ROY Hodgson admits that a European Super League is feasible because of the mega-money men believed to be behind the proposals, writes PETER WHITE.

But the Blackburn Rovers boss, a true European in a soccer sense, also believes that the game will be best served by maintaining healthy and robust traditional leagues in the continent's footballing strongholds.

That is his greatest concern, leagues such as the Premiership or Serie A - and he has worked in both - being depleted by an exodus.

In practical terms, however, he points out that such a scenario is unlikely to happen.

To Hodgson, it would make more sense to see strong domestic competition upheld, possibly with changes to the existing European competitions.

And he dismisses notions that, just because some clubs are rich and powerful, they should have an automatic passport to Europe. Milan, who have been trying to obtain a wild card entry to the Champions' League as former winners, are a case in point.

There is much secrecy surrounding the suggestions for a breakaway league and the game's administrators have spoken of sanctions against any clubs who quit the establishment, following revelations that talks had been taking place.

Hodgson, like most of the football men who have commented over the past few days, wants the domestic game to continue to thrive in all the countries where it is successful at the moment.

Though he qualified his opinions on talk of a Super League by saying he had not yet looked at things in any detail.

"I have got to say that, at the moment I am talking off the top of my head," he said. "I haven't studied the situation, so any quotes from me are no more worthwhile than from the man in the street.

"Of course it's feasible because Berlusconi and Murdoch and these people who own the major TV stations have enormous power and enormous money.

"They can attract people with their wealth.

"But I think, for the good of the game, I would much rather see the strength of the leagues that we see at the moment in England, Italy, Spain, Germany, France and Portugal etc etc remain. "I would rather those leagues remain strong and then afterwards maybe the UEFA competition is to some extent modified to give even more European competition.

"If there's going to be a European Super League with a maximum of, I suppose,18 to 20 teams then there aren't going to be many English teams in it are there?

"Because if it's meant to be a European Super League, surely we have got to cover something like eight to 10 countries.

"And if you cover eight to 10 countries, you aren't going to get six English teams in it.

"If it's going to be a couple of teams from each country there are going to be a lot of good teams excluded from a Super League.

"In turn that might mean the leagues in those countries remain very strong."

Milan's attempt to get back into the European big-time by the back door is clearly wrong in Hodgson's eyes.

He explained: "I can't really understand why teams should think they can finish outside the top four or five in their league and justify that they should still be in European football. "Just because, let's say, Milan are a rich club that shouldn't give them an automatic entry when they have a disastrous league season.

"They must accept the rules of football like everyone else.

"A disastrous league season means you miss out on Europe for one year. You put it right and get back in the following year like we did at Blackburn."

The worst scenario for the game would be for the biggest clubs to break away and go it alone.

Hodgson feels there would be so much to lose if such a thing happened.

"The thing I don't want to see is the Premier League, Serie A and the Bundesliga particularly weakened by the attractive, or traditional, clubs in those countries breaking away," he said.

"I would like to think that it's going to be possible in England, in Italy and in Germany to continue to fill stadiums with the type of football that the clubs within those countries play.

"And that it's not going to be that all of those countries are playing to empty houses and everyone's clustered around the television set for one or two matches a week on the TV."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.