MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th April, 2021) UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin believes that the most important contribution in the confrontation with the football clubs that announced the creation of the Super League was made by fans who had sharply criticized the project.
Earlier in April, 12 of Europe's leading football clubs � AC Milan, Arsenal, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Juventus, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Tottenham Hotspur � officially announced the establishment of the Super League, a new European club football tournament. The announcement was met with widespread criticism not only from the FIFA and UEFA leaderships, as well as the national football associations of European states, but also from political leaders and fans. UEFA also announced that it would not allow Super League players to participate in World and European championships.
Three days in to Super League's founding, nine of the twelve clubs had announced their plans to withdraw, with just Juventus, Barcelona, and Real Madrid remaining.
"Look, honestly speaking I was completely impressed by the reaction of the fans, the whole football community and not just the football community but I would say society. I never seen this. UEFA did its part, the clubs that stood with us did their part. And of course the UK Government out of all did the big part. But by far the biggest part was done by fans," Ceferin told Daily Mail in an interview published on Sunday.
According to the UEFA president, these 12 European football clubs that had previously announced the creation of the Super League must be held accountable for their actions, however the penalty will not be the same for all of them.
"Let's see. Everyone has to take consequences for what they did and we cannot pretend nothing happened. You cannot do something like that and just say: 'I've been punished because everybody hates me.' They don't have problems because of anyone else but themselves. It's not OK what they did and we will see in next few days what we have to do," he added.
According to Ceferin, there is a difference between the football clubs that admitted making a "mistake" first and other clubs involved in this initiative.
The UEFA president separately thanked UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the government in general, who "were on the right side of history at the right time." Johnson, in particular, said that his government would do everything possible to prevent the creation of a European football Super League. He also launched a campaign against the initiative on Twitter.
