Soccer’s most powerful clubs faced mounting calls for reprisals over the European Super League fiasco, while the rebel competition’s boss yesterday said that it was merely “on standby,” despite nine teams pulling out.
Super League chief Florentino Perez, president of Real Madrid, complained about “aggression” prompted by the breakaway league, which folded just 48 hours after its unveiling following blanket opposition from fans and officials.
Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea withdrew on Tuesday, followed by Atletico Madrid, Inter and AC Milan on Wednesday.
That left Barcelona and Perez’s Real Madrid, along with Italian champions Juventus — who said that the lucrative project could not now go ahead.
Despite the tournament’s swift demise, Perez was defiant, saying: “The project is on standby. The project exists.”
“I am sad and disappointed. We have been working on this for three years and fighting against the financial situation in Spanish football,” Perez said in an interview with Spain’s Cadena Ser radio. “I have never seen aggression like it, from the president of UEFA and some presidents of the national leagues.”
“It seemed orchestrated, it surprised all of us,” he said. “It was like nothing I’ve seen in my career, like we had killed football. We were working on how to save football.”
UEFA’s executive committee is to decide whether to punish the “dirty dozen” at its next meeting today, UEFA vice president Karl-Erik Nilsson said.
“It’s already had consequences one way or another, with the shame they have to live with now,” Nilsson told the Fotbollskanalen Web site. “There will be consequences in their own organizations and whether there will be further consequences is something we need to discuss.”
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