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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Jonathan Howcroft, Niall McVeigh, Simon Burnton, Gregg Bakowski and Daniel Harris

Super League plan facing collapse as Premier League clubs withdraw – as it happened

Summary

Here’s where we leave things for the night after another dramatic day in clubland:

Join us again at 6am BST when we will launch another liveblog to keep up to speed with all Wednesday’s goings on. Until then, cheerio legacy fans.

It doesn’t appear as though there will be anything else to report in the next couple of hours (what with it being 3.45am in Spain and all) so we’re going to wind down this particular blog and fire up another shiny new one a little later, in time for the morning updates.

In response to this thread about what has prompted this flurry of activity at the top of the game, Ron Stack offers the soundest of advice: follow the money.

“Although we have achieved something great by uniting across rivalries to stop the ESL, it is extremely important for the media and especially the fans not to be content with this victory,” emails PDK Strings. “We have seen how powerful our voices can be as fans if we unite together. We must continue to push for major reforms at all levels of football to make the sport fair for everyone involved and to prevent anything like this from ever happening again. I personally am very interested in a German-style 50+1 rule giving fans control of the teams. It might be too late to implement in England, but now is likely the best opportunity we will ever get to make lasting change for the better of our game.”

Hear, hear.

Frank Zelko’s email is a nice jumping off point for extending the conversation. “Would I be engaging in Q-level conspiracy theorising if I floated the idea that the Super League was just a smokescreen to allow UEFA to push through its Swiss format Champions League plans? UEFA’s proposal, after all, favours the big boys and would probably have gotten a fair bit of pushback. Now it looks completely benign.”

Absolutely, the anchoring heuristic is very much at play right now. And yes, clearly this situation has been prompted by the reforms to the Champions League. And yes, viewed from afar, the big clubs have received major concessions through their aggressive negotiating tactics.

However, I would not be of the opinion that the whole thing was an orchestrated set-up. Maybe I lack imagination?

It seems to me that one or two owners sensed a moment of weakness and overplayed their hands. Instead of celebrating a small victory in their incremental process to transform the Champions League into a Super League they are instead licking their wounds.

There will no doubt be some fascinating reporting in the coming days about how this all played out behind the scenes. Some very rich men are going to be made to look very foolish.

As for the changes to the Champions League, details can be found here.

Taking the total number of teams from 32 to 36 in the UEFA Champions League, the biggest change will see a transformation from the traditional group stage to a single league stage including all participating teams. Every club will now be guaranteed a minimum of 10 league stage games against 10 different opponents (five home games, five away) rather than the previous six matches against three teams, played on a home and away basis.

That’s the lot of football fans who support the big clubs in England. We’re not only in abusive relationships, we’re addicted to the abuse.”

Simon Hattenstone’s piece, from his perspective as a Manchester City fan, provides an excellent insight into the difficulties fans of the Super Soaraway Six now face.

Should we feel sorry for ourselves? Not really. We had the opportunity to vote with our feet, our mouths and our placards, but we didn’t. Success was too alluring. Should we fans of the big six walk away from our clubs? Yes. Will we? Who am I to say. There were plenty of times when I could have and should have, but didn’t. And the last decade on the pitch has been wonderful. But supporters can now see the price we’ve paid for success. Once, we made our clubs what they were, we paid the players’ wages; now we’re an irrelevance and an irritant.”

As Barney Ronay writes, this skirmish is unlikely to be the end of the war.

It has been heartening to feel energy, the sense of ownership, of community roused by this sudden presentation of the facts of where we are. But make no mistake this is simply a retreat, a moment of ceasefire, a phoney peace. There is a theory the amateurishness, the basic weirdness of the ESL’s proposals indicate this was never really an absolute or finished proposal in the first place, but a gambit designed to shock. What kind of super league is this anyway, with 15 teams, three of them from London? Really? What kind of owner springs this on the world, on their own employees, their own captive, loving audience, without comfort, consultation or mitigation?

When supporters are finally allowed back into stadia en masse, on their seat they should be greeted by a t-shirt emblazoned with LEGACY FAN in their team’s colours. Make it a pyramid-wide movement. Make opening day of season 2021-22 Legacy Fan Day.

Elsewhere in football’s great European pyramid, Schalke, Champions League semi-finalists a decade ago, have been relegated from the Bundesliga.

Schalke have been relegated from the Bundesliga for the first time in 33 years on Tuesday after losing 1-0 to fellow strugglers Arminia Bielefeld. The latest defeat of a miserable campaign left the league’s bottom club 13 points off the relegation play-off spot with only four matches left.

If you’ve just tuned in, a quick summary of a busy few hours.

Just a reminder that all the day’s Super League stories - and there are many - can be found here.

“It’s the money men, isn’t it?” Ron Manager had it all figured out.

Small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts.

With the current iteration of the ESL behaving like a Glostonian racing after a wheel of cheese, the agenda will very soon turn to an enormously challenging question: what next? Should the clubs involved still be punished? If so, how? How does “the game” protect itself from future unrest? Is this, finally, a necessary reckoning, or simply a milestone on the road to a grim, inevitable future?

