MADRID, 3 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of UEFA, Aleksander Ceferin, is clear that “ideas like the Super League” will not appear in the foreground again “in the next ten or fifteen years” and that he does not see a future for the project because the English clubs, “the most important players in European football”, are not willing to join.
“I myself doubt that in the next ten or fifteen years such ideas will be able to appear again. We have three club presidents who continue to claim something for their egos, but on the other hand, they were the first to sign up for the Champions League for fear that the kicked out,” said Ceferin in an interview published on Monday by ‘RTV Slo’ in his country.
The leader stressed that the English teams “definitely will not join more.” “I don’t see a serious competition without them, who are probably the most important in European football,” added the Slovenian.
The president believes that when the idea arose, the year saw “really stormy times.” “When the time comes, I will be able to say more about it or write a book that would be very interesting, but then I didn’t sleep or eat or drink for 48 hours. I received calls of support and threats as well,” he said.
Before this happened, he was friendly with Andrea Agnelli, president of Juventus and with whom he now has “no relationship”. “Before I didn’t have a lot with Florentino Pérez, but in the Champions League final we said goodbye correctly. He sat next to me in the Paris final because according to protocol the finalist always sits next to the president. We spoke correctly and didn’t touch the Superliga”, admitted.
On the possibility of changing the format of the European Super Cup and turning it into a ‘Final Four’ and playing it in the United States, he warned that they have only talked about “the possibility of expanding” the tournament. “We didn’t talk at all about taking it out of Europe or who would play it,” he said.
“If there were, say, four teams, would they be the two finalists of the Champions League and the champions of the Europa League and the Conference League? The clubs have different points of view and the calendar is very busy, we have not been more beyond the first discussions, but there are no plans for now,” he continued.
Still, he personally likes the Super Cup to become “a bigger event and a football party, possibly including the women’s and youth competitions.” “Maybe a weekly legends match event, but I’m not sure we can implement this idea yet,” she said.
Ceferin also referred to the new rules of financial ‘fair-play’, whose objective is “the sustainability of the clubs”. “We see how some clubs, like FC Barcelona and Juventus, who have invested so much that they have extremely large losses. Our new rules are that you can spend a maximum of 70 per cent of all income on wages. I think this will stop the growing disparity between European clubs,” he stressed.
On the other hand, the president of UEFA also appeared this Monday at the congress of the International Sports Press Association (AIPS) held in Rome and where he was optimistic about the joint candidacy of Spain and Portugal to host the 2030 World Cup, with which they form Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and Chile.
“I am sure that we will win and I say ‘we’ because Spain and Portugal are our federations. There will be interesting developments in a few days and I am really looking forward to going to their world cup. I have heard that the final would be at the Santiago Bernabéu, but that’s fine,” he said in statements collected by the AIPS website.
