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(SLOW PIANO MUSIC)
So, I guess we start with the obvious;
this project, it's dead.
That's it. It's dead.
It will go down as one of the worst executed plans of all-time.
A car crash really for those 12 owners.
You're so excited about a sports story.
The drama, the soap opera... It's about the money... ..what's gonna happen next?
..Not about the sport. You've never seen anything like it.
This is being seen as a power grab motivated by greed.
Fans burned jerseys, Prince William tweeted in protest.
The little guys, they're fighting back and they're saying no...
Why did it take just 48 hours
for the biggest, most read story to implode and crumble?
(SLOW OMINOUS THEME)
(INDISTINCT TALKING)
(CONVERSATION IN SPANISH)
No, no.
(LAUGHING)
At the start of the pandemic,
the world was engulfed by uncertaint
about the financial health of the entire economy.
The pandemic had a massive impact on the finances of Football.
Broadcast income became uncertain.
No matchday revenues,
and yet these huge wage bills to continue paying.
I was err called by a source of mine
who was very well connected in the football industry
in the spring of 2020,
and asked to meet him in a restaurant in Central London.
He said to me
a number of Europe's top clubs were in the process of establishing
a new European Super League.
They felt that they were the biggest clubs,
and they weren't receiving their fair share.
I was asked to keep the information to myself.
Unless these negotiations had been conducted in secrecy,
they would've been headed off at the pass.
UEFA, Europe's football governing body had been, you know,
well versed in um, thwarting previous breakaway attempts.
(CAR HONKS)
The trail dates back to the 1990s when Silvio Berlusconi
floated the idea of a Super League of some kind.
In fact, ever since the Premier League's creation
in the early 1990s,
there has been talk about such a project being set up.
My source told me serious financial backers were being lined up,
and that made it much more credible than in the past.
My instinct was to delay reporting i until things were starting to develo
into a much more concrete and credible project.
Good afternoon, and we start with breaking news.
Straight to our city editor Mark Kleinman,
who has the details. Mark, what can you tell us?
This is pretty seismic news from the world of football.
What I understand this afternoon
is that Liverpool and Manchester United
are among a handful of English clubs
who have been approached to join something
that is being unofficially called at the moment
the European Premier League.
It was being led by Florentino Perez, the president of Real Madrid,
and a Madrid based investment firm called Key Capital Partners.
It was all about the money that these clubs would secure
in order to cement their status
as the powerhouses of European club football for decades to come.
This could get announced in the next couple of weeks,
but key details are still to be finalised,
and given the fraught...
It was literally weeks away from being announced.
Umm, then it went quiet.
Someone somewhere is always talking about starting a Super League.
Someone somewhere always has a plan.
It felt for a long time that the Super League
was the natural conclusion of the era we were living through,
that as you watched Bayern Munich win every single Bundesliga title,
as you watched Juventus win nine in a row in Italy,
as you watched Real Madrid and Barcelona trade titles in Spain,
that at some point they were going to say,
"We don't need the rest of you".
And so the big clubs for the last 30 years
have believed that if they ran their own competition,
they could not only create more revenue,
they could keep more of it.
Now that happens a lot
with the negotiations in the Champions League.
The big clubs always use the threat of,
"We don't have to play in your competition.
We could go away on our own".
That's always a threat, and the answer is always
the big clubs get a bit more money,
UEFA give a little bit more ground,
everyone keeps playing in the Champions League.
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
I want to have it clear
that I will not speak about Super League.
I don't want to hide anything, I don't need to hide anything,
but, concretely about Super League I cannot.
(CLAPPERBOARD CLAP)
When I became the UEFA president,
I realised that every evolution makes somebody unhappy.
We are the governing body of European football
and we have to take care of all the stakeholders.
We had a meeting of the UEFA executive committee
on the Monday morning where we had on the agenda
a decision on the reform of the Champions League post-2024.
We had an agreement:
increase of the number of games, and hopefully more exciting games
with more...with more stakes at every level.
European competition for the majority of the clubs
brings the biggest revenues
and since they pay their players and coaches a lot,
their sustainability was questioned from time to time.
So we discussed a lot
but we came to a good solution, I would say.
The main goal was that we give even more clubs
a chance to play an interesting competition.
I got a text late on the Thursday
saying last minute push for a Super League from a colleague.
At that stage,
we both thought it was the usual threat.
It wasn't until the same colleague contacted me on Sunday morning,
disturbing my peace and said, "UEFA are really concerned.
It seems that they're going to launch this weekend".
It wasn't until the Sunday
that umm, that the messages started to be circulated.
The first message that I received was from Karen Brady at West Ham
saying that she had heard something was umm, something was afoot.
I was out on a run actually
which had turned to a walk as these things sometimes do.
The Chairman of the Premier League called me.
He said, "Look, we've been informed that the Super League is real
and the announcement's going out tonight."
It was known that something was coming.
The Premier League and the FA had information,
and things were starting to leak out.
What we didn't know was just quite how grim it was going to be.
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
I was with my son in Battersea Park
and I received a call saying, "That story you broke six months ago
is about to happen".
By the time I'd got home actually The Times had run the story.
(KEYBOARD CLICKS)
A story about the Super League wasn't a shock.
The fact it was true was the real shock
because it was finally happening.
Let's bring you some breaking news now
and it is very significant breaking news in terms of the future of football.
(SPEAKING ITALIAN)
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
This was not a drill.
This was a serious proposal
with huge ramifications for domestic football in this countr
and across the rest of the game.
This is elitism.
It's pull the ladder up jack and sod the rest.
You greedy bastards.
They've decided they're the greatest
and they can't possibly be relegated from that elite group.
It's fundamentally wrong.
There was a feeling of personal betrayal.
These are people that we work alongside day in day out.
You know, we are shareholders ultimately of the Premier League.
If it'd have been in any other business,
it would've been an act of industrial espionage.
You know, it was creating a cartel,
it was having negotiations in a clandestine fashion,
and that was something that the world of football just found unpalatable.
I felt sick. This was the death of my club.
This was destroying the fabric of English football.
(CROWD CHEERING)
I think people viewed this as an attack on the game,
an attack on our supporters,
an attack on their hopes and dreams.
It struck at the very essence of why our game's special
and why our football pyramid is special.
That pyramid is the heart of English football,
it means that every city, every community, every town
has the ability to play at the highest level.
I could set up a team, and if we got successive promotions,
ultimately we could be playing in the Premier League.
(WHISTLE)
(APPLAUSE)
Football is the ultimate meritocracy you know,
at the beginning of each year everybody starts with zero points
and in theory you can go from the bottom rung of football
to the top rung of football.
(CROWD CHEER)
A Premier League tale without compare.
Leicester City are the champions of England.
5,000 to 1 to win the Barclays Premier League.
