Super League clubs getting ‘cold feet’ as Uefa urges owners to U-turn – live updates

The prime minister Boris Johnson and the culture secretary Oliver Dowden met with representatives from the Football Association, the Premier League and football fan groups this morning to discuss action against the proposed European Super League.

Mr Johnson expressed his solidarity with football fans and agreed they must always be at the heart of any decisions about the future of the game. He reiterated his unwavering support for the football authorities and confirmed they have the government’s full backing to take whatever action necessary to put a stop to these plans. All attendees agreed that action was necessary to protect the fairness and open competition we expect to see in football, and to uphold the fundamental principle that any club should have the chance to play and win against the biggest players in the game.

The prime minister confirmed the government will not stand by while a small handful of owners create a closed shop. He was clear that no action is off the table and the government is exploring every possibility, including legislative options, to ensure these proposals are stopped.

Those opposed to the breakaway believe that fewer than half the 12 clubs are considered “fanatics”, who will back the Super League no matter what. The others have joined because they believe they will be financially better off – either if it goes ahead or by wrangling concessions from Uefa – or they reluctantly entered because they feared missing out. Chelsea and Manchester City are believed to be in the latter camp.

However another well-placed source, from an organisation opposed to the Super League, was more circumspect saying that while he hoped some clubs would reconsider he had no direct evidence they would.

Sir Keir Starmer has called on the government to introduce legislation to block English clubs’ involvement in the European Super League, and even prise ownership from the current “Big Six” hierarchies so they have less control, stating there would be cross-party support.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent, to be published in full on Tuesday, the Labour Party leader said “there’s no excuse for not doing something given the level of support”, and what he described as “a wall of opposition” across society.

Sir Keir said that the government and football authorities have failed the sport through their laissez-faire approach to the game, and that a restructuring of club ownership would be central to Labour’s policy on the sport.

“My first stance is that it’s really for the Premier League and Uefa to try and sort this out with the clubs,” the opposition leader said. “But, if not, I’m really detecting now a willingness among politicians to legislate if that is necessary. It’s not an area where you’d expect legislation, but the strength of feeling is such that if the government is prepared to bring forward legislation, we would certainly look at it and support it.

“I think we’ve been on a slippery slope. I’m afraid the Premier League, Uefa, and the government have to take some responsibility for that. That is all contributing to this being a watershed moment, and it needs to be a watershed moment in the positive sense, that fans and others rise up against it to stop it.”

Very interesting that Paris Saint-Germain have not yet joined the Super League, despite reports they and at least one other French club are still considering the project. Our chief football writer, Miguel Delaney, says they were not just invited but were heavily pressured to be a part of the plans.

Then there is a story from ESPN’s Mark Ogden who reports the Champions League semi-finals are to go ahead as planned, despite Uefa’s threat to expel Super League clubs Real Madrid, Chelsea and Manchester City.

However, reading closely, the story simply says that Uefa is “planning for [the] semi-finals … to go ahead as scheduled … despite the threat of breakaway teams being kicked out of the competition.”

Uefa may still be planning for the semi-finals to go ahead, but that is not to say that they have conclusively decided they will go ahead. An emergency meeting on Friday is likely to be the forum for that decision, according to Danish Uefa member Jesper Moller, if the Super League still exists by then.

A couple of new developments. The first from Politico editor Alex Wickham who claims there is a “major split in the European Super League”. One club feels Liverpool and Manchester United (the English ringleaders) of lying and “f*****g up”.

Given Wickham reports typically on London, we might be able to narrow down where the split is brewing.

It is worth noting that Perez also told El Chiringuito TV: “We have to analyse why young people, 16 to 24 year olds, 40 per cent of them aren’t interested in football. Why? … They say the games are too long. If young people don’t watch an entire game, it’s because it isn’t interesting enough, or we’ll have to shorten the games.”

I think the microscope will soon zoom in on Real Madrid president Florentino Perez, who has so far only shared a small portion of the blame. He is thought to be the chief instigator behind the project, a project not only about greed but about desperately trying to plug an enormous leak in his sinking ship. Real Madrid have gross debts of more than €900m. Barcelona are in a similar plight. No wonder they want to ringfence European football’s finances and guarantee themselves paycheques; if they were to drop out of the Champions League for even a couple of season it would prove utterly disastrous.

