Todd Boehly has played down Chelsea reigniting their interest to join the controversial European Super League.
The Blues, along with Premier League rivals Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham, all registered their interest in the breakaway league back in 2021, but all pulled out after widespread backlash over the plans. AC Milan, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Juventus and Real Madrid completed the competition's 'Founding Clubs'.
Protests followed outside Stamford Bridge, with the club's supporters desperate for the plans not to go ahead. Chelsea released a statement on April 21, 2021, confirming their withdrawal from the Super League.
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The statement read: "As reported earlier this evening, Chelsea Football Club can confirm that it has begun the formal procedures for withdrawal from the group developing plans for a European Super League.
"Having joined the group late last week, we have now had time to consider the matter fully and have decided that our continued participation in these plans would not be in the best interests of the Club, our supporters or the wider football community."
Of course, this was under the ownership of Roman Abramovich, who sold the club to Boehly's consortium and Clearlake Capital earlier this year. Now, though, Boehly has confirmed it's not something that is being discussed internally within the club.
"I think the Champions League has a big component of that already," the Chelsea co-owner replied when asked about the Super League at the SALT Conference. "You have the best clubs playing each other every season.
"There's already a lot of that. If you win the Champions League, you win over 100m euros. You win the Masters and make a couple of million bucks. I think you can do that in the summer [play Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich] more often, and there are other ways to do that. I think that the passion the fans have for the sport as it is, is so strong then I can't envisage that changing."
Then when pressed about if that was a definite no regarding the Super League, Boehly replied: "I never say hard nos, I like to keep options alive, but it is not something that we are talking about at all."
If the Super League did go ahead, there would be no relegation, which was another one of the numerous elements that didn't sit well with supporters. Boehly was asked whether relegation is a "good thing" or not, and the American referenced how in his homeland, going down a division is quite often decided by a play-off process.
He replied: "Those relegation games are some of the highest broadcast games. Ultimately, I hope the Premier League takes a little bit of a lesson out of the American sports teams and really start to think about why don't we do a tournament with the bottom four teams.
"People are talking about why don't we have more money for the pyramid. MLB [Major League Baseball] did their all-star game this year. They made $200m from a Monday and a Tuesday. You could do a North vs South all-star game from the Premier League to fund the pyramid very easily."
Then, when asked what his counterparts think, the Chelsea co-owner responded: "Everyone likes the idea of more revenue for the league, but there's a real cultural aspect. I think evolution will come."
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