in Athens, Greece. "It's fake news. The biggest beneficiaries will come from the middle-size countries like Holland and Scotland and so on.
"Clubs from Germany, Spain, England, Italy and France are responsible for [bringing] in 86 percent of the total income of the Champions League, which is much less than the 60 percent they get back in exchange."
Rummenigge, who represents 220 member clubs from 53 UEFA associations, maintained the "reforms will make the Champions League more emotional and stronger than ever."
He added: "The distribution in favour of eliminated clubs is being increased by 224 percent. This is an enormous [sum of] money which has [produced] a good solidarity feeling in ECA. Also, the distribution to the Europa League is being increased by 264 percent so I believe we have a huge growth of feeling of solidarity in our group."
Rummenigge, who is also Bayern Munich's CEO, said there were not any plans to form a European Super League among his ECA membership.
"All clubs within Europe understand and accept the reforms," he said. "We are totally happy under UEFA and want to remain so in the future."