Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has blamed one Premier League club for ‘infect[ing]’ the doomed Super League project.
Six English sides, Arsenal, Tottenham, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United, all withdrew from the breakaway competition on Tuesday after a backlash from supporters.
And Perez, who was chosen to lead the Super League, says an unnamed member of the Premier League group was never completely on board.
‘There was one club in the English group that did not have much interest and that could infect others,’ Perez told El Larguero.
‘That club, which I am not going to say their name, signed a binding agreement. I am convinced that if this project does not come out, another will come out.
‘I’m sad and disappointed. We’ve been working for years on this, looking to see how to make things better from a football and economic point of view.
‘The leagues are sacred. What we can change is the midweek games. The Champions League is obsolete. It’s only interesting from the quarter-finals.
‘The contracts were binding. With legal contracts you cannot leave like this. The contacts belong to serious people, businessmen who know this world. The first thing we have agreed is to stop and start explaining this as we should have done.’
Perez also slammed Uefa for its reaction to Sunday’s announcement, which shook the world of football.
‘Uefa put on a show, that I was completely surprised by,’ he added. ‘As if we’d dropped a nuclear bomb. What did we do wrong? Maybe we presented it badly, but why didn’t they let us talk about it?
‘It isn’t fair that in England six are losing and 14 winning, that big clubs in Spain are losing money and the small clubs are earning money. Football is a pyramid. If there is money at the top, then the money flows down and everyone gets some.
‘At the top [of tennis], [Roger] Federer has to play against [Rafael] Nadal. People don’t go to see Nadal against the 80th in the world.
‘I have never seen aggression like it, from the president of Uefa and the domestic leagues. It seemed orchestrated. Insults, threats, like we killed football. We were trying to save football.’
Perez also refused to admit defeat in his attempt to launch the Super League, with the Madrid honcho insisting that none of the 12 clubs has officially withdrawn yet.
‘The project is on standby,’ he said. ‘Juventus haven’t left, [AC] Milan neither. We’re all together. Barcelona are reflecting.
‘The first thing we agreed yesterday was to stop, to explain, as we should have done from the start. No one has paid [a penalty to leave], the 12 are still there, they haven’t left. We signed a binding agreement after a lot of work.’