At times like this, it’s worth checking in with the oracle David Goldblatt.

We have already allowed this coterie of billionaires to own and deform the game for some time. This particular circus may yet fold, but the economic and political shifts that made it possible will still be with us. Now we need to do more than call their bluff and settle for the compromise of an expanded Champions League. We must rewrite the rules, remake the institutions and reassess our role as fans – for we all, collectively, allowed them to contemplate this gambit, and to believe they could get away with it.

The Super League rump now appears to be down to Juventus and the three Spanish clubs.

“I’ve got to say that the ESL has been solid entertainment from the cradle to the grave. So much packed into such a short life,” emails Dean Kinsella.

Updated

Official: Chelsea out of the Super League

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.”

They think it's all over...

An announcement from the Super League:

Given the current circumstances, we are reconsidering the appropriate steps, in order to reshape the project.”

The reputations of some of Europe’s major football powerbrokers have been shattered by this mess. We’ve already seen the announcement of Ed Woodward’s departure from Manchester United, and surely he won’t be the last of the misguided galaxy brains to be looking for different parking spots for their Bentleys in the coming months.

Will we see football’s equivalent of the reign of terror? Or will it be a sly shuffling of the deckchairs on the Titanic?

Updated

... and AC Milan too.

Inter Milan are the next club preparing their “soz. lol” media statement.

Thomas Tuchel has spoken about the impact of the ESL proving a distraction to Chelsea, following their 0-0 draw with Brighton earlier. He also added that he believes the owners of the breakaway clubs “love competition”. I’m sure that will go down well.

“The owners and presidents of the clubs know this,” Tuchel said. “They love competition. They have a passion for football. Look at your owners in the Premier League, what money they invest, what teams they built. This is also because of the owners. I would like to hear the real ideas behind it and details. I did not have details. I have not read one page of it. I trust my club. I believe the owners are about competition. They made a very competitive league.”

Hello everyone, time for a fifth and final substitution on this momentous blog. What a few days it’s been.

News and reaction to the ESL fiasco continues to roll in, and I’ll do my best to bring it to you here.

Here is how Premier League clubs announced their intention to withdraw from the European Super League, less than 48 hours after signing up:

Updated

And here’s David Conn on Boris Johnson’s role in the story:

I’ll be handing this blog over shortly; I’ll leave you with the in-no-way-amusing news that Andrea Agnelli, one of the architects behind the Super League plan, gave an exclusive interview to Corriere dello Sport, insisting the tournament would go ahead. It’s being published tomorrow, but is already out of date...

Assuming that the European Super League is now a busted flush, what happens now? Champions League reforms, increasing the group stage to 36 teams in a “Swiss style” format, were quietly rubber-stamped on Monday as the Super League backlash raged.

An eloquent statement from Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne, earlier:

Here’s the moment earlier on Tuesday when reports of Chelsea’s withdrawal first broke – celebrated by protesting fans outside Stamford Bridge.

You can read all four statements – from Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham and Manchester United – in this handy tweet. Chelsea, the first team to bail, are yet to release an official statement.

As we await further developments, here’s Barney Ronay on a surreal evening as the Super League’s house of cards began to come down, and what happens next.

Here’s a timeline of how the European Super League fell apart in a little over 48 hours...

Evening all, this is Niall McVeigh taking over from Simon. We start with reports that Milan are withdrawing, and the entire operation could be suspended tonight. More as we get it ...

I think Arsenal’s statement wins and Liverpool’s is the weakest, just behind Manchester United’s. Tottenham’s “we should like to thank all those supporters who presented their considered opinions” is the best comedy one-liner. Chelsea’s is on its way, apparently.

Here’s Manchester United’s statement:

Manchester United will not be participating in the European Super League.

We have listened carefully to the reaction from our fans, the UK government and other key stakeholders.

We remain committed to working with others across the football community to come up with sustainable solutions to the long-term challenges facing the game.

Official: Arsenal and Manchester United out of the Super League

There will be no English clubs in the Super League. Arsenal’s statement (there’s a bit more on their website here):

The last few days have shown us yet again the depth of feeling our supporters around the world have for this great club and the game we love.

We needed no reminding of this but the response from supporters in recent days has given us time for further reflection and deep thought.

It was never our intention to cause such distress, however when the invitation to join the Super League came, while knowing there were no guarantees, we did not want to be left behind to ensure we protected Arsenal and its future.

As a result of listening to you and the wider football community over recent days we are withdrawing from the proposed Super League. We made a mistake, and we apologise for it.

Official: Liverpool and Tottenham out of the Super League

Two of the remaining English clubs in the Super League have announced their withdrawal. Liverpool’s statement:

Liverpool Football Club can confirm that our involvement in proposed plans to form a European Super League has been discontinued. In recent days, the club has received representations from various key stakeholders, both internally and externally, and we would like to thank them for their valuable contributions.

