Aleksander Ceferin, president of UEFA, has never closed his battle against the European Super League, the attempt to create a new continental football tournament by twelve of the most important clubs in the world, despite the fact that it did not take long for it to become cornered by the pressure of fans and governments after a hasty announcement in April 2021. An idea that, if it succeeds, would undermine the power that the body that the Slovenian now directs has historically had and which, therefore, he has opposed with absolute force from birth. And more in recent days, coinciding with the officialization of the new Champions League format, in which the hostility of the lawyer’s language has not stopped growing.
Ceferin, who on the occasion of the presentation of the novelties in European club competitions stressed that his objective was to defend “respect for the fundamental values of sport and the key principle of open competitions”, he does not miss an opportunity to attack the Super League and he returned to throw a taunt at its founders during an interview for the STA agency in his country.
“That has been the final nail in the coffin. The coffin was prepared long before, but now we had to close it completely », he explained about the approval of the reform of the Champions League, the Europa League and the Conference League. Actually, a counterrevolution to tackle the advantages that the creation of the European Super League could have for the clubs, which curiously comes close to the format that it proposed with the aim of increasing income and interest among fans.
From the 2024-25 campaign, the Champions League will lose its group stage in favor of a league stage in which the 36 participants will be included (4 more than now) and in which each team will play eight games against eight different rivals, following the called the Swiss system. Although UEFA has not yet detailed how these crossings will be chosen, which has generated many doubts among fans.
The 54-year-old lawyer and sports director has made the fight against the Super League the fundamental axis of his mandate, which he aspires to renew in April 2023, and he does not fail to remember it every time he has the opportunity. “The key to everything was having managed to prevent, in two, three days, that crazy idea of the so-called Super League, which would have meant a total destruction of football, the end of the European model of sport.”
Ceferin’s combativeness could lie in the fact that the European Super League project has not died despite the severe setback it suffered after its announcement, when the English clubs decided to abandon it due to pressure from their fans and the Boris Johnson government.
In Spain, Javier Tebas, president of LaLiga, has already warned on several occasions that its surviving founding members, Real Madrid, Fútbol Club Barcelona and Juventus, aspire to tweak the initial idea to try to give it a new impetus.
Meanwhile, the matter continues mired in the courts, where the last step that has taken place has been to put an end to the precautionary measures requested by the Super League after estimating the appeal presented by UEFA, which gives this free way to sanction to the surviving founders.
Interestingly, the head of UEFA and Florentino Pérez, president of Real Madrid and one of the promoters of the Super League project, could face each other in the Champions League final in Paris on May 28. Within the framework of Liverpool-Real Madrid, the two antagonists will have the opportunity to exchange a few words.
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