W hy did this come about, and why the backlash?

The Super League was created to rival the well-established Champions League, which the owners of the founding clubs have believed for some time is not as profitable as it could be. The argument put forth by the chairman of the breakaway league, Florentino Perez, who is famous for his role as Real Madrid president, is that younger generations are losing interest in football and that UEFA’s current elite club competition has become “obsolete”, with supporters around the world only interested in the Champions League once the knockout stage begins. The idea of the ESL is a simple one as it was falsely predicated under the illusion that fans only want to watch the biggest, wealthiest clubs compete against each other every week. However, while matches between the most high-profile clubs are massively entertaining, the proposal was met with heavy pushback as the majority of those who love and live football appreciate and celebrate the sport’s fundamental values and truths, with one of them being that a club, player or manager should only be considered successful if it/he/she has achieved or earned success where it matters: on the field. Not only do football lovers believe in this virtue, but they detest anything that jeopardises it, anything that smells like unfair competition. It is for this exact reason that there is such a reluctance to accept Manchester City as a giant of European football, as the English club was taken over in 2008 by Sheikh Mansour, an Emirati politician who is the deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and a member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi, who has undoubtedly brought about City’s rise to the top with a seemingly endless supply of resources to help the squad achieve results. By this same token, the inclusion of Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal in this group almost completely squandered the chances of the proposal being taken seriously as they are two clubs who have never won the Champions League, along with Atletico Madrid and the aforementioned City. Their involvement then suggested there were other, perhaps non-footballing, factors being considered, that perhaps the actual motive for the formation of the Super League was financial security, but only for those included and not for the sport. Some labelled it a “money grab”, while former United defender and captain Gary Neville called for the teams to be deducted points from their domestic leagues and sanctioned. UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin warned that players who participated in the tournament would be “banned from playing in the FIFA World Cup and Euros”, after calling those club chiefs who organised the competition “snakes”. Interestingly, Agnelli, who was named vice-chairman of the Super League, is also the godfather of Ceferin’s daughter.