When Leicester can win the Premier League
and qualify for the Champions League
there's always a possibility that somebody will come along
and put the right investment into your football club,
and also the rest of the football pyramid
wants to believe that they have a chance of getting there
and this was taken away from them.
# We love you. We love you. We love you
# And where you play we follow, We follow, we follow
# 'Cause we support The Palace, the Palace, the Palace
# And that's the way we like it, We like it, we like it
# Ooh, ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh, ooh #
I bought Crystal Palace because it was my club,
I supported it since I was four and it went out of business.
This is a football club, not a business, it's a football club
it's...look, it's the heart and soul of it,
the people want this club, for us, not for money.
After six months of trying to find a buyer
they couldn't find somebody.
I kind of ran out of excuses and- and ended up-
ended up taking it on.
He says that the sales of players have been delayed.
A deal is close.
(CROWD CHEERS)
I should have stayed in advertising
and I would be probably a lot wealthier
but maybe not quite as fulfilled and happy. I don't know.
I don't think anybody is quite prepared
for the nature of it as a business.
You're gonna lose money, it's just...
You just have to decide how much you wanna lose.
But I bought the club out of administration.
We didn't own our own ground
and we had about six players under contract.
That just might be the one
to send Palace back to the Premier League.
These are special, special moments
for a club that was threatened with extinction.
Two years later we were in the biggest,
richest sporting competition in the world.
Up steps Jedinak, and goes for the corner!
A brilliant free kick!
And Palace score three goals against Liverpool at Selhurst Park!
For every club, something's at stake for most of the season.
The sheer mind-numbing fear of relegation
is what makes the thing so competitive.
To take that away based on a period of history now
and pull the drawbridge up to the rest of the pyramid
is an anathema to most football fans.
You're saying to an Everton, and to a Villa, and to a Leeds,
clubs that have had European glory,
you were saying to these clubs, "Sorry, the music's stopped, and...
and you weren't in the right place".
It's a wonderfully warm weekend in London.
Seats around the Emirates sadly remain vacant
but, in any other regard it is a picture-perfect Sunday.
All Sunday we were trying to get a response from Arsenal,
and there was radio silence.
And I think my position then,
I told people that, no, I will still go to games,
but I'll wear funeral black and present a wreath every game,
'cause they've killed English football.
Davis...It's a goal! (CROWD CHEERS)
I grew up in Highbury. Arsenal's my club.
It's what I do week in, week out.
It's the highs of winning titles,
it's the lows of not winning very much
as Arsenal have been doing more recently.
For generations Arsenal have been owned by Arsenal supporters,
fans who've become fortunate enough or wealthy enough
to own a stake in the club.
The boardroom was full of Arsenal supporters,
so it was a huge change to have an overseas investor come in,
somebody who had been attracted by the value of media rights.
Stan Kroenke has been very hostile towards Arsenal fans.
He used something in English law called the squeeze out procedure
where you can compulsively buy the shares,
and all of a sudden Arsenal is 100% owned
by an American investor who's re-registered the club in Delaware.
Well, you need to remember and what's core to this story
is the benefit of a closed or semi closed league
is that it looks a lot more like US sport
where leagues are run for the benefit of the owner
as a founding principle, and then everything flows from that.
Much of the rest of the press is focused on player transfers
and fan journalism.
We try to deliver the business journalism on it.
Follow the money not the ball.
That's the motto of our coverage.
The thing that has been delivering the most value is the media rights
and it's incredibly valuable.
As media rights become more and more important,
they're pursuing customers across every market in the world.
(CHEER)
And they don't necessarily wanna see Norwich play Burnley,
no offence to either team.
In the sort of minds of the architects of the Super League,
what they needed to do was put on the biggest show on Earth.
(CROWD CHEERS)
And they need the biggest names and the biggest clubs
playing frequently to establish that
Goalless at Old Trafford
but no doubt that first half has been overshadowed
by this breaking news this afternoon
which could have a seismic effect on European football.
What lay behind this that made it so gripping for so many people
is you had really rich, powerful people,
trying to steal a dream away from the everyday person.
The Glazer family bought Manchester United in 2005,
and it was a highly contentious takeover.
Would you be able to give a message to the Manchester United fans
who are desperate to hear from you?
Well, we're here today to celebrate the Super Bowl in Tampa in 2009,
we're- Sure but there are obviously thousands of Manchester United fans
who are looking forward to hearing from Mr Glazer
in what is a period of real anxiety for them.
Mr Glazer?
All of a sudden money was coming out of the club.
It was being paid in dividends to the Glazer family.
The owners very rarely came to the stadium.
When they did come to the stadium,
you know, supporters would sing about killing them. It was brutal.
# How we'll kill him, I don't know Cut him up from head to toe
# All I know is Glazer's gotta die!
# He's gonna die! He's gonna die! #
These American owners,
they look at the Premier League and the jeopardy, it terrifies them.
If you have an asset that's worth two billion, three billion,
you wanna protect that asset.
In the NFL there's no relegation.
You're locked in.
With the Premier League, it's a lot more scary.
It's also why it's so popular.
(WHISTLES)
The reports are suggesting that England's traditional big six
along with the three biggest clubs in Italy and Spain
have all signed letters of intent to join a new European Super League,
there is even suggestion there could be a formal announcement later this evening.
Rashford.
He's slipped away from Lowton as though he weren't there.
And Marcus Rashford's kept on dancing, Fernandez let it roll,
That's a smashing United goal!
The clubs involved would need Premier League permission
to take part and without it, you know what that means,
they would have to break away entirely from the Premier League.
So the Premier League itself is at threat.
This is the most popular product in world football.
And Manchester United are saying,
"Well look, we are the most popular force here.
"We are the ones that are basically carrying you guys on our backs
and we deserve more money".
Westwood's corner. TARKOWSKI!
This was saying, no matter what you guys do,
you're always gonna be down there,
because we get richer and you get poorer.
And that's what, I think that's what the public saw.
"Today, I've walked away from my football club.
I can't support this. I can't. It's an absolute disgrace.
Who do they think they are?"
It's found its way in!
"It shows the contempt these yanks have for United supporters.
They can bleed the club dry, that's one thing,
but now they're bleeding heritage? Nah."
Donny van der Beek, Edinson Cavani, Manchester United's points.
It was left to Ed Woodward,
the Manchester United Executive Vice Chairman
to tell his manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer about the plans
after the news had broken in a corridor at Old Trafford,
and then Solskjaer had to go and face a Sky Sports interviewer.
Do you understand at all
what the proposals might mean for you and your players?
I don't, I haven't looked into it. I've been just focusing on this game
So I just need to sit down and see what it is
and the club will probably comment on it later.
Sky had the rights to the Premier League.
It's their golden ticket. It's what people subscribe for.
It's just greed, that's the only wor I would use to describe it.
For them to want to pull away now it's just...
