The battle over Super League rumbles on, with the six English clubs that were part of the scheme, still having failed to remove themselves from the organisation set up to run it. Meanwhile a legal case continues ducking and weaving its way around various European courts – claiming that Uefa is a monopoly which stops clubs running their own competitions if they want to. The 12 clubs in SuperLeague including Arsenal all still refuse to give up their shares in the company.
And now, just as Uefa are back in court today to defend their position against a court ruling which forbad Uefa taking action against Super League while proceedings in court were, well, proceeding, Uefa has ducked.
For the European media is reporting that Uefa has decided to quash all disciplinary proceedings, already suspended, against the 12 Super League clubs, thus complying with a Madrid court ruling.
The disciplinary sanctions “in relation to the so-called Super League project are declared null and void, without any prejudice, as if the proceedings had never been initiated”, says a Uefa statement.
This decision concerns both the nine clubs that had officially left the Super League project and those remaining inside (Real Madrid, Juventus and FC Barcelona) and which Uefa threatened to exclude from European competitions.
A Madrid commercial court on July 1 asked Uefa to “overturn” what it saw as a “disguised sanction” against the nine football clubs that had withdrawn from the League. Among the “reinstatement measures” accepted by these nine clubs, but ultimately abandoned, was the forfeiture of 5% of their UEFA competition income for one season, a “global” donation of 15 million euros to the “communities”. local ”in European football or a fine of 100 million euros if they ever seek to compete in an “unauthorized”competition.
The Madrid court had argued that Uefa was blatantly ignoring the court’s requirements, and it seems Uefa has agreed that in threatening Real Madrid, Barca and Juventus with being excluded from European competitions it was indeed in contempt of court.
Uefa has issued a statement which according to the Guardian says, “The persistent pursuit of this ESL project and the resultant court cases comprise an ongoing existential threat to the foundations and future of European football and the European Sports Model.”
And yet with all that ongoing, reports in some of the media say that instead of Super League at the AGM of the Premier League there was discussion of some clubs playing some League fixtures overseas to earn more money. The Athletic is reporting that China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and the USA are all interested in this notion – an idea that was first put forward about ten years back.
One of the big problems in all this is the long-term policy of much of the media, especially in England, not to discuss the multiple issues created by Fifa, and the various court cases still going on in relation to Infantino and his group. They have picked up on SuperLeague because it directly involves English clubs, but not the background to all this, so it is now impossible for them fully to explain what is really happening.
The reality is there are three blocks seeking ever greater aggrandisement – the two major international bodies and the big clubs. Uefa for example, doesn’t want clubs playing league matches beyond their boundaries because that is one step along the road of clubs saying they don’t need Uefa. Uefa is also fearful of Fifa given that Fifa has now taken over the running of football in Africa.
The clubs know that they can be bigger than Uefa and don’t see why they have to keep giving up their players to competitions that they don’t organise.
It is becoming a bit of a tangled web!
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If you are on Twitter, I recommend that you follow tariq panja (@tariqpanja). He is a reporter for the New York Times, and co-wrote “Football’s Secret Trade”, which detailed negative cashflows and hidden debts (among other things) associated with player transfers.
On his Twitter feed he mentions FIFA attempting to move commercial operations from Switzerland to the United States, Amidju Pinnock’s support for Infantino, Conmebol requesting that half-time is extended to 25 minutes, new international tournaments in the pipeline for countries that fail to qualify for the biennial World Cups, striking metrical similarities between PSG and Man. City finances. The list goes on.