Super League only way out for European football says A22 CEO

MADRID : The European Super League project has adapted to criticism from two years ago when it was first launched but still remains the only solution to European football's growing problems, the CEO of A22 Sports Management, a company formed to sponsor and assist in the creation of a breakaway soccer league, said on Thursday.

Earlier on Thursday, the company published preliminary results of talks with 50 European clubs and stakeholders of football, saying "the vast majority of them share the assessment that the very foundation of European football is under threat, and it is time for change."

European heavyweights Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus were among 12 clubs to announce a breakaway Super League in April 2021.

But the move spectacularly collapsed within 48 hours after an outcry from fans, governments and players forced most teams to pull out, leaving the three as holdouts.

The ESL took its case to a Spanish court which subsequently sought guidance from the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

At issue in the ongoing court case is whether statutes of UEFA and FIFA that allow the European and world soccer governing bodies respectively to block rival events and bar clubs and players from taking part conform with EU competition rules.

"This project has now evolved," Bernd Reichart told Reuters in an interview. "It has adapted to some criticism, it has adapted to some conclusions, to some evolutions in the market and it will also adapt once we have a certain legal certainty about how we can proceed with our proposals."

A future European Super League could include as many as 80 teams split into several divisions, breaking what Reichart said was a monopoly of competitions run by UEFA.

"We see