  The three band structure of the extended Emery model for the copper-oxide
layered materials is analyzed for all the values of the effective tight-binding
parameters. The model is characterized by the Cu-O site energy splitting, the
Cu-O first neighbor hopping and the O-O second neighbor hopping. For the
sufficiently large O-O hoppings, two bands can come together at one point on
the diagonal of the square Brillouin zone, but they cannot cross. The range of
the parameters for which the band touching occurs is determined. The model
relates the band touching at the bottom of the two bands to the appearance of
the extended, one-dimensional-like van Hove singularity at the lower edge of
the density of states. With 1+\delta holes (\delta small) the extended van Hove
singularity can thus occur close to the Fermi level only if the latter cuts two
bands.The topology of the Fermi surfaces observed by ARPES in the high-Tc
superconductors elliminates such possibility. The Fermi surfaces in LSCO,
Bi1221 and Y123 are than fitted with the one of the three bands at the Fermi
level. The agreement is excellent considering in particular the fact that the
fits use only two parameters. The departure of the measured band structure from
the three band prediction, found on the small energy scales away from the Fermi
level, is attributed to the effects of the fluctuations not included into the
energy scales which define the three band structure.
