On the verge of Spanish justice confirming its first great victory, the Super League has denounced the “threats” and “unbreathable climate” fostered by UEFA y FIFA to “annihilate” the emergence of new independent competitions on the European football scene. He did so during the final hearing that was held today in the Madrid court that will decide whether the two organizations exercised a position of abuse of power, as they already said in preliminary rulings. Court of Justice of the European Union and the Provincial Court of Madrid.
An important day for the project they champion Florentino Perez y John Laportabut which has also been overshadowed, however, by the continuous allusions to the ghost of the original model that the Super League proposed in 2021. A model criticized for the lack of sporting merits and for the hypothetical negative economic impact that it would have on the clubs does not participants, and that, despite trying to disassociate itself from it, continues to darken the image of the project that aspires to mark the future of European football.
Judge Sofía Gil, head of the Commercial Court number 17 in Madrid, which is where the original complaint was filed against UEFA and FIFA for abuse of power, will predictably fail in line with what the CJEU said in December of last year.
However, even if the forecasts are met, this will not automatically give the green light to a project that will surely still need more victories in the courts, where the national leagues, UEFA and FIFA will continue to defend their interests; in the offices, where he must convince the clubs that left; and in the stands, where the fans don’t seem to see it clearly.
Changes from the original model
The initial rejection of what was proposed then has since weighed down the image of the Super League, which wants to separate this judicial process as much as possible from a debate about the original model to focus it on the alleged monopoly exercised by UEFA and FIFA. “They have been trying to kill the Super League for three years”said the lawyer for A22, one of the companies that supports the project. In that sense, for example, he has announced “legal actions” against La Liga and its president, Javier Tebas, to stop their “campaign of harassment and denigration” towards them.
For this reason, the project defended by Florentino Pérez and Joan Laporta has continually highlighted during the hearing that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which did not go into assessing the substance of the issue about whether or not there can be a Super League or what it should be like, it did declare illegal some of the UEFA and FIFA regulations that, de facto, prevented the appearance of new projects and They threatened to sanction clubs and players who participated in them.
The president of Real Madrid, Florentino Pérez; that of FC Barcelona, Joan Laporta; and the CEO of A22 Sports, Bernd Reichart, at an informative breakfast about the Super League in Madrid. / EUROPA PRESS
In this way, the Super League has tried to prevent the changes that UEFA has already introduced in its regulations in 2022 from restarting, in some way, a process that has already lasted three years in this first phase. Some modifications that, in his opinion, would demonstrate that the model defended in 2021 by international associations and national leagues was not the only one possible for European football.
In that sense, one of the lawyers who represent the interests of the Super League project has recalled that “UEFA has carried out numerous variations in its competitions since then, such as the Conference League or the new format of the Champions League, so often criticized, by the way, for La Liga.”
For his part, the lawyer representing La Liga has criticized that “the model presented by the Super League in 2021, and all successive modifications, is not based on sporting merit, but on simple economic power.”
Renew contacts with English clubs
The decision of the CJEU at the end of 2023 somewhat revitalized the Super League project, which had seen how the threat of sanctions and the fans’ rejection of the initial proposed model had reduced the members of the project to two: the Real Madridthe main promoter with Florentino Pérez at the helm, and the FC Barcelona.
Now, and after the impetus of that decision and the one that the Commercial Court number 17 will predictably take along the same lines, the Super League has reported in recent weeks that, in addition to Naples, more clubs have once again become interested in the project. Supposedly including the English, who are the ones who have the key to making this not only legal but also interesting.
“It is an absolutely logical and natural process. Everyone is trying to get an idea of what the ruling could mean, it is the professional obligation of the clubs to know what this change in the governance of clubs in Europe could mean for them “Bernd Reichart, CEO of A22 Sports Management, told the ‘PA’ news agency.
Recently, however, the project received a small setback from Europe, since, according to the documentation to which El Periódico de España, from the Prensa Ibérica group, had access, it will not be able to register the brand ‘The Super League’ (Superliga) because It conflicts with the name of the Danish football league. The decision can still be appealed to the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), which is the one who made this decision.
2024-03-14 17:01:48
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