Ten places have been offered to Premiership clubs in the proposed Super League as the bidding war for control of European club competition hotted up and the English clubs prepared for a showdown with the breakaway organisers on Thursday.

However, in a new twist, Manchester United, one of the key movers in the struggle, played down the chances of a split from the Premiership. The Old Trafford director Peter Kenyon said: "Our prime objective is the Premier League. We will not do anything to disrupt that. It is a 42-week event and remains our priority."

UEFA is offering English clubs eight places in Europe this season. But Peter Ekelund, a director of Media Partners, the sports management firm which devised the lucrative rebel plans, said: "At the Premiership meeting on Thursday we will offer 10 places to Premier League clubs in our competition."

UEFA, meanwhile, confirmed its intention to devise its own Super League at a meeting in Monaco on Saturday. But, significantly, Europe's governing body reversed its original opposition to entry based on anything other than the previous season's results. It agreed that a working party set up to look into new ideas would consider the notion of wild-card entries based on a club's record over the previous five or more years.

This is UEFA's way of wooing clubs attracted to the financial lure of guaranteed entry during an unsuccessful domestic season, countering Media Partners' guaranteed membership of their European Football League for a minimum of three seasons to founder clubs.

Media Partners has commissioned a Mori poll which shows that four out of five supporters in Britain back a Super League, though it is unclear whether supporters expressed a preference as to who ran it.

Media Partners also intends to prove to the meeting that it has the £2 billion in place to support its venture.

UEFA, meanwhile, has invited representatives of various national leagues on to its working party, including the Premier League's chief executive Peter Leaver, plus Liverpool, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Ajax and Marseille.

Who ultimately emerges victorious from the Super League fight depends on how much more extra money UEFA's changes will give the clubs and how serious potential rebels are about taking on the governing bodies if the new figures do not stack up.