Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus are reportedly ready to revive their doomed European Super League project with a major tweak.
According to the Daily Telegraph, the three remaining clubs in the doomed European Super League – Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus – are ready to revive the project with a big change that would see them do away with the concept of the permanent members in the competition.
The European Super League was a breakaway competition rivalling UEFA that was announced in April last year. Formulated as a twenty-team competition, of which 12 would be permanent members, the project was spearheaded by Real Madrid president Florentino Perez and Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli.
Clubs like AC Milan, Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool were all part of the project. However, it received widespread criticism and sparked mass protests from the supporters to such an extent that most clubs backed out within two days of the initial announcement.
All six Premier League clubs were the first to withdraw from the doomed competition, following which they issued apologies and paid fines to the Premier League and UEFA. Gradually, more clubs opted out of the project, but Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus have hung on in hopes of relaunching the competition with a fresh approach.
Juve, Barcelona and Madrid will relaunch their doomed Super League project this week with the promise to scrap the original proposal to make certain clubs permanent members, in what is shaping up to another direct attack on UEFA's pre-eminence in European football. [telegraph] pic.twitter.com/28fTtTB4Sp
— barcacentre (@barcacentre) February 25, 2022
As per the latest update, the three clubs are confident about their controversial project taking off due to the tweaks being made, with the competition set to remove the concept of permanent members, which was a major deterrent. UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has been critical of the three clubs hanging on to the project, calling them ‘charlatans’.
But they are not dissuaded by their past failings and the criticism and are set to announce the new proposal imminently, where they will confirm the abolishment of the permanent membership in order “to maximise the game’s impact on social well-being for constituents in Europe.”
The ESL clubs plan to argue that launching the new competition would help promote the creation of clubs in major European cities that do not currently have any, such as Dublin and Luxembourg. In their upcoming proposal, ESL also plans to take aim at UEFA’s failure to properly impose the Financial Fair Play regulations and the unfair advantages some state-run clubs like PSG enjoy.
While doing away with the permanent membership to allow teams to enter the competition based on domestic qualification might change the perception of the competition somewhat, it is likely to continue to attract major criticism yet again. Furthermore, there is a belief within the Premier League that clubs cannot join the rebel league due to the new regulations that were put in place after the debacle last year.
