Top European Soccer Teams Agree to Join Breakaway League

A group led by Juventus, Manchester United, Liverpool and Real Madrid has agreed in principle on a plan that would upend the sport’s structures and economics.

LONDON — A group of the world’s richest and most storied soccer clubs has agreed in principle on a plan to create a breakaway European club competition that would, if it comes to fruition, upend the structures, economics and relationships that have bound global soccer for nearly a century. After months of secret talks, the breakaway teams — which include Real Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, Manchester United and Liverpool in England, and Juventus and A.C. Milan in Italy — could make an announcement as early as Sunday, according to multiple people familiar with the plans. The timing of the announcement appears designed to overshadow Monday’s plan by European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, to ratify a newly designed Champions League, a competition which would be decimated by the departure of its biggest teams.