Florentino Pérez has been talking, so here are the “highlights” of what he said:
“Many important clubs in Spain, Italy and UK want to find a solution to a very bad financial situation. The only way is to play more competitive games. If instead of playing the CL, Super League helps the clubs to recover the lost earnings”. This is one way of looking at things. Another way would be to say these clubs have been horrifically mismanaged, despite a dominant market position and every possible advantage, and can always cut costs.
“Football must evolve like everything in life. Football has to adapt to the times we live in now. Football is losing interest, TV rights are decreasing. We wanted to do the SuperLeague, the pandemic has given us urgency: now we are all ruined in football”. Football is the biggest sport in the world and has a greater, wider reach than anything else. It’s not perfect, but if the pandemic has proved anything it’s how much people love it. This is about protecting revenue for a small cartel of owners, not protecting the game for a planet of obsessives.
“Football needs to change to be more attractive globally. Instead of making the Champions League because it lost interest as he had in 1950, change comes and even at the time FIFA and UEFA were against it. But that’s how football changed…” The European Cup came to be because of the thirst to explore new boundaries, cooperate across borders and find out who the best team is – something to which every club in the world could aspire. The super league would be the antithesis of that, a closed shop created to make money for individuals.
“The attractive thing in football is playing between big clubs, the value for television increases and more income is generated. It’s not just the rich who want the # Super League, we’re doing it to save football because it’s at a critical moment”. The attractive thing in football is identity, community and beauty. Football does need saving, but because of the super league creators (and ilk); they are not saviours.
“It will become like a pyramid because we big clubs will have more money and we will be able to invest it by buying players… if the big clubs lose their money as is happening, the whole football system crashes as with the Champions League”. If there’s one thing we can be sure of, it’s that the super league clubs are interesting in nothing but their bottom lines.
“The Super League is not a closed league, it’s absolutely not true. Whoever wins the five available spots will be able to play with the other best teams in the world”. But the founding clubs are there every season, earning so much money it’s impossible for the rest to compete, and potentially banned from competing against anyone but themselves.
“Players banned from international competitions and National teams according to UEFA? Don’t worry, this will NOT happen. They won’t be banned if they join Super League”. Let’s see.
“Real Madrid, Manchester City and Chelsea as the other clubs of Super League will NOT be banned from the Champions League or domestic leagues. 100%, I’m sure. Impossible”. Let’s see.
“President Ceferin insulted Andrea Agnelli today, it is not possible. It’s crazy to discuss a president of a world club like Juventus. This is something unacceptable, UEFA must change, we don’t want a president who insults other presidents.” But plutocrats with human rights issues are fine.
“Boris Johnson said he will do everything to cancel the Super League because they explained to him that the Premier League would disappear: it’s false, it’s not true. Everything will go back to normal…” Boris Johnson will want to be re-elected, and preventing the Super League will do him no harm in that aspect.
“Real Madrid and other SuperLeague clubs will NOT be excluded from this 2020/2021 Champions League. It won’t happen, the law protects us. This is impossible”. If legislators are so minded, laws can be changed – certainly in a post-Brexit UK.
“The contract of the Super League is binding. Nobody can leave, we will work all together. All the clubs signed the contracts last Saturday, there’s no problem”. Let’s see.
“If we can start the Super League in August, we would do it. We will do our best to start this year. We want to reach an agreement with UEFA and the other parties involved. We will talk with UEFA, FIFA and not only”. Or you want them to agree with your combined exchequers.