UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin would not mind if Juventus, Real Madrid and Barcelona leave the Champions League after the trio “tried to kill football”.
Juve, Madrid and Barca were three of 12 clubs announced as founding members of the Super League in April, along with Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, Milan, Inter and Atletico Madrid.
However, the controversial project failed to get off the ground as a backlash quickly led to the withdrawal of all six English teams involved, followed by Atleti, AC Milan and Inter Milan.
All 12 founding members of the Super League left the European Club Association (ECA) before the competition collapsed, but nine of the rebel clubs have since been welcomed back.
Madrid and financially struggling La Liga rivals Barça maintain a commitment to the unfortunate partnership, as do Serie A giants Juve, but each of these teams will compete in the Champions League when the group stage begins next week.
Targeting the presidents of the three separatist clubs, Andrea Agnelli, Florentino Perez and Joan Laporta, Ceferin told Der Spiegel: “These three clubs simply have incompetent leaders. Those guys tried to kill football.
“I wouldn’t mind if those teams left. It’s great fun that they want to create a new competition and at the same time they want to play the Champions League this season. “
Speaking in April, Super League president Perez said the competition would be the savior of football as clubs struggled to adapt to the financial woes caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Just four months later, though, Real Madrid made three offers for Kylian Mbappe, who is in the final year of his contract with Paris Saint-Germain, with the third of the rejected offers reportedly worth up to 200 million. EUR.
“He is criticizing UEFA and saying the club can only survive with a Super League, then he tries to sign Mbappe,” Ceferin said of Perez.