Ceferin hits out at Super League backers amid revival rumours

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin says the Super League’s remaining backers “must live in a parallel world”, amid reports that Juventus, Real Madrid, and Barcelona are looking to revive the project, almost a year on from the breakaway competition’s ill-fated launch. 

The proposed Super League was announced on April 18th last year, although nine of the competitions’ 12 founding clubs moved to renounce the idea within days after it provoked a fierce backlash from across the footballing world. 

However, Madrid, Barca and Juve remain committed to the project, with Bianconeri president Andrea Agnelli reportedly keen to kick-start a new proposal.

Speaking at the Financial Times’ Business of Football Summit in London, at which Agnelli was present, the UEFA president has now hit out at the clubs’ owners for discussing the return of the controversial competition during the midst of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“First they launched [this] nonsense idea in middle of a pandemic,” Ceferin said of the club owners. “Now we are hearing they are launching another in a war. 

“They must live in a parallel world.”

Ceferin has previously labelled Agnelli, as well as the Spanish giants’ presidents Florentino Perez and Joan Laporta, as “incompetent”, and accused them of trying to “kill football”.

Meanwhile, Ceferin also spoke about the sporting sanctions being placed on Russia in the aftermath of the invasion on Ukraine.

FIFA and UEFA have moved to expel Russian teams from its competitions, including the upcoming Women’s European Championships in England, for which Russia had qualified, while St Petersburg has been stripped of this season’s Champions League final.

FIFA and UEFA suspend Russian clubs and national teams from all competitions.

Full statement:

— UEFA (@UEFA) February 28, 2022

The UEFA president explained that a decision on who would replace Russia in the Women’s Euros was yet to be made, but re-iterated that football must do what it can to apply pressure to the nation.

“The decision of ex-ci [the UEFA executive committee] is all Russian teams are out of the competition,” he said.

“Probably we will have a draw [to decide] who enters [the Women’s Euros] between teams [previously] close to qualifying, but for now, the decision has not been made yet.

“Nobody from our side expected a war in the middle of Europe. 

“This is bigger than football. We have to do our part, but we just want this madness to stop as soon as possible.”