It's a disgrace to be honest.
Let's bring in Gary Neville.
I mean I'm a Manchester United fan and have been for 40 years of my lif
but I'm disgusted, absolutely disgusted.
They're breaking away into a league without competition,
that they can't be relegated from.
Manchester United aren't even in the Champions League.
Arsenal aren't even in the Champions League. You saw them earlier,
they're an absolute shambles of a club at the moment.
Tottenham aren't in the Champions League.
And they want a God-given right to be in there?
The owners of Manchester United, the owners of Liverpool,
the owners of Chelsea, the owners of Manchester City,
they're an absolute joke, and honestly the time has come now;
independent regulator:
stop these clubs having the power base, enough is enough.
Sky have been really important to the Premier League's growth
and the Premier League has been important to Sky's growth.
A Super League might've changed that.
They might have done a deal with Netflix and all of a sudden you have a problem.
# When I was young and just a boy
# I asked my mother what will it be
# Will it be Arsenal, Will it be Spurs
# Here's what she says to me #
(FANS CHANT)
Millwall fans twice invaded the Luton pitch,
fighting a running battle with the police.
English football before the Premier League
was in a pretty sad state.
All we're going for is, right, a good game of football,
a good punch-up, and a good piss-up.
You'd had a terrible bust up between fans.
It wasn't very well policed.
You'd had Heysel,
you'd had Hillsborough.
I mean, I remember stopping taking my kids to it,
'cause I thought it wasn't safe.
I really got involved in football when I became Chairman of ITV Sport.
I said, "You know, I'm sure we can make football meaningful again
to the British public if we can get live rights."
I negotiated really with the five biggest clubs at the time.
Which were Manchester- which were Manchester United,
Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool and Everton.
And then they said, "Well how much d'you think we'll get each?"
And I said, "Million pounds?" And their eyes bulged.
And the luckiest thing was the first season we had these live rights
was the season where Liverpool played Arsenal
in the last game of the season.
To Thomas charging through the midfield!
Thomas, it's up for grabs now!
Thomas! Right at the end!
(CROWD CHEERS)
And of course Arsenal won 2-0
and became the champions of Division One.
And that was a massive bonus, I mean, we got an enormous audience.
When the ITV deal was coming to an end,
I said, "Look I don't think you're gonna get this deal again,
are you gonna do anything about it?"
And that night they decided to set up the Premier League.
The Football Association has been meeting this morning
to discuss plans to set up a new 18 team Super League.
I was the person who tried to stop live football going onto Sky.
I thought ITV would get the rights.
Having seen what has happened in the last month,
you couldn't be confident of anything going through, but one hopes so.
I turned out to be wrong.
They paid a lot of money for the rights.
Football's new Premier League has struck a £300 million deal
which means its matches will only be seen live on satellite TV.
They wanted more people to take dishes, have a Sky box,
and pay a subscription and they saw football as something
that would drive their subscriber base,
and it worked for them brilliantly.
Delighted to be part of the FA Premier League.
It's a whole new ball game for all of us.
And remember, this is the only place you'll see live
Premier League football.
You've gotta look where power lies in the end,
and power lies with the big clubs.
The idea of the Super League has been around a long time,
just like the idea of the Premier League
was around for quite a long time.
The difference is when they set up the Premier League,
all the clubs in the old First Division
were invited to join and the FA supported it.
The Super League didn't have that at all.
It was going to knock out all the other clubs,
it would have no promotion and relegation.
What makes football exciting is that clubs like mine, Brentford,
can get into the Premier League.
That's what makes it exciting.
The moment you can't, what's it for?
Here's Cantona! He's done it!
(CROWD CHEERS)
The Premier League was a recognition
that if you looked at the NFL in the United States...
Beckham! That's absolutely brilliant
..a single competition could create an economic powerhouse.
Henry! Whoa! What a goal!
And they created the most successful sports league we've ever seen.
Aguerro!
Rooney!
The Premier League knows that the big six clubs are central
to its appeal.
Mo Salah! Beautifully done.
If they're competing somewhere else then you have a real problem.
The Super League was an existential threat.
There is genuine money to be lost here.
"UEFA are furious that this seems to be back on the table
on the eve of their big executive announcement
about the reformed Champions League. It's clear this is not going away."
They thought that if they were making the announcement
before the decision, they would look less like betrayers.
It was definitely a personal sense of disappointment
because we'd worked so hard trying to find solutions together,
and you see that these efforts were met by this kind of behaviour.
But you know, in the end we had to- to take the high road
and we continued to fight.
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
The breakaway clubs have been warned they could be thrown out
of European competitions
and even the Premier League if they don't back down.
Look at the language from UEFA, three words:
"Enough is enough". They are furious.
Sports politics is sometimes worse than normal politics.
Football especially.
There's a lot of passion, a lot of influence and a lot of mone
which brings many interesting people
many crooks, many dangerous people,
and it's a challenge every day.
Six Premier League clubs have agreed to be part of a plan
for a new European Super League.
There's already enormous opposition to the plan
with UEFA and the Premier League threatening bans for clubs and players.
Throughout Sunday there was a succession of different people
and different bodies coming out against it.
I think by that stage the politician were already involved in some way.
Well, Oliver Dowden is the secretary of state for digital culture media and sport
and he tweeted:
"Football supporters are the heartbeat of our national sport
and any major decisions made should have their backing."
In the middle of a pandemic,
the Prime Minister weighs in on a football story.
That suggests the scale of it.
You felt probably by about seven in the evening,
this is now a kind of generational story.
There are reports that an announcement could be made soon
about plans for the formation of a breakaway tournament.
Does this new breakaway European Super League reveal to us
that the relentless march of globalisation
is reaching its pinnacle, and nothing matters but money?
There's just a complete lack of understanding of our game
and what's in our hearts
when we go and watch football and when we play the game.
Those top six clubs who have agreed to this
want more money, I just think it's absolutely disgusting.
And that was before the announcement,
that this was still something that had not yet happened.
So there's still that little kernel of scepticism,
firstly that UEFA will do a deal, this is an act of brinkmanship,
but also these clubs will see this reaction,
and they will realise they cannot possibly do this,
that this is going to be a disaster.
One of the most dramatic and pivotal relationships
in this whole saga, on a personal level,
is the one between Aleksander Ceferin who is the president of UEFA
and Agnelli, who is the Chairman of the European Clubs Association.
Andrea Agnelli is the latest in the Agnelli family to serve
as the President of Juventus.
(SPEAKING ITALIAN)
The Agnelli family created Fiat
which of course is the automobile company.
And in 1926 Edoardo Agnelli, he wanted to buy a football club
for all of the people who'd come to work for Fiat.
You could see Agnelli's world view
as a reflection of the Juventus world view which is quite patriarchal.
"We are the ones in control of this club,
in control of this company, and here is what we're giving you".
