Barcelona president Joan Laporta has claimed that communication has continued with Liverpool and the other five Premier League clubs who turned their back on the European Super League over another tilt at the competition.
Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur were the English sides to initially sign up for the 12-team competition back in 2021, joining Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, AC Milan, Inter Milan and Atletico Madrid in trying to engineer the most seismic change that the European game had seen for decades.
But after a fierce backlash from fans, governing bodies, governments and the wider football family, nine of the clubs stepped away from the plans to leave only Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus as the willing participants in the ESL plan.
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Since the rejection of the ESL in April 2021 the case has been through the courts, with the three remaining rebel clubs wanting to ensure that they were able to clear a path to launching a revised, more palatable version of the competition in the future, making the legal case that what European football had presently was a monopoly held by the continent's governing body, UEFA.
The case of the trio was handed a blow last month when and Advocate General at the European Court of Justice gave his opinion that UEFA had acted lawfully in blocking the attempts at the ESL's launch and handing down punishments to the clubs that had sought to take part, as well as putting in place future punishment for any who tried to attempt it again.
That recommendation is expected to be adopted by the court in Madrid, where the case was first lodged, although Laporta has stated his belief that the decision will fall in favour of the attempts of the three rebel clubs, whose tilt at a new competition has been spearheaded by A22 Management, whose CEO has been attempting to go on the charm offensive ever since being put into post back in October.
Barcelona president Laporta, his opposite number at Real Madrid, Florentino Perez, and former Juventus president Andrea Agnelli, have been pushing the ESL agenda despite there having been little appetite from those who stepped away from the competition to get back involved given the extreme negativity that the plans were met with in 2020.
But Laporta, in an interview with Spanish radio station Cadena SER earlier this week, said: "I think there will be a Super League.
"I would not have entered into this project if it was not an open competition and it was accepted by Real Madrid, Juventus and other clubs that have not yet shown their faces but are very interested in this competition.
"It will be a reality in 2025, if the resolution is favourable. If the ruling, which I believe will not happen because what is being called into question is the defence of free competition in the framework of the EU, and I believe that this will be won.
"In a first step, what we will have is a European competition that will compete with the Premiership.
"I don’t think the English teams are going to enter in the first step. What we want them to enter and there is a lot of communication with the English clubs Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea and Tottenham. All these clubs, most of which are for sale and some have already been sold, are interested.
"The state leagues would be maintained and this will end up with a merger between the European Super League and the Premier [League]."
Liverpool were one of the agitators in the beginning for the formation of the ESL, with Fenway Sports Group supremo John W. Henry having seen it as a way of effecting some kind of structural change in European football through at least one competition where there would be more cost certainty and greater revenue potential through a more Americanised model. It was a competition that was presented to the football world as pretty much a closed shop that would have only served to widen the chasm that existed between the biggest European clubs and their domestic counterparts.
For Henry it was particularly bruising. The FSG chief and Liverpool principal owner ended up recording a video apology to Reds fans, shouldering the blame for the club's part in the ESL plot. Like dominoes, nine of the 12 clubs all stepped away from the plans over a dramatic 48 hours in European football.
For FSG it started a dialogue with the Spirit of Shankly supporters group and other Reds fan groups, with a Supporters' Board coming into effect earlier this year. The Supporters' Board would bring about meaningful fan representation at board level and would be afforded the power to have the deciding say on matters relating to upholding the integrity and traditions of the football club, including having to be sought for consent by the owners when it came to pursuing any further breakaway plans in the future.
As of earlier this year Liverpool and the rest were reported to remain shareholders in the European Super League Company, although for the clubs that stepped away their continued link is down to the legal issues that surround them attempting to extricate themselves from their part of the initial plan, where financial penalties were set to be imposed for any club that backed out of the proposals.
In a statement sent to the ECHO back in 2021, that first appeared in the Guardian, Liverpool's stance was made clear.
"Our involvement in the proposed ESL plans has been discontinued," the statement read. "We are absolutely committed to following that through and there should be no ambiguity to suggest otherwise.
"We are acting on the best legal advice and approach to appropriately end our involvement."
Liverpool's decision to create a Supporters' Board, one where its power is written into the articles of association of the club and would be binding even if FSG sell the club, which remains a possibility moving forward, provides some security over little being able to change unless it was voted for by supporters when it came to the ESL.
Liverpool have probably gone further than any of the other eight clubs since the ESL fallout to distance themselves from the plan, and while completely disentangling themselves from the mess that they helped create may still be problematic, there are roadblocks in place to put a hard stop to any plans to explore the situation again, not without fan approval first.
Other owners have also distanced themselves from an ESL move in the future.
Speaking at the Sportico Invest in Sports conference in New York in October, Chelsea co-owner Behdad Eghbali of Clearlake Capital, when asked by the ECHO about his own interest in the ESL moving forward, said: "I think the sport needs more premium high quality matches and content but it doesn't have to be a Super League.
"Todd [Boehly] went there on an All-Star Game, the baseball talent competition or draft generates £200million to £300million of revenue on a Monday or Tuesday each year, none of that exists in the EPL. Could there be an EPL versus Serie A game? Could you see pre-season matches producing more premium content on the pitch? You could.
"But structurally, given how botched that episode was does anybody have any appetite for something like that? A couple of teams in Spain do and they are vocal about it, but everyone else doesn't want to go there anymore."
Gerry Cardinale, founder and managing partner of RedBird Capital Partners, the investment firm that owns AC Milan and has acquired an 11 per cent stake in FSG for $750m back in March 2021, spoke to the ECHO at the same event in October and was also dismissive of the idea of the ESL, although stressed it important to look at the reasons why the idea became such a hot topic and was deemed necessary by the clubs at the time.
"The challenge for the leagues is that the teams have become so valuable that they have almost gotten away from the leagues," said Cardinale.
"People need to step back at a league level and if you think that these teams are mini-Disneys then look at the leagues and say 'what is the relationship between the leagues and teams?'
"In the US those guys have been pretty good at that but I would say that, globally, the teams have gotten away from the leagues. It is instructive to acknowledge the reasons why (the Super League attempt) happened and what are we going to do about it. We can hit that in different ways, it doesn't have to be through a European Super League."
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