Uefa boss labels rebel league chiefs ‘snakes’
MONTREUX: The deceptions, distrust and divisions in European football erupted in public yesterday between teams and even within the clubs breaking away to form a Super League that could leave them and their players outcasts in the global game.
Condemnation of the 12 rebel clubs from England, Spain and Italy even came from FA president Prince William, who followed the British Government in railing against moves to split from longstanding structures to play in a largely closed competition rather than Europe’s existing Uefarun Champions
League.
Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin turned on club leaders he called ‘‘snakes’’ and
‘‘liars’’, singling out
Juventus chairman
Andrea
Agnelli and Manchester United vicechairman Ed Woodward for betraying him by reneging on a pledge to stick within existing structures.
Ceferin threatened players from the Super League clubs with being banned from the European Championship and next year’s World Cup.
‘‘They will not be able to represent their national teams at any matches,’’ Ceferin warned earlier.
‘‘Uefa and the footballing world stand united against the disgraceful selfserving proposal we have seen in the last 24 hours from a select few clubs in Europe that are fuelled purely by greed above all else.’’
However, Real Madrid president Florentino Perez, the founding chairman of the Super League, downplayed Uefa’s threat to ban players.
The players ‘‘can be assured that this won’t happen’’, Perez said.
‘‘It’s not going to happen. We won’t get into the legal aspects of it, but it won’t happen. It’s impossible.’’
The strident rhetoric from Ceferin was followed yesterday by criticism of the Super League even by Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, despite owner John Henry securing the sixtime European champion’s participation in the new competition.
‘‘I don’t think it’s a great idea,’’ Klopp said.
Three of the 12 rebel clubs — Chelsea, Manchester City and Real Madrid — are scheduled to play in the Champions League semifinals next week.
Two more, Manchester United and Arsenal, are in the Europa League semifinals.
Ceferin said he wanted to boot them out as ‘‘as soon as possible’’ from Uefa competitions, but that would require ‘‘legal assessments’’ first.
Perez said the new competition was being created to ‘‘save soccer’’ and complained of a campaign to make the Super League look bad by those who would ‘‘lose their privileges’’.
The 12 clubs planning to start the breakaway Super League wrote to the leaders of Fifa and Uefa that they have begun legal action aimed at fending off threats to block their competition.
The breakaway was launched just as Uefa thought it had agreement on an expansion and new format of the Champions League from 2024, which was approved yesterday amid the turmoil.
An 87thminute header from defender Diego Llorente gave Leeds United a 11 home draw with Liverpool in the Premier League yesterday, after the home side staged a protest against the breakaway Super League before the kick off.
Leeds players came out for their warmup wearing shirts emblazoned with the slogan ‘‘Earn It’’ under the Champions League logo, a reference to the fact that the proposed 20club Super League would have 15 permanent members with no relegation.
The result left Liverpool sixth on 53 points from 32 games, one behind fifthplaced Chelsea which has a game in hand and two adrift of West Ham United in fourth. Leeds stayed 10th on 46 points. — AP/Reuters