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Super League show will go on says Florentino Perez

Real Madrid president adamant that 12 clubs are bound to contracts and blueprint is path out of Covid crisis

Real Madrid president Florentino Perez. Photo: Sergio Perez/Reuters Expand

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Real Madrid president Florentino Perez. Photo: Sergio Perez/Reuters

Real Madrid president Florentino Perez. Photo: Sergio Perez/Reuters

Real Madrid president Florentino Perez. Photo: Sergio Perez/Reuters

Jamie Jackson

Real Madrid president Florentino Perez said the 12 clubs announced last week as founders of the European Super League cannot abandon it due to binding contracts and promised the project would return soon.

Perez, whose club is one of three teams along with Barcelona and Juventus yet to withdraw, said it was not so simple for clubs to leave.

“I don’t need to explain what a binding contract is but effectively, the clubs cannot leave,” he said.

“Some of them, due to pressure, have said they’re leaving. But this project, or one very similar, will move forward and I hope very soon.”

Manchester United fans have staged protests outside Old Trafford, demanding the Glazers cease ownership of the club. Joel Glazer, who was to be one of the ESL’s most senior figures, last week wrote an open letter of apology to fans and is also reported to have apologised to the club’s players.

JP Morgan, who had provided a €3.5bn grant to the founding clubs, said on Friday it had “misjudged how the deal would be viewed”. Perez, however, said the bank was still on board.

“It’s not true they’ve withdrawn. They have taken some time for reflection, just like the 12 clubs. If we need to make changes we will but the Super League is the best project we’ve thought of,” he said.

“The partnership still exists as do the members who comprise the Super League. What we have done is taken a few weeks to reflect in light of the fury of certain people who don’t want to lose their privileges and have manipulated the project.”

Perez reiterated the need for the new competition to boost clubs struggling to cope with losses from the pandemic, adding the 12 Super League clubs had lost a combined €650m last year and stood to lose up to €2.5bn this year.

He was also not convinced by Uefa’s reform of the Champions League, which will see the competition expanded to 36 teams from 2024.

“The Super League is the best possible project to help football come out of the crisis. Football is gravely hurt and we have to adapt to the era we live in,” he said.

“I think that the Champions League reform isn’t the best it can be, and what’s more we cannot wait until 2024.”

Meanwhile, United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has admitted that the Glazer family, have a “job on their hands” following the fiasco and has called for unity in the club.

“The owners of every club that signed up for this proposal have got a job on their hands, of course they have,” said Solksjaer, whose side face Leeds at Elland Road today. “We’ve had an apology from Joel and that’s important. He’s told us how committed he is to helping us going forward.”

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