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    Super League revival labelled 'absolute nonsense' by UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin

    Planet Sport writerStaff Writer3 March 2022
    Aleksander Ceferin

    Aleksander Ceferin

    UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin criticized football club owners attempting to revive Super League plans, claiming they see "fans as customers".

    The initial Super League plans launched last April, but fell apart within 72 hours after clubs withdrew following fan outrage.
    Six Premier League clubs were set to take part in the proposed breakaway league, and were set to be joined by three Italian clubs and three Spanish clubs.

    Of the 12 founding clubs, Juventus, Barcelona and Real Madrid were the only three not to announce they were leaving the project, and it now seems the trio are attempting to revive the plans.

    UEFA were quick to criticize the initial plans last April, and stated that any members of such a breakaway tournament would not be eligible to compete in any of their European tournaments.
    Now, the organisation's president, Aleksander Ceferin, is once again facing questions about the Super League, and he's once again stood firmly against it.
    "I have to say speaking about Super League is not speaking about football, but let's speak about it anyway. In a way I am sick and tired of speaking of this non-football project.
    "Look, first they launched this nonsense of an idea in the middle of a pandemic. Now we are reading articles every day they are planning to launch another idea in the middle of war. They obviously live in a parallel world.
    "While we are saving players, together with other stakeholders, and work to help in a terrible situation, they work on a project like that.
    "Honestly they can pay whoever they want to write 'this is a nice project, full of solidarity and will give charity to small ones', this is complete nonsense and everyone except them knows it."
    Spearheading the project is Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli and Real Madrid president Florentino Perez, with the latter resigning from his role as chair of the European Club Association executive board as a result of the Super League plans.
    With Agnelli and Perez both criticising UEFA's format, Ceferin was quick to defend his organisation, and responded by claiming that Perez was praising UEFA just a week before his resignation.
    "It is interesting they are criticising UEFA, criticising the ECA. One of them was the chairman of the ECA and I have a quote where he was praising the system a week before they launched the first Super League," Ceferin insisted.
    "Fans are obviously not important to them because fans launched a petition called no more Super Leagues and they don't care about it.
    "I want to say they can play their own competition, nobody forbids them to play their own competition but if they play their own, they cannot play our competition."

    La Liga president Javier Tebas is another strongly opposed to the Super League plans, and he echoed Ceferin's criticism of those still trying to execute the project, claiming they lie as much as Russian president Vladimir Putin.

    "Every time I hear communication from these clubs I get cross, they lie more than Putin to be honest.
    "All the domestic leagues, we must be dumb. All of us unanimously, we all say that the Super League hurts the domestic leagues. But now these three are saying 'no, no, no, don't worry'. For me it's an insult. They do huge harm."

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