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Agenelli backs away from immediate revival of Super League

It looked as if this week's Financial Times Football Business summit might be used to revive the European Super League proposal, but at the last minute Andrea Agnelli backed away.   Real Madrid and FC Barcelona also want to keep the plan alive, but it is accepted that Premier League clubs will now not take part.

Uefa supremo Ceferin said: “First, they launched their nonsense of the idea in the middle of a pandemic. Now, we read articles that they are planning to launch another idea now in the middle of a war. Do I have to speak more about these people? They obviously live in a parallel world.”

Javier Tebas, chief executive of Spain’s top division La Liga, launched an astonishing broadside at Super League cheerleaders. With Agnelli sat in the front row of the audience, Tebas claimed: “they lie more than Putin.”

When the Juventus owner took to the stage to close out the summit, he was more guarded on reviving the Super League.

Instead, he wants to wait for the outcome of a legal challenge targeted at Uefa’s allegedly “monopolistic” position as both a competition organiser, which runs the Champions League, and a regulator that can also sanction teams for trying to launch a breakaway.

I do think that there is a legal case.   Football has run very close to breaking competition law more than once, once rescued by the European Commission cutting a deal.   Ceferin's response suggest that he is ratled.

If Agnelli and his band of rebels succeed, it could lead to the break-up of Uefa and given what they want most: ownership of Europe’s top club competition. That’s a goal that requires playing the long game.

 


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