THE $6-billion dream of a breakaway European Soccer League featuring 12 of the richest clubs lies in tatters after strong player and fan resistance forced six English teams to withdraw.
In sensational development in the past 24 hours, cracks began showing among the 12 clubs evidenced by the following developments:
- Manchester City has withdrawn from the ESL.
- Chelsea pulled out.
- Liverpool withdrew after players publicly expressed their opposition.
- Manchester United withdrew the club had “listened carefully to the reaction from our fans, the UK government and other stakeholders”. The club’s announcement came after its executive vice chairman Ed Woodward, who negotiated the ESL deal, announced his departure from the club.
- Arsenal quit the ESL and apologized to fans for the mistake made in signing up.
- Tottenham Hotspurs said it regretted the anxiety and upset caused by the proposal.
- Barcelona’s president is reported to have said the club will not join the Super League until its 140,000 members have had their say.
- Reports out of Italy say Andrea Agnelli is set to resign as president of Juventus FC.
The withdrawal of the English teams leaves six Spanish and Italians teams in the ESL. The clubs are: AC Milan, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Juventus and Real Madrid.
The establishment of the breakaway multibillion dollar European Super League (ESL) has created major divisions in world football, with world governing body FIFA warning that the 12 clubs must “live with the consequences”.
FIFA’s president Gianni Infantino’s warning came after the European Football Association (UEFA) described the 12 founding clubs of the ESL as “snakes”.
Widespread revolt by players and fans across Europe has greeted the announcement of the $6-billion ELS, planned to start in August.
These dramatic developments have a direct impact on the future of thousands of African football players who ply their trade in Europe.
In an unprecedented move on Sunday, which is the single biggest challenge to FIFA in its history, 12 top European Clubs have signed up to start the league, which is scheduled to start in August.
The renegade clubs – six from the English Premier League plus three each from Spain and Italy – will be guaranteed places in the new competition in contrast to the Champions League, which requires teams to qualify via their domestic leagues.
No German or French club is involved in the initiative which is backed by U.S. investment bank JP Morgan.
In Germany, European Champions League winners Bayern Munich rejected plans for a Super League, throwing their weight behind the Champions League and calling it the world’s best club competition.
Bayern President Herbert Hainer said: “Our members and fans reject the Super League. It is our wish as Bayern and our aim that European clubs live this wonderfully emotional competition – the Champions League — and develop it together with UEFA. Bayern say ‘No’ to the Super League.”
Infantino said Fifa strongly disapproves of the ESL. “There is a lot to throw away for maybe short term financial gain for some… Either you’re in or out,” he said.
The International Olympic Committee warned yesterday that the existing structure of European sports was under threat by self-interest and pure commercialism.
“The very existence of the European sports model is under threat. It is challenged by a purely profit-driven approach that ignores the… social values of sports and real needs in the post-coronavirus world,” IOC President Thomas Bach told a UEFA Congress in Montreux, Switzerland.
Bach said the European sports model was under threat because the social mission of sports organisations was losing ground to the purely profit-oriented goals of commercial sports providers and investors.
- African Mirror Reporter and Thomson Reuters Foundation