(ITALIAN COMMENTARY)
(SPEAKING ITALIAN)
What we want to make sure that we remain loyal to our principles
in making sure the voice of the clubs is heard
because we are the ones carrying the entrepreneurial risks.
Ten days before the European Super League story broke,
Andrea Agnelli was very much publicly presenting himself
as someone who was focused solely on the reform of the Champions League,
something that he had been negotiating
as the Chairman of the European Clubs Association with UEFA.
I think we're very close to my ideal Champions League.
That's the hope
that both President Ceferin and I have
for the competition post-2024.
When you talk about Agnelli's growing influence,
some of it stems from the closeness of his personal relationship
with someone who is at the head of UEFA,
European football's governing body.
They're so close that Ceferin is godparent to Agnelli's daughter.
On Sunday afternoon
at the time when the European Super League,
a new project that's going to revolutionise European football
is appearing on our radars,
Andrea Agnelli, the Chairman of the European Clubs Association
is suddenly nowhere to be found.
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
Well, it appears this proposal of the European Super League
is going ahead. Bryan Swanson, what can you tell us?
We expected developments and we have had it the last couple of minutes.
A statement's leading European football clubs announce
a new Super League competition,
it says 12 of Europe's leading football clubs
have today come together to announce
they have agreed to establish a new midweek competition,
the Super League, governed by its founding clubs.
They published a press release,
and press go on a fairly basic website.
It doesn't seem like the sort of thing
that you put out quickly on a Sunday night.
And what was really curious was that Florentino Perez
would be the central figure in the Super League,
with support from Andrea Agnelli and Joel Glazer,
one of the owners of Manchester United.
Joel Glazer's not going to persuade a Manchester City fan
this is a good idea, that's not going to work.
Florentino Perez isn't going to persuade a Barcelona fan
that they should sign up for this thing.
It gave the sense that it was just being presented to fans
as a fait accompli and there was nothing anybody could do about it.
So much focus and attention
must've gone into getting these 12 clubs aligned,
which was so hard to do
but no one actually made the case
for why they thought this was a good idea.
It ultimately had the net effect of making this look like a heist.
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
It's the same as in any other business.
Some you can trust, some you can't.
They also say here that the founding clubs
will receive an amount of...
..phoar, three and a half billion euros,
solely to support their infrastructure and investment plans,
and to offset the impact of the Covid pandemic.
Yeah, this is about money.
# Summer - Vivaldi #
"One of our main stories this morning,
it's been called the biggest shake-u in the sport's history."
"The announcement has prompted a really strong reaction
from fans and governing bodies alike."
(SPANISH COMMENTARY)
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
(ITALIAN COMMENTARY)
(SPEAKING ITALIAN)
This is a huge thing, you have Macron now screaming about it,
Boris Johnson out there.
There are hundreds of billions of dollars at stake here
It takes a big story of any sort
to get on to the front page of the New York Times.
Like all the best sports stories, it wasn't about sport at all,
it was about business and greed,
and power struggles, suspicion and distrust.
Anything else at all could have been happening that day,
there was no other story in the world.
The biggest business story of the day actually, globally is this -
a massive shake-up in the world of soccer.
This decision is monumental, and I'm heartbroken by it,
genuinely heartbroken by it. I'm heartbroken
because the owners of these teams have displayed the worst kind of greed
I've ever seen in sport.
Twelve of the biggest clubs on the planet have banded together
to form a rebel competition to rival the Champions League
and it's started a sporting war.
I woke up on Monday pretty convinced it was real.
The Champions League, as we know it, was dead.
The Premier League and Serie A and La Liga
might be functionally dead as well, because they, by that stage,
they were threatening to throw the teams out
of their domestic competitions.
This is a big, big deal. Which teams, Ash?
Real Madrid, AC Milan, Arsenal, I had question marked that,
Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Juventus,
Liverpool, Man City, Man U, and I question this, Tottenham,
but that's beside the point.
There are no big German teams or French teams.
No Bayern Munich, no PSG, because they are not interested.
It wasn't a surprise that it was those twelve clubs.
There was a couple that you might've thrown in,
you might've expected to have been involved.
And there's a couple that it's easy to scoff at,
and say, "Why are Tottenham involved?
What have they got to do with the Super League?"
What was more interesting
was the fact that they were all working together,
despite the fact that so many of them are natural antagonists.
The 12 clubs were really uneasy bedfellows.
You have these old European aristocratic houses
who are either desperate for money and desperate for relevance,
and they can't compete with the Premier League,
they are at a massive financial disadvantage.
You then have the teams in the Premier League
but they can't compete with PSG and Manchester City,
because they have bottomless money to spend on players.
"Welcome once again your owner, Sheikh Mansour!"
Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain
are effectively state-owned clubs
who are willing to allocate unlimited money
towards the pursuit of trophies and players
because these are soft power exercises
by the countries that own them. They're part of a political project.
This morning it has been confirmed
that this Super League is being financed by JP Morgan.
The figures are staggering,
But now we know where the money is coming from.
JP Morgan was providing the debt
that would effectively fund the launch of the Super League,
so it was between 3.25 and 3.5 billion.
Every founding member would get effectively a welcome bonus
between 200-300 million.
And then obviously the knowledge that the media rights would provide
250 million of guaranteed revenues in perpetuity for 23 years
to each of these clubs.
It's a huge, huge financial benefit.
(SPEAKING ITALIAN)
(CROWD CHANTS)
Agnelli took this huge gamble on Cristiano Ronaldo,
signing him for 100 million, and 30 million a year wages...
(CROWD CHEERS)
..timed with horrible misfortune, right before a pandemic came
and his club has lost hundreds of millions.
Real Madrid and their galactico era is coming to an end.
Barcelona had confessed to a billion euros in debt,
more than... these clubs needed the Super League.
We were reaching the end of the pandemic,
so it was the first time in months
that we were meeting all together in the same place.
At some point between Sunday and Monday,
UEFA's main response went from being fear
to defiance and determination.
We got information about some secret talks for months,
but we trusted people, we are- we might be naive,
but for me it's always better to be naive than to be a liar.
(CHUCKLES)
"In a way I'm happy that this happened,
because before we were always thinking, where are they hiding?
We heard rumours about this and that, and, you know, now we know.
There are twelve people who don't care about anybody else,
who think they can get even more money,
and they're already unbelievably rich.
This narcissism is so typical for this group, but it's OK.
He really spoke with his heart, which is...
Which is what you have to do in a situation like this.
I spoke with Agnelli I think 20 times in the last days.
The last time on Saturday,
when I said, "I hear rumours about some Super League",
and he says, "No, this is a lie, don't believe it.
I will call you back in one hour", and he turned off the phone.
So, it's hard to believe the level of immorality of some people.
I mean...
