Barcelona and Real Madrid have pledged to continue working on a European Super League after a European Court of Justice (ECJ) vote in favour of UEFA.
The Spanish giants and Juventus are still trying to revive the doomed Super League, which aimed to create a closed shop of elite clubs and thus disregarded the traditional European football pyramid. It collapsed with 48 hours of its launch in April 2021 due to protests.
Barcelona and Real claim they are in talks with "many clubs cross 10 different countries who share our views of the challenges faced by the sport" - which suggests there is support for a Super League. They have not provided the names of these clubs, however.
The European Super League Company - effectively Barcelona, Real and Juventus - had brought a complaint to Madrid's commercial court to argue UEFA, FIFA and other governing bodies had created a cartel to stop rival competitions from being established.
The case was referred to the ECJ - the highest possible seat that deals with matters of European competition law - and a hearing was held in Luxembourg in July. The Super League clubs argued the governing bodies had a monopoly on organising competitions.
The governing bodies had threatened that any player who participated in the Super League would be banned from taking part in their competitions. Barcelona, Real and Juventus argued this was in contravention of the European Union's competition law.
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Yet the ECJ is set to rule in favour of the governing bodies after advocate general Athanasios Rantos provided his initial judgement. "The FIFA-UEFA rules under which any new competition is subject to prior approval are compatible with EU competition law," read a statement.
Despite this, the Super League clubs are not giving up on the idea without a fight. "FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta, the president of Real Madrid Florentino Pérez and Bernd Reichart, CEO of A22 Sport, the promoters of the Super League, met on Friday in Madrid to continue to explore new avenues to reform European Football," read Barcelona's statement.
"The meeting took place as part of the 'New Economic Forum' conference in which A22 Sport CEO Bernd Reichart was taking part.
"Once the meeting was over, A22 Sports published a short statement via their official Twitter account: 'We are continuing to work to reform European football, to improve competitiveness, sustainability and governance. We are talking to many clubs across 10 different countries who share our view of the challenges faced by the sport. Standing still cannot be an option.'"
The initial Super League plan was for 20 clubs to play in an annual European competition, with 15 of those clubs guaranteed their entry. A dozen of those 15 clubs agreed to join the lucrative league ahead of its launch, including the Premier League's so-called "Big Six".
The idea was condemned by players, coaches and fans. Huge protests were staged outside of Premier League stadiums - forcing Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham to pull out of the Super League after two days.
