Chelsea co-owner Behdad Eghbali believes that none of the nine clubs that stepped away from the idea of a European Super League last year have any desire to pursue it.
Chelsea were one of the clubs, along with Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Inter Milan, AC Milan and Atletico Madrid to exit the plans to launch the ESL in March of 2021 less than 48 hours after the project was revealed.
The ESL plan was met with a hostile response from fans, football authorities, the wider football community and even governments when it was first revealed late on a Sunday night, the plan proposed being a closed European competition that would see the biggest clubs in the world in charge of their own media and commercial rights, which are currently within the remit of UEFA when it comes to the Champions League.
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Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus remain espoused to the idea of the ESL and have been vocal on what they believe is a necessary step for European football to take. Such has been their stance they have been embroiled in a legal battle with UEFA for more than year as they seek a judgement in the European Court of Justice to end what they see as a monopoly on European football by UEFA. A victory in the courts would clear the way for another tilt at the ESL further down the line.
On Tuesday it was revealed that A22, the holding company behind the ESL plot and where 11 of the 12 clubs are understood to still have a shareholding, with nine of them seeking to exit but facing financial penalties for doing so, have hired German television executive Bernd Reichart as their CEO, the new man claiming in an interview with the Financial Times that he hoped a competition would be able to be launched by 2024/25.
Clubs like Liverpool have been vocal in ending their interest, the Reds forming a Supporters Board in partnership with the Spirit of Shankly supporters group and a number of other Reds fan groups that has the power to deny consent for the club to participate in any further ESL unless it is approved by the fans. That is written into the articles of association at the club and will be binding even if ownership changes.
And it appears that the appetite for another ESL plan isn't great at Chelsea, whose co-owner Todd Boehly had raised the potential for an 'All-Star Game' to arrive into the English football calendar at some point.
Chelsea co-owner and Clearlake Capital co-founder Eghbali, who was appearing at the Sportico Invest in Sports conference in New York on Wednesday, told football.london: "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."
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