He felt like he had been betrayed by Agnelli, who was someone
who he clearly considered a very close friend,
and also, beyond that, he'd also been betrayed
by other people who he had relationships with.
I spoke with the CEO,
or whatever he is at Manchester United,
Ed Woodward, on Thursday.
He called me, he says, "Great reforms, I fully support it".
And then next day we get this.
Football became a big business,
and that's why some people that don't care much about football
and care about the profit only, came in.
This is not an industry.
We are not for profit only.
They think it's a party for a few rich people
who sit in the room and decide about everything.
We have what we have
and football will not be sold to, I call them, dirty dozen.
So? Good selection, huh?
By Monday, it seemed like Aleksander Ceferin,
the man who is literally the centre of power in European football,
was the leader of a revolution.
The strange thing about that is that UEFA are nobody's idea of a saviour,
but in that situation your enemy's enemy is your friend.
The thing that bothered me most
was the sense of entitlement from them clubs,
the dislocation from a league system
which however imperfect, kept other clubs afloat.
You know, we're talking about the football pyramid here,
not just an elite number of football clubs.
(FANS CHANTING)
Me dad was a Liverpool supporter and he put me in Anfield Road end
when I was five years of age and I was- I was gone then.
It falls for Kenny Dalglish...
(FANS CHEER)
...and the player manager celebrates with a second goal.
Football should always be about the community.
It should be a representation of the community,
and without community and the supporters,
football's nothing.
And we've seen that during Covid.
The football was on to empty stadium and it was just on, it was noise.
I think everybody in Liverpool knows
that I'm a massive Liverpool supporter.
I've been involved in fan activism for over a decade now.
The Spirit of Shankly was born out of the debacle of Hicks and Gillett.
The word respect is, I think,
the way we feel about the heritage and legacy of this franchise.
They came to Liverpool with all these promises
of new stadiums and everything else.
It's all about the fans and making sure that
the quality of the experience for the fans is as good as it can be.
It was a disastrous period in Liverpool's history...
(FANS CHANT)
..and many, many other good people became part of that campaign,
which eventually forced Hicks and Gillett to sell up,
and that's when we entered into the FSG era.
The cheers were of joy, the message of relief.
We have a lot of work to do, and I can't tell you how happy I am
that we finally, finally got to this point.
John Henry had done quite a job of work, and FSG.
I'd say they'd have a positive score card, as owners.
But then a decision had been made to take Liverpool Football Club,
to put it in this edifice
which had been created by billionaire owners,
without any sort of regard to speak to the people
that I believe are the lifeblood of the game.
And I wanted to go into Parliament on the Monday
and let them know exactly what I felt about that.
Order, order.
I call secretary of state Oliver Dowden to make a statement.
Thank you, Madame Deputy Speaker.
I watched with real interest
what the government's response was gonna be,
because, you know, from a conservative perspective,
was the European Super League against their principles
about making more money?
A small handful of owners want to create
a closed shop of elite clubs at the top of the game,
a league based on wealth and brand recognition,
rather than upon merit.
We will not stand by and watch football be cravenly stripped
of the things that make millions across the country love it.
It was about a year
since he and his government had been calling for footballers
to take a pay cut, to help pay for the NHS.
It was even less time since they'd been chastising players
for taking the knee before games.
To see the government in general
cast itself as the great defender of the national game
felt a little bit hollow.
We will put everything on the table to prevent this from happening.
Put simply, we will be reviewing everything the government does
to support these clubs to play.
I have discussed these options with the Prime Minister this morning
We will do whatever it takes to protect our national game.
Ian Byrne.
Speaker.
I said to Oliver Dowden,
"What's the government response gonna be about capitalism,
you know, ruining our game?"
At a time when collectively we should be working together
to rebuild our football communities from the ravages of Covid,
the anger across the country is palpable.
Can you outline how the government will act
to stop corporate greed destroying a game millions in this country love
and economically many communities rely on?
Well, the honourable gentleman is absolutely right.
I thought, "We're in different terrain here".
You know, this is a strange place we're inhabiting.
From a purely populist perspective,
you know, the government of the day have looked at it
and said, "Which way is the wind blowing?"
and the wind was certainly blowing against the clubs.
This isn't a story that would normally be something
that us, lobby journalists, would necessarily care about,
but actually when there's a political intervention so soon,
you do suddenly think there's your smoke,
and then you go looking for the fire.
The first phone call I got was from somebody within government,
saying, "Hmm, this isn't as straightforward as it seems".
And that there had been government involvement in what had happened
and that actually there had been some confusion
as to whether or not the government was going to support this notion to begin with.
There's been a lot of mystery around what happened with Ed Woodward,
the Executive Vice President of Man United.
The week prior to the announcement,
Ed Woodward meets with Dan Rosenfield,
the Prime Minister's chief of staff, a former Bank of America banker,
whose client used to be Manchester United,
and we are somehow led to believe
that this did not come up in conversation.
The idea that he wouldn't be discussing it
when he's had this opportunity to,
with somebody as central to Downing Street
and the government as Rosenfeld, is sort of for the birds.
We spoke to Woodward's representatives
who denied that this had come up.
And yet, we were being contacted,
well I was being contacted more and more by people
who claim that it had been discussed.
There were suggestions
that Boris had been told about this idea for this ESL
and had thought it was a good idea.
Ed Woodward had come away with the impression
that the government would not stand in the way,
and that that was significant in their decision
to push the button on it on that Sunday.
Our responsibility's bigger than football.
We have the hopes and dreams of a whole city
resting on our shoulders.
It's about delivering something for the people of Leeds
that gives them their sense of identity.
The way I view the Super League,
it would've been catastrophic for Leeds United,
particularly because we'd worked so hard
to get ourselves back to having a seat at the top table of domestic football.
That's why the Liverpool match was so relevant.
In the Super League world,
Liverpool would've not had to worry about qualification for Europe,
which is something that drives all of us,
and it would've been compounded by the fact that
the money they'd have made from that
would've meant that they'd have been able to outgun us
to such a significant degree
that there'd probably never be another competitive match
between Liverpool and Leeds United again.
I'll be brutally honest,
were we playing Crystal Palace that night,
I doubt the protest would've had any traction.
It was, if you like, that perfect storm.
They were coming to Elland Road,
they were one of the clubs that were gonna be magically getting
their position immaterial of where they were currently.
You realise something like this is happening
and we go into overdrive as a group.
We were getting contacted by Leeds supporter groups who were saying,
"Can you come up, put a protest on together?"
We were still in Covid, but people were all aghast, in horror,
about the decision that had been made.
These owners are just absolutely pricing it for themselves.
Let's us make billions and forget about everyone else.
The game of football was for the working class citizens
and it's not any more.
# They know what they are They know what they are
# Six greedy bastards They know what they are #
Liverpool as a football club had made this decision,
whether it's their owners or not, to follow greed over sporting merit,
and that was not just Leeds fans singing.
