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Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin reiterated on Monday that clubs and players involved in the proposed breakaway Super League could be banned “as soon as possible” from all of its competitions and the World Cup.
Addressing an emergency meeting the day after 12 of Europe’s top clubs announced the Super League, Ceferin launched a scathing attack on the plan, which has been widely condemned across the game and beyond.
Ceferin refused to rule out that players could be banned from the Euros. When asked directly about when the ban would begin, he said: “I do not know when.”
He added: “We’re still assessing with our legal team but we will take all the sanctions that we can and we will inform you as soon we can,” he said. “My opinion is that as soon as possible they have to be banned from all our competitions and the players from all our competitions.”
Ceferin described the European Super League as “spit in the face” for football and society — and said former European Club Association chairman Andrea Agnelli was “the biggest disappointment”. In an extraordinary outburst, he described the plotters of the new league as “snakes”.
He added: “I do not want to be too personal, but I’ve never seen a person that would lie so many times, so persistently as he did. It’s unbelievable.”
He said the behaviour of the clubs behind the Super League plan was about “greediness, selfishness and narcissism”.
Ceferin said he has spoken to Agnelli, who is also the president of Italian giants Juventus, on Saturday and was assured rumblings of a European Super League were just “rumours”.
The pair were due to speak within an hour, by Ceferin claims Agnelli switched off his phone.
Ceferin also took aim at Manchester United’s Ed Woodward claiming he had already signed Manchester United up for the European Super League when he gave his support to Champions League reforms in a phone call last week.
“I have seen many things in my life. I was a criminal lawyer. I have never seen people like that,’ said Ceferin. ‘If I start with Ed Woodward, he called me last Thursday evening saying he’s very satisfied with and fully supports the reforms and the only thing he wants to talk about was Financial Fair Play, when obviously he had already signed something else.’
And Ceferin continued: “All the world knows now that they unanimously supported our reforms on Friday, when they obviously had signed the agreement (with the Super League). All that are sitting there: Woodward, Agnelli, (Ivan) Gazidis and Pedro Lopes from Real Madrid. I don’t have to explain more what I think about them.’
“We might be naive in not knowing we have snakes close to us,” he added. “Now we do. There will be legal action soon.”
The meeting on Monday was supposed to be a celebration for Ceferin having finally forced through plans to expand the Champions League competition from 32 to 36 clubs, with 100 extra matches. — AFP
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