Supporters
Never had a tournament project aroused such massive disapproval across Europe, again pushing supporters of different English clubs on Tuesday to put their rivalries aside to demonstrate together.
This popular mobilization reinforced the political leaders in their opposition to this split, to the point that the conservative British government, however little known for its interventionism, did not rule out "any measure", including "legislative", to kill it in the egg.
And in turn, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester United and Chelsea ended up throwing in the towel on Tuesday night.
Coaches and players
If the old glories of football did not mince their words against this "crime against football", the situation was more delicate for the coaches and players of the clubs concerned, hostages of their leaders. Yet the Portuguese Bruno Fernandes, star leader of Manchester United, had shared on his Instagram account a message of attachment to the C1, adding the mention "dreams can not be bought". Cautiously, Liverpool coach Jürgen Klopp had confided that he had not been "consulted" and said he was in favor of "the competitive aspect in football", in contrast to a private league made up of legal members.
Tuesday evening and while the rumors of defection multiplied, his players published on Twitter a joint text concluded with the Anfield anthem, "You'll Never Walk Alone": "We don't like it, we don't want not that it happens. This is our collective position. Our commitment to this club and its supporters is absolute and unconditional ”. “Football belongs to its supporters. Today more than ever, ”tweeted Gerard Pique, defender of FC Barcelona, another of the rebel clubs. As for Pep Guardiola, star coach of Manchester City after winning two Champions Leagues with Barça, he was scathing: "Sport is not sport when there is no relationship between effort and reward" , he said, before his club were the first to withdraw from the project.
Ceferin and Infantino
Under the shock of the betrayal as he was preparing to formalize the reform of the C1 after 2024, UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin was first poisonous on Monday: he blasted "greed", “Egoism” and “spitting in the face of football lovers”, scolding against “snakes” and the “Twelve Bitches”. But on Tuesday, he put away jokes and threats to reach out to the slingers, particularly addressing the six English clubs: "There is still time to change your mind (...) You made a huge mistake", but " Everybody makes mistakes". Regularly suspected of encouraging the Super League in secret, the boss of Fifa Gianni Infantino for his part has measured threats and calls for conciliation: the dissidents will have to "suffer the consequences", he said Tuesday,but "like UEFA, Fifa is a democratic organization: anyone can make proposals, as long as it is in respect of the institutions".
From slingshots to shelters
Regardless of the final outcome of the project, the risk to the image of the twelve promoters of the Super League is considerable: none of them can now ignore how the idea of a private and semi-closed tournament, regularly agitated for 20 years to put pressure on UEFA, is unpopular. But how to go about it worse than by a cold press release Sunday at midnight Paris time, on the eve of a reform of the Champions League than most of them, starting with the boss of Juventus Turin Andrea Agnelli, had pretended to approve? How to hope to return opinion when their only other message, for 24 hours, was a letter to Fifa and UEFA calling on the two bodies for dialogue, while announcing theirbe already turned to the courts? It was perhaps too late when the president of Real Florentino Pérez, leader of the rebels, tried to convince that it was a question of "saving the football" weighed down by the Covid-19 and the disinterest of the youngest. It remains to be seen what turn the conflict will take from now on, and what will remain of it, for the mutineers as well as for the future of European club competitions.
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Super League: English clubs formalize their withdrawal, the house of cards collapses