Real Madrid, Juventus And Barcelona Not Giving Up On Controversial Super League

The main advocates of the Super League are not giving up. Real Madrid president Florentino Perez, defended the project last Sunday and was followed by his Juventus counterpart Andrea Agnelli and then Barcelona chief Joan Laporta. A court decision in 2023 will be crucial in determining the project's future. "There are no football clubs among the ten richest entities in the world, we must be doing something very wrong in old Europe," Perez explained.

Perez led a group of 12 major European clubs into the Super League project in April 2021 but it vanished a few days after it was announced after pressure from fans and authorities.

The only clubs that have tried to keep alive a league that would be direct competition for the Champions League are Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus.

Perez compared European football with tennis.

"What is the point of depriving the fans of the big matches? Nadal and Federer met 40 times. Nadal and Djokovic, 59, is it boring? Liverpool and Real Madrid have faced nine times in 67 years," he told the Madrid's members assembly.

The Super League project came back to life in July, when litigation for an alleged abuse of a dominant position by UEFA was brought to the European Union Court of Justice, at the request of a Madrid judge to whom the Super League chiefs turned.

- 'Healthy and beautiful' -

UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin responded to Perez.

"Once again he has shown that his idea is to close everything off, without games against smaller teams," he told a news conference in Rome.

On Thursday, in a letter to shareholders, Agnelli, reaffirmed his "commitment" to the project and proposed "establishing a direct link with sponsors who dare to take business risks, and control of economic resources."