ESL off, but Juve chief Agnelli still ‘convinced of its beauty’
European Super League founder and Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli called time on the project yesterday after six English clubs withdrew, and he blamed politicians for the league's downfall.
Twelve of Europe's leading football clubs from England, Italy and Spain announced a breakaway league last Sunday, but after intense criticism from fans and governments, the six English clubs backed out yesterday morning (Singapore time).
Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan and AC Milan followed suit.
Asked whether the project could still happen, Agnelli told Reuters: "To be frank and honest, no, evidently that is not the case."
Agnelli said he remained convinced that European football needed change and he had no regrets about the way the breakaway attempt was made.
"I remain convinced of the beauty of that project," he said, stating it would have created the best competition in the world.
He claimed that other clubs were ready to join the ESL before the English sides left.
"I'm not going to say how many clubs contacted me in just 24 hours asking if they could join," he said, declining to name them. "Maybe they lied, but I was contacted by a number of teams asking what they could do to join."
Agnelli said he felt the British government's intervention, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson threatening legislation to stop the breakaway, had pushed the English clubs to withdraw.
Asked if he regretted the way the breakaway was conducted - which was slammed by his former ally, Uefa chief Aleksander Ceferin - Agnelli referred to the nature of the football business.
"If you were to ask the authorisation of others, I don't think you would have carried out a project like this," he said.
While he said in an earlier interview with Italian newspaper la Repubblica that there was a "blood pact" among ESL clubs, Agnelli told Reuters yesterday: "I don't think our industry is a particularly sincere, trustworthy or reliable one in general."
Two sources told Reuters yesterday that those like Real Madrid, who are still holding on to the plan, may enforce break-up fees on those who ditched a binding agreement.
"Their departure would be consequence-free only if there was consensus on terminating the project," said one of them. - REUTERS
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