Billionaire blames debacle on Brexit

BORIS Johnson helped to bring down the ESL because he feared it would undermine Brexit, an Italian football chief has claimed.

Andrea Agnelli, the chairman of Juventus, said he remained ‘ convinced of the beauty’ of the plan – but conceded it was dead after all six English teams pulled out.

Claiming they did so due to Mr Johnson’s threat of new legislation, the billionaire said: ‘I have had speculation to that extent that if six teams would have broken away... politics would have seen that as an attack to Brexit and their political scheme.’ A No 10 spokesman rejected the claim, saying: ‘The Prime Minister was very clear on why it was right for the Government to step in... which was the importance of football at the heart of communities.’

Mr Agnelli, 45, whose family founded Fiat, was a key architect of the doomed ESL. He has been branded a ‘snake’ by Aleksander Ceferin, who is president of the European football body Uefa – and godfather to Mr Agnelli’s daughter.