Tottenham’s statement:

We can confirm that we have formally commenced procedures to withdraw from the group developing proposals for a European Super League (ESL).

Chairman Daniel Levy said: “We regret the anxiety and upset caused by the ESL proposal. We felt it was important that our club participated in the development of a possible new structure that sought to better ensure financial fair play and financial sustainability whilst delivering significantly increased support for the wider football pyramid.

“We believe that we should never stand still and that the sport should constantly review competitions and governance to ensure the game we all love continues to evolve and excite fans around the world.

“We should like to thank all those supporters who presented their considered opinions.”

Reports: Tottenham pulling out of the Super League

It sounds like the Zoom call is over, as indeed is the Super League.

Reports: Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United pulling out of the Super League

It is being very widely reported that Arsenal are about to release a statement announcing their withdrawal from the Super League project, with Liverpool not far behind. Meanwhile the chief Manchester United reporter on the Manchester Evening News has tweeted that United are also out.

And with that, I’m going to sidle off into the dark night. We’ll continue to update the blog if there are any major developments but for now, at least, ta-ra!

Here are a few of tomorrow’s front (and back) pages:

https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1384618854568140801

Updated

Florentino Perez, the Real Madrid president, was supposed to be on the Spanish radio station Cadena Ser right now. He is not.

Jacob Steinberg has filed his match report from Stamford Bridge:

The point Brighton made by holding Chelsea should not be lost on the grasping plotters behind the despised European Super League. This was confirmation that football does not belong to the petty, small-minded men looking to change the face of the sport for the benefit of their own bank balances. The game is about competition, risk and drama. It is about underdogs going toe-to-toe with a club owned by a Russian oligarch, who has belatedly seen sense and decided to pull Chelsea away from the absurd closed shop for joyless suits.

Brighton were excellent, pricking the pomposity of the Premier League’s big six with a display full of craft and intelligence. Graham Potter’s smart side were well worth a point, easily frustrating Chelsea, who remain a point below fourth-placed West Ham, one of the unfancied clubs looking to nab a Champions League spot off them.

Much more here:

Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville have been back on Sky, responding to today’s developments. Here’s Carragher on Liverpool:

Jurgen Klopp has thrown them under the bus. Their own captain has thrown them under the bus. I don’t see how FSG can continue. I don’t see a future for the ownership of FSG at Liverpool. I really don’t. They’re just making it worse for themselves the longer they hang in.

And here’s Neville on Manchester United:

Ed Woodward is the trunk of the tree. We now need to go for the roots. I said last night they attacked every single football fan in the country with what they did. The Glazers have no place in Manchester any more.

Updated

Here’s the latest iteration of our main news story:

Chelsea and Manchester City withdrew from the European Super League hours after the Football Association warned that any club involved would be banned from the Premier League and all domestic competitions.

The controversial and divisive Super League plans appeared to be falling apart on Tuesday night after a day of dramatic developments in which the FA took a key stand. After Chelsea and City signalled they would pull out, two key figures at Liverpool called on their club to follow suit.

The captain, Jordan Henderson, said on behalf of the squad: “We don’t like it and we don’t want it to happen. This is our collective position.” The Liverpool legend and non-executive director Kenny Dalglish urged the owners to “do the right thing”. A sponsor, Tribus, added to the pressure by ending its partnership in protest.

Much more here:

What Philippe said. By all means be relieved, but there’s absolutely no need for gratitude.

There is still Super League news to come before the night is out. The 12 clubs are due to have a Zoom meeting in 15 minutes, after which I would expect either statements from some or all of those clubs who have not yet announced their intention to withdraw, which would be the end of it, or no such statements, which would signal that they’re going to the mattresses.

Final score: Chelsea 0-0 Brighton

Brighton go down the other end, win a corner, waste the corner, and that’s the end of it.

From the free kick, Giroud heads tamely at the keeper.

Brighton are down to 10 men, Ben White getting a second yellow card for fouling Hudson-Odoi. They only have to see out the last 60 seconds of stoppage time, though.

Aymeric Laporte thinks it’s all a bit of a joke. Which of course is what it has become, but also not what it will ever be.

Slightly old news, but Merseyside MPs have written to Liverpool demanding their withdrawal from the Super League. They (though not their players), Arsenal (except for some players) and Spurs have remained silent tonight.

The Football Association has released a statement.

We welcome news that some of the clubs have decided to abandon the plans for the European Super League, which threatened the whole football pyramid. English football has a proud history based on opportunity for all clubs and the game has been unanimous in its disapproval of a closed league. It was a proposition that, by design, could have divided our game; but instead, it has unified us all.

We would like to thank the fans in particular for their influential and unequivocal voice during this time, holding true the guiding principles of football. It is a powerful reminder that the game is, and always will be, for fans.

I do love a Brian Bilston poem.

Brighton come close to a goal, three times in three minutes! First Lallana shoots narrowly wide, then Welbeck hits the post, and then Lallana has a shot