Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has admitted the European Tremendous League is “on standby” after eight of the 12 golf equipment involved announced their withdrawal — whereas blasting the present Champions League format as “out of date” and claiming the response to the venture was “as if we would killed soccer.”
Perez — one of many proposed breakaway competitors’s principal instigators, named as its first chairman — additionally dismissed fan protests similar to these seen exterior Chelsea‘s Stamford Bridge on Tuesday, saying that “solely 40” followers had been concerned and suggesting that they had been “mobilised” by Tremendous League opponents.
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“I am unhappy and upset,” Perez advised Spanish radio present El Larguero, following Actual’s 3-0 win towards Cadiz. “We have been engaged on this venture for 3 years… I’ve by no means seen a lot aggression, it is as if it had been orchestrated, it shocked us all. I have been in soccer for 20 years, it is an aggression I’ve by no means seen in my life. We have had threats, it is like we killed somebody, killed soccer.”
All six Premier League golf equipment which had initially signed up for the competitors — Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur — pulled out on Tuesday, earlier than Atletico Madrid and Internazionale adopted them a day later.
“Somebody within the English group did not have quite a lot of curiosity, and that turned contagious,” Perez mentioned. “One in all them was by no means satisfied… [The English clubs] left due to the environment. UEFA placed on a present. It was like we let off an atomic bomb. Maybe we have not introduced and defined it effectively, however they have not given us the chance both.”
Concerning the protests exterior of Chelsea’s 0-0 Premier League draw with Brighton on Tuesday night, Perez seemingly inferred that La Liga president Javier Tebas had a task in these demonstrations.
“There have been 40 [Chelsea fans] and I can let you know who put them there,” he mentioned. “The identical one that gave Cadiz [anti-Super League] t-shirts,” Perez mentioned in a veiled reference to Tebas. “That is not regular. Soccer is a world of values.”
Whereas AC Milan and Juventus launched statements on Wednesday admitting that the competitors was unlikely to proceed as deliberate, Actual Madrid and Barcelona had remained silent.
“The venture is on stand-by,” Perez mentioned. “Juventus have not left, Milan neither. We’re all collectively. Barcelona are reflecting. The very first thing we agreed yesterday was to cease, to elucidate, as we must always have carried out from the beginning… No-one has paid [a penalty to leave], the 12 are nonetheless there, they have not left. We signed a binding settlement after quite a lot of work.”
Perez insisted that the discount in revenue attributable to the coronavirus pandemic, coupled by waning curiosity from new generations of followers, needed to be met by radical adjustments to European soccer past these proposed by UEFA of their new Champions League format unveiled on Monday.
“[Big signings] will not exist with out the Tremendous League,” he mentioned. “Not for Madrid or anybody. It is unimaginable if the cash does not circulation.”
Perez denied that Actual Madrid — which is a membership owned by its members or socios, like Barcelona — ought to put the plans to a vote in its annual meeting.
“Do you assume [the members] are silly?” he mentioned. “In case you inform them each Tuesday or Wednesday you may play towards Manchester [United] or Barcelona… Will not they like that? Do not you assume the followers would favor to play towards the massive golf equipment from the beginning? Do you assume I’ve to ask them that?”