And, as the above statement proves, he is completely out of touch, to put it politely.

Real Madrid president Florentino Perez insists Uefa will not go through with its threat to ban Chelsea, Manchester City and Madrid from the Champions League semi-finals due to start next week.

“The Champions League is attractive from the quarter-finals, that’s all,” he told late-night Spanish talk show El Chiringuito, according to ESPN. “We play against small teams that aren’t attractive. Young people prefer to entertain themselves with other things. But if we do it all season, five games on Tuesday, five on Wednesday, that would be unstoppable.

“What would bring in money is the 15 clubs playing each other every week. That’s the greatest show in the world, there’s nothing like it,” he added. “A Real Madrid-Manchester [United] or a Barcelona-Milan is more attractive than Manchester [United] against a small club.

“What does the world demand? We have fans in Singapore, in China, all around the world, you see that on social media, the followers they have. That’s what brings in money.”

Brighton are the latest club to issue a statement condemning the Super League, and its a good one:

“These plans are the latest in an alarming and growing list of clandestine attempts from a small group of clubs whose actions would be wiping out close to 150 years of football’s tradition, competition, and sporting progress through merit. The ups and downs of football – promotion, relegation, winning titles and cups, challenging for, or missing out, on a European place – are all part and parcel of the drama, jeopardy, joy and heartbreak that makes our game the most watched and most loved in the world.

“These key attributes create significant value from which we feed a financial support structure which helps to sustain football at every level in our country and well beyond. By contrast, a European Super League would concentrate value for the benefit of a small number of clubs. The efforts to create a closed-shop for all but the largest clubs demonstrate a clear lack of respect for the contributions of all clubs within the domestic leagues in this country and across Europe.

“Plans for a European Super League also totally disregard fans, the lifeblood of our sport at professional levels, and fly in the face of the views and wishes of the overwhelming majority of football supporters of all clubs. These clubs, like Brighton & Hove Albion, invest heavily to support their own dreams, and those of their fans, to play at the highest level they can, and to help create a sense of pride in their own clubs across the country.

“Off the pitch, we remain custodians of our clubs on behalf of past, present and future generations of fans and the communities we all represent. This is a responsibility we believe we must all take very seriously.

“It has been hugely encouraging to see universal opposition and widespread condemnation from across the game from various football authorities, fans, players, commentators, pundits and media, and all-party opposition in government. We will continue to work with those groups, including the UK government and MPs of all political parties, football’s governing bodies and all of our colleagues across football to oppose and defeat these plans.”

The existing structure of European sports in under threat by self-interest and pure commercialism, the International Olympic Committee warned on Tuesday, in a veiled reference to the breakaway Super League in European football.

Twelve of Europe’s top clubs launched the breakaway Super League on Sunday, kicking off what is set to be a bitter battle for control of the game and its revenue with European soccer’s governing body UEFA and world soccer’s FIFA.

“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, whose organisation had to postpone the Tokyo 2020 summer Olympics by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, said the existing model allowed for sports clubs to operate on every level, with revenues from elite competitions filtering down to the smallest amateur clubs.

“This European sports model is under threat because the social mission of sports organisations is losing ground to the purely profit-oriented goals of commercial sports providers and investors,” Bach said.

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.

U.S. investment bank JP Morgan JPM.N is financing the new league, providing a 3.5 billion euro ($4.2 billion) grant to the founding clubs to spend on infrastructure and recovery from the impact of the pandemic.

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin described the Super League plan as a “spit in the face” of all football lovers and urged for the clubs and players who are to compete in it to be banned from all UEFA competitions.

“In this polarising environment, narrow self-interest and egotism have been gaining ground over solidarity, shared values and common rules. We need more solidarity,” said Bach.

“This lesson applies to everybody. It also applies to sport and sports organisations. If everything is looked at from a business perspective… then the social mission of sport is lost.” Reuters