There were Liverpool fans singing as well, next to us.
You have this fury that had been largely online
starting to manifest in the real world.
(FANS BOO)
(FANS CHANT)
Everybody just ran in one go towards the coach,
followed it around.
# You dirty greedy bastards! You dirty greedy bastards! #
I'm fairly certain they heard us.
The players were angry anyway,
because they definitely found out with the rest of us.
They certainly hadn't been consulted at any of the clubs,
and now they're all meant to take the fury of the public
for their owners.
CHANTING: We're fans united, we'll never be defeated.
We're fans united, we'll never be defeated.
We're fans united...
Good evening and welcome to a Monday night football like no other.
Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher are here tonight
to give us their thoughts and there is strong feeling in the room.
Football fans get together, all of us, get together, and stop this.
We need marches on stadiums, supporters getting together-
This cannot be allowed to happen.
When I woke up and I saw the statement,
and it had Joel Glazer's name on it,
I thought, this is a problem, big problem.
He doesn't put his name on anything, that man.
We must come together now and it must be stopped.
We do have a live game tonight.
Leeds United are playing Liverpool, and we will bring it to you,
but it has become very much secondary to the bigger picture.
Liverpool's players were really angry when they got into the dressing room
and found T-shirts had been left for them
with the Champions League logo,
saying you have to earn your right to play in the Champions League.
It was a simple gesture
that we had no idea would get the traction that it did.
It comes down to the fact that no one begrudges the fact
that the top six play in Europe so regularly, but they've earned it.
I think we'd seen a backlash, didn't we, against the football club,
against Klopp,
against individuals that had nothing to do with that decision
taken by John Henry.
That was maybe an unfair reflection on the players,
but you can understand from Leeds' perspective, can't you?
They were basically saying,
"We're gonna go out and sweat for 90 minutes
and we wanna achieve what we can,
but we'll earn it over the course of a season".
So, here we are, with a lot to talk about.
Liverpool will climb from sixth into the top four
if they win this evening, but tonight there are no guarantees,
as they try within the present syste
to qualify for next season's Champions League
by securing a place in the top four.
This is very much about players' dreams
as much as it is about fans' dreams.
Our captain, when he was playing in the Championship,
Liam Cooper, was known as League One Liam,
because nobody thought he was good enough to play in the Championship.
A year and a half later, he's captained the team
who've won the championship by ten points
and is now playing in the top half of the Premier League.
You know, their dreams are tied to this issue
as much as anybody else's.
This actually struck at the heart of why they play the game.
That game is David/Goliath.
Leeds are brand new back to the Premier League,
you're playing against Liverpool,
who, you know, millions of pounds sat on the bench.
It's a tremendous run that's been made by Alexander-Arnold
and he's lined it up for Sadio Mane, whose goal drought is over.
Having gone one up,
the game was probably destined to only go one way,
and yet Leeds through pluck, energy, endeavour,
through earning it,
worked hard and got a goal late in the game.
Oh, and they've got it!
Leeds showing yet again they can mix it with the big boys.
To come back in the 87th minute with an equaliser,
to stop Liverpool going into the top four,
just demonstrated why we needed to protect
what was special about that match.
After the game, Liverpool's oldest player, James Milner,
is asked what he makes of it,
and his response is the perfect response.
You know, I can only say my personal opinion, I don't like it,
and, you know, hopefully it doesn't happen.
Plain Yorkshire speaking.
I'd say the sense of betrayal was felt by Liverpool Football Club:
players, manager.
I think you've seen that within the faces, didn't you,
and the reactions after the game.
I mean, you know, these are good people, aren't they?
The team has nothing to do with it
and the- I have not really anything to do with it,
but people treat us like that.
The Leeds supporters came here today before the game were shouting at us.
In the city, when we had a walk this afternoon,
people were shouting at us. We have nothing to do with it.
You could see, you could just see, you know, in Klopp's face
the hurt, you know, the hurt.
And again, we go back to betrayal.
There will be a moment for sure,
when our owners...
..say what they have to say, definitely, I'm sure.
(CLAPPING HANDS)
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
Perez has always understood that spending was at the core of this.
The shift was saying that this level of spending is unsustainable.
At the moment, players are trading for £100 million.
What's gonna happen in five years? Is it gonna be 250 million,
is it gonna be 500 million?
These are starting to be some pretty ridiculous numbers.
To an extent, Perez's motivations are understandable.
He sees Real Madrid falling away, accelerated by the pandemic,
and for several years,
his favoured solution has been a Super League
that exists to benefit Real Madrid.
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
This is a $6 billion project,
and yet by Monday evening you still don't have any public face,
until Florentino Perez goes on
a slightly chintzy Spanish chat show.
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
(CONVERSATION IN SPANISH)
(LAUGHING)
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
If you were a billionaire in today's society,
you're effectively able to live in your own cocoon.
You don't need to talk to the press. You don't need to do anything.
When was the last time anyone sat down for an interview with
John Henry and asked him a tough question?
And all of a sudden, they're all exposed
and the only spokesperson that emerges is Perez,
and he goes on this crazy Spanish TV show.
They clearly did not have a plan
about how they were going to win over people on this project.
Breaking news this morning, the Prime Minister said
he was gonna do something, and he is gonna do something today.
The Super League have chucked a grenade at the Premier League
and chucked a grenade to everyone else.
Well, chuck one back. Ban them.
There is nothing that prevents Parliament stepping in
and Government stepping in if that's what it chooses to do.
I got the call up saying
the Prime Minister wanted to have a meeting with some fan reps
and was I able to put that together?
Football fans are always there with the football club.
Players come and go, managers come and go,
the one constant that you can be sure of,
and it's the collective voice is what gives us our strength,
so we needed to make sure that that voice in numbers
was raised as loud as it can be.
The meeting with the Prime Minister was on Zoom
because we couldn't go to Downing Street,
because of the pandemic,
So I was in my office at home,
thinking, "This is really quite extraordinary".
Here was I talking football with the Prime Minister.
He actually opened the meeting
by saying to us "Why am I, a free market conservative,
proposing to intervene on a matter of privately-owned companies?
"I am aware of the irony, but I need to do something to step in
and protect the national sport".
The Prime Minister's next question
was to the Chief Executive of the FA, Mark Bullingham,
who effectively said, "Well, we agree with what the fan reps have said".
That was a first.
And then it went across to the chief executive of the Premier League,
Richard Masters,
and the question there was, "Do you have the authority
to exclude these people from your competitions?"
Richard masters replied,
"We have a very good case, but it's not a perfect one".
And that was the point at which the Prime Minister said,
"We are prepared to throw a legislative bomb
to solve this problem".
Government was saying,
"We know you can't deal with this on your own.
We're coming to help you."
