The Uefa Executive Committee were already 20 minutes late, with some more aggrieved stakeholders aggravated, when the reasons suddenly became clear. President Aleksander Ceferin and European Football Clubs [EFC] chairman Nasser Al Khelaifi walked in with a flourish. They could announce that Real Madrid were returning to the fold, again becoming members of the EFC, the lobby group that used to be known as the European Club Association.
For many, this was obviously presented as an unprecedented Florentino Perez climbdown, the ultimate defeat of the Super League. Al-Khelaifi even felt the need to add that, if anyone thought Perez “lost”, “they are stupid and know absolutely nothing about football”.
