FIFA chief against Super League

There was "no doubt" in the position of the world football governing body on the matter, Infantino said at the congress of European confederation UEFA on Tuesday, DPA reports

London: FIFA president Gianni Infantino has rejected proposals for a breakaway European Super League and threatened the clubs involved with unspecified “consequences”.

There was “no doubt” in the position of the world football governing body on the matter, Infantino said at the congress of European confederation UEFA on Tuesday, DPA reports.

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“At FIFA, we can only strongly disapprove the creation of a Super League which is a closed shop, which is a breakaway from the current institutions, from the leagues, from the associations, from UEFA, and from FIFA,” said Infantino. Infantino said the Super League involving 12 clubs so far was in contrast to these values and that UEFA had full support in opposing the move.

What sanctions UEFA, or national leagues, could take, remains unclear and would certainly meet legal challenges. UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin, however, said players could be excluded from national teams and clubs in the breakaway could face domestic penalties. Infantino suggested that there would not be a compromise where clubs could play in their private competition but remain part of the current structure.

Perez says they want to save soccer

Madrid: Florentino Pérez, the founding chairman of the Super League, on Tuesday said the new competition is being created to save soccer for everyone, not to make the rich clubs richer.

The president of Real Madrid, one of the 12 clubs behind the breakaway competition that would compete with the Champions League, said it’s “impossible” that players from the participating teams will be banned by UEFA. Although he said the new league likely won’t start next season if no deal is reached with European soccer’s governing body.

He didn’t completely rule out the possibility that the new league won’t get started at all, but indicated that the clubs were prepared to go all the way to make it happen.

Pérez, the first of the club presidents to speak publicly after the proposed new league was announced on Sunday, said clubs were “ruined” financially by the coronavirus pandemic and the Super League was the solution to “save soccer in a critical moment.”

“We are all going through a very difficult situation,” Pérez said in an interview broadcast after midnight on the Spanish television program El Chiringuito de Jugones.

“When you don’t have revenue, the only way to change that is to try to have more competitive games, more attractive games.”

“Soccer has to evolve, just like businesses have to evolve and everyone has to evolve,” he added.

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