LIV Golf filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday, 8 September, in a restructuring the league said was needed to survive after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund announced in April it would stop bankrolling the breakaway tour after the 2026 campaign. PIF has agreed to provide nearly $50 million in debtor-in-possession financing.
For Danny Mills, that collapse is not an isolated golf story. Speaking to Goal, the former Manchester City right-back used the LIV precedent as a warning against any revival of the European Super League, which has crept back into the conversation after his old club was found guilty of nearly all of its Premier League financial charges.
“How’s that gone? It hasn’t gone brilliantly,” Mills told Goal of LIV’s trajectory.
“They found a very short-term workaround that then went ‘pop’. Because it’s not watchable.”
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Knighthoods and the FIFA problem
Mills’ deeper argument is that money alone will never pull the best players over the line. International football, with its World Cups and the honors that follow, remains the irreplaceable prize.
“You win the World Cup, you win the Euros, you’re a legend of your country, you get knighthoods, it’s there forever,” Mills said.
“The best players will still always want to play international football.”
There is also a regulatory block. FIFA, football’s world governing body, has to ratify a competition for its players to remain internationally eligible, a condition any breakaway would struggle to secure.
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“It’s very, very difficult. To play international football, FIFA have to ratify your competition,” Mills said. “I don’t think the Super League will ever have legs in that way.”
Mills on the jeopardy test
The second half of his case is sporting, not financial. A closed league with no relegation, Mills argues, destroys the only reason to keep watching once a title race is settled.
“Sport is all about jeopardy. Sport is all about winning and losing,” he said.
“If you’re not in the top four with 15 games to go, you go: don’t need to bother now.”
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“If you take that away, it becomes unwatchable, in my opinion.”
City’s 114 charges in the background
The Super League talk has returned because of Mills’ old club. An independent commission found Manchester City guilty of 114 of the 115 financial charges brought by the Premier League in February 2023, according to reports on Friday, 25 September. The original charges covered failing to provide accurate financial information, Financial Fair Play breaches, failure to cooperate with investigations, breaching profitability and sustainability regulations and failure to report contracts. Sanctions have not been handed down and the club is expected to appeal.
Former Everton chief executive Keith Wyness argued in a Yahoo Sports column on 7 October that City’s hierarchy may use the threat of a breakaway as “a bargaining chip in the discussion” over whatever punishment follows. Mills’ counter-argument is that such leverage would not survive contact with the players themselves.
No date has been set for the commission to rule on City’s sanction, with the club’s appeal rights still to run.
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