Good afternoon.
How can it be right to have a situation
in which you create a kind of cartel
that stops clubs competing against each other?
It's classic Johnson, isn't it? What does it mean? What did it mean?
I think it was just the fact that the Prime Minister was actually saying
these sorts of things, the language,
it must've terrified the executives of the clubs involved
By this point, it's very hard to see much support publicly, at least,
for the league going ahead.
You've got politicians, you've got royalty,
you've got football bodies, you've got fans,
you've got current and former players,
all lined up squarely against the Super League.
(KEYBOARD CLICKING)
Fans are the most important thing in football.
They have to be respected.
Did these big clubs ask to their fan what they thought about this idea?
No, unfortunately, and that's a shame.
"Intriguingly, we've still to hear from FIFA,
world football's governing body, on this."
FIFA was very quiet for the first 48 hours,
but then FIFA was not likely to be averse
to the idea of an organisation coming along
to take the power away from UEFA.
UEFA and FIFA are the two most powerful organisations in football,
and UEFA is too powerful for FIFA's liking.
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
(LAUGHS)
Gianni Infantino, the President of FIFA,
is determined to reshape the game in his image.
He wants to do something big.
He wants the world to know that he was here,
because there's still a stain on FIFA.
It is known as the beautiful game, but today soccer is reeling.
Fourteen FIFA officials have been indicted on corruption charges.
This is all stems from a US investigation
that's uncovered millions of dollars in alleged bribes and kickbacks.
Here we go Sepp, that's...
They were expected to uphold the rules that keep soccer honest,
and to protect the integrity of the game.
Instead, they corrupted the business of worldwide soccer
to serve their interests and to enrich themselves.
Mr Blatter, you've been kicked out in disgrace. How does it feel?
It's well known the level of corruption that exists at FIFA.
Infantino rose on sort of a mandate to kind of clean out the Blatter era.
But there are still tons of questions around how FIFA is run
and, to this day, sort of, who holds FIFA accountable.
I cannot speak about FIFA,
but UEFA was anyway a very clean organisation before I came.
We have to be as honest as possible, as absolutely clean,
and this is what gives you power.
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
Infantino in some ways is the chief political player.
He plays all sides because he has to.
He technically represents all sides.
So, it's undoubtedly the case that he was in the loop on this.
I pass the floor to FIFA President, Gianni Infantino.
Gianni, the floor is yours.
(APPLAUSE)
Infantino was under a lot of pressure from Ceferin.
Ceferin made it abundantly clear to Infantino
that he had to say something and he had to say something now.
The Super League clubs thought they had the approval of FIFA.
For both of them it was a chance to damage UEFA,
which was what both of those parties - the clubs and FIFA -
needed to do.
The last 48 hours obviously changed everything.
And it seems that there is only one topic which is of interest.
Of course, I'm speaking about this Super League project.
If FIFA had come out and say,
"We're OK with this, you can do it",
then suddenly everything changes, it is signed, sealed, and delivered.
So, let me be extremely clear from the very beginning...
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
The Super League founders understood
that Infantino was a key player they needed to attract.
They believed they had him on side,
but no one really fully understands where he actually sat.
..at FIFA, we can only and strongly disapprove
the creation of the Super League.
There is no doubt whatsoever...
..of FIFA's disapproval for this.
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
FIFA is here, and I'm here today as the FIFA President,
to bring full support to European football.
There is a lot to throw away...
..for maybe a short-term financial gain of some.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you very much, Gianni, for your speech.
Thank you very much that you personally and FIFA,
together with other football stakeholders,
defend the real sporting values.
It was the first Premier League meeting where six clubs
haven't been invited.
In terms of British football history, we were at a point
which was probably the most significant
since the founding of the Premier League.
The atmosphere was very strong and belligerent.
There was quite a bit of personal anger, you know,
directed towards individuals that they felt, you know,
that knew this was happening at the very- you didn't tell us.
Despite the fact that we are ultimately faceless administrators
that should play no real meaningful part in the game,
we're actually pretty much, to a man, all football fans.
It was almost like we were- you know, if we didn't act,
then the game might die on our watch.
There were quite strong views on punishment,
but none of it was particularly well formed.
Expulsion wasn't really an option.
You know, it was a, kind of, shoot yourself in the foot option.
But I think the main thing at the time
was to prevent it happening. That was the main focus.
There are a couple of clubs that we knew
that, you know, would really not be enjoying
the place that they'd been put into.
The strategy was to get one of the clubs to back out of it.
# It's coming home, it's coming Football's coming home
# It's coming home... #
We knew there was a lot of anger by Chelsea supporters.
We needed to be that kind of focal point, that voice box
because if you're shouting and screaming into the abyss,
nobody is really listening.
These pictures just into us from Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea up against Brighton tonight.
These are some of the Chelsea fans who are gathering to voice their protest.
If you look at it from an outside perspective,
Chelsea are going to get much more money
in this European super League
than in the Champions League and the Premier League,
surely this is a good idea.
But you would effectively have that top six every single season,
and it'd be pretty boring.
There were suggestions starting to filter through Chelsea and Manchester City,
the two teams who need the Super League the least,
because the way that football's economics currently work
is absolutely fine for them,
were starting to have second thoughts.
It's not a sport when the relation between the effort and the success,
the effort and the reward, doesn't exist, don't exist.
So, it's not a sport.
So, it's not a sport if the success is already guaranteed
It's not a sport and it doesn't matter if you lose.
I think they were presented on Friday with an ultimatum,
"This is going ahead this weekend, you're either in or out".
Either you're on board and you get the money,
or you're out forever, so what are you gonna do?
(APPLAUSE)
You had this strong response from England at every level.
It was important for the English clubs
to realise that the plan of the like of Real and Juve were pure fantasy.
Gentlemen, you made a huge mistake.
Some will say it is greed...
..others disdain, arrogance, flippancy,
or complete ignorance of England's football culture.
Come to your senses, not out of love for football,
because I imagine some of you don't have much of that,
but out of respect for those who bleed themselves dry,
so that they can go to the stadium to support a team
and want the dream to be kept alive.
For those, you change your mind.
More and more are gathering.
That's where the coaches should arrive,
but that's where the fans have positioned themselves.
CHANTING: Chelsea! Chelsea! Chelsea!
Chelsea! Chelsea! Chelsea!
There were thousands of people there
# Chelsea, wherever you may be We are the famous CFC #
It was just the average Chelsea supporter
saying, "You made a decision.
I don't like it and I'm gonna tell you about it".
Do you want Chelsea to win today?
I mean, if you gave me the choice, I'd say yeah,
but realistically you can hear, we're not Chelsea any more.
While it's like this it doesn't matter to us.
I grew up, it was just my mum, brother and me,
I didn't really have that male influence,
and my mum's best friend bought my brother and I Chelsea shirts.
Since that day, it's always been Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea.
Chelsea! Chelsea! Chelsea! Chelsea! Chelsea! Chelsea!
There was a lot of frustration and raw anger.
Supporters are, you know, fed up of being treated like customers
rather than football fans.
They have to listen.
If the fans aren't behind it,
then I will honestly boycott the matches.
No one's gonna watch them. It's over for them.
Fuck the Super League!
Yeah, fuck the Super League!
What we saw at Chelsea was a particularly memorable sign
being held up by one fan, "We want our cold nights in Stoke".
That banner epitomises the beauty of the English game,
especially in the Premier League.
On paper, Chelsea should be beating the likes of Burnley and Brentford
every single day of the week.
However, will we? No.
And that's one thing which the Super League would just take away,
because there would be no competition at all.
He's coming, here comes Petr Cech, he's having a word with the fans.
Here he comes.
The man in amongst all of that is Petr Cech,
of course former Chelsea goalkeeper.
Come on, you've got this.
I couldn't quite believe what was going on.
I thought it was a lookalike.
That huge image of Petr Cech speaking to the crowd,
it was, you know, biblical.
(FANS BOO)
The fact that Petr Cech couldn't get people to listen,
I think they realised how angry the supporters were.
(FANS CHANTING)
They would've understood
the reaction from the fans of the teams
that weren't in it being negative.
The thing they didn't understand at all
was that their own fans turned on them.
And at that point, early evening on Tuesday,
the clubs genuinely lose their nerve.
Wait, what's happened, what's happened?
What's happened? Show us, show us.
No way. No way. Oh my God.
(FANS CHEER)
Chelsea have left it. Chelsea have left it.
# We're out of the Super League!
We're out of the Super League!
# We're out of the Super League! #
It was like we had just won the Champions League again.
The fact that we were the ones who broke the factory owner's back
and made them heel to our demands
was something that I will take with me forever.
# We've got our Chelsea back We've got our Chelsea back!
Maybe they just thought, "D'you know what,
this would be a bit crap".
That's what I like to think, you know,
"And it would be a bit naff really, you know,
and dare I say a bit American."
"And everybody seems to not like it
and we're not making ourselves very popular, so let's not do it".
In football a weaker team can win.
I don't see any other group sport
that, that the weaker team can win, a much weaker team.
And this is something that, that is unexplainable.
I think that, I know that football is something special.
It's part of our culture that will stay forever.
Plans for a controversial European Football Super League
are unravelling tonight...
Chelsea and Manchester City are out,
while Manchester United have been rocked by the news
that Ed Woodward has resigned as Executive Vice Chairman.
We're being told it has nothing to d with the Super League,
and yet timing's a very important thing in football.
Sources close to Woodward always insist that Ed Woodward was
personally opposed to the Super League
and that is the reason that he ultimately resigned.
Other people within the game are saying, yeah,
but at the same time you're meeting the chief of staff
at number 10 on the Wednesday.
There's plenty of people who suspect that it was the complete disaster
that maybe left him with little choice but to resign
from his position in terms of his credibility within the club.
There is an imminent announcement due from the other four English clubs.
It was clear clubs were starting to withdraw from the Super League.
Chelsea and Manchester City went first.
Not surprisingly, the Americans hung on together for a bit longer.
We were just watching like everybody else,
watching it unfold
and, you know, everyone was watching the Sky ticker line.
Liverpool Football Club can confirm that our involvement
in proposed plans to form a European Super League
has been discontinued.
As soon as one club broke away from the cartel, as such,
it had to be all or nothing, didn't it?
Manchester United will not be participating.
Spurs, "We can confirm
that we have formally commenced procedures
to withdraw from the group developing proposals
for a European Super League."
You could just feel the momentum
building towards the next statement from another club,
because their fan base was going ballistic.
Arsenal, "As a result of listening to you
and the wider football community over recent days,
we are withdrawing from the proposed Super League.
We made a mistake and we apologise for it."
Managers, players, spectators, people who work for the clubs,
people that run football were against it,
but most importantly the supporters were against it.
We've got a happy ending. The good guys have won.
I've seen plenty of businesses collapse very dramatically,
but I've never seen something implode
as swiftly as the Super League did.
So I guess we start with the obvious this project, it's dead.
That's it? It's dead.
It fell apart officially within 48 hours.
It will go down as one of the worst executed plans of all time.
A car crash really, for those 12 owners.
European football had existed for 30 years under this threat
of the big clubs doing their own thing.
That was the threat that governed every change in European football.
And then when it came to pass,
when the biggest and the brightest and the best minds came together
and got their plan together and said, "This is what we're doing",
it lasted for 48 hours.
The mystery around where Andrea Agnelli was,
was quite a gripping one in Italy.
We don't really hear his thoughts until the Wednesday,
and what's most astonishing about that
is that by the Tuesday night,
the English part of it is already starting to fall apart.
Can you really progress
with a project for a Super League with five or six teams?
Look, I think, to be frank and honest, no.
I remain convinced of the beauty of that project,
of the value it would've developed to the pyramid,
of the creation of the best competition in the world,
but admittedly, no.
I mean, I don't think that project is now still up and running.
(SPEAKING ITALIAN)
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
CHANTING: Arsenal, Arsenal, Arsenal, Arsenal, Arsenal!
When we come together to express our frustration,
things can change very quickly, as the Super League demonstrated.
What made the Super League story so fantastically dramatic
was that one week where JP Morgan Chase,
billionaires from the US and Europe and China,
all were held accountable by football fans.
Do you have anything to say to Manchester United fans, Mr Glazer
An apology perhaps, Mr Glazer?
In the world of business, this just doesn't happen.
This is what it means to us.
This is what football means to the fans.
And we won't stop this until we get our football club back.
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
This is the irony,
the thing that's attracted all of these owners to football,
whether it's a Russian oligarch or a Gulf state,
or an American hedge fund,
the reason they've all ploughed money into it,
is that it does generate this incredible passion.
What happened with the Super League was that that was the thing
that undid them too.
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
If you look at who the single biggest winner of this project has been,
it is Nasser Al-Khelaifi of PSG,
because he's now the head of the European Clubs Association,
they've just signed Messi, and they can spend what they want
and there's no consequences.
That is closely followed by Man City
who have just spent 100 million on Grealish...
"Make some noise for Jack Grealish!"
And again, the astronomical player wages are now just unleashed.
You can make a case that football always reflects the world as it is,
and what we see now is a rampant drive by the 1%
to acquire as much of the wealth as possible,
and everybody else struggling to survive.
What we lost in that week was an opportunity
to have a real discussion about the state of the game.
It was just raw anger
and a story that projected some of the inequality in society.
Football come together, didn't it?
In a way that I've never seen before.
All the planets were aligned against greed.
Will we ever recapture that again? I don't know.
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