The delegates filing into a conference room in central Brussels could not have missed the huge multishaded mural, a block further down Rue de la Loi, that read “The future is Europe”. They took their places and for the next two hours heard panellists discuss what, in a football context, that future should look like.
Closing the discussion was Javier Tebas, the La Liga president and perhaps the most divisive administrator in the modern game. “If this association is not strong,” he told the 104 clubs and 15 league representatives who had made the trip, “then in a few weeks’ time the future of European football is going to be pretty dark.”
