Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, and Juventus are still not ready to give up on their dream of establishing a breakaway league called the European Super League.
Days after the European football governing body, UEFA, announced that a disciplinary procedure against the three clubs has started, the three clubs decided to issue a statement to insist that UEFA should obey the rule of law.
The war between UEFA and the three founding clubs of the failed European Super League started on April 18, 2021, when 12 clubs confirmed their involvement with the breakaway league.
The clubs that signed up for the league included 6 Premier League clubs, Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, and Manchester City, three La Liga clubs, FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Atletico Madrid, three clubs from Serie A, Inter Milan, AC Milan, and Juventus.
After they announced the establishment of the proposed league which was scheduled to kick-off in the 2022-2023 season, football governing bodies, administrators, pundits, and football fans began to agitate against it via every available platform.
The agitation became so much that the 6 Premier League clubs that signed up for the European Super League decided to step down. Afterward, Atletico Madrid, AC Milan, and Inter Milan decided to also bow out of the plan.
UEFA sanctioned the clubs that have bowed out from the failed breakaway league and said it would carry out disciplinary procedures against Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Juventus that have failed to bow out from the plan.
Earlier this week, UEFA announced that the disciplinary procedures against the three founding clubs of the European Super League have commenced. The announcement went contrary to a statement the three clubs issued earlier that they have taken UEFA to court to challenge UEFA’s monopolistic power over football in Europe.
According to the three clubs, the court had ordered that UEFA must not carry out any action against the three clubs and the proposed league until the end of the court proceedings but UEFA seemed not to be a part of such a ruling.
Hence, a statement the three clubs released on Wednesday, May 26, 2021, read: “FC Barcelona, Juventus FC, and Real Madrid CF wish to express their absolute rejection of the insistent coercion that UEFA has been maintaining towards three of the most relevant institutions in the history of football. This alarming attitude constitutes a flagrant breach of the decision of the courts of justice, which have already made a clear statement warning UEFA to refrain from taking any action that could penalize the founding clubs of the Super League while the legal proceedings are ongoing.
“Therefore, the opening of disciplinary proceedings by UEFA is incomprehensible and is a direct attack against the rule of law that we, the citizens of the European Union, have democratically built up while constituting a lack of respect toward the authority of the courts of justice themselves.
“From the beginning, the Super League has been promoted to improve the situation of European football, through permanent dialogue with UEFA and to increase the interest in the sport and to offer fans the best possible show. This objective has to be achieved in a framework of sustainability and solidarity, especially in a precarious economic situation such as the one many clubs in Europe are currently experiencing.
“Instead of exploring ways of modernizing football through open dialogue, UEFA expects us to withdraw the ongoing court proceedings that question their monopoly over European football. Barcelona, Juventus, and Real Madrid, all of them more than a century old, will not accept any form of coercion or intolerable pressure, while they remain strong in their willingness to debate, respectfully and through dialogue, the urgent solutions that football currently needs.
“Either we reform football or we will have to watch its inevitable downfall.”
FC Barcelona, Juventus and Real Madrid remain committed to modernizing football through an open dialogue with UEFA
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) May 26, 2021
Full statement:
🔗 https://t.co/xBANxm4jtL pic.twitter.com/zJbb4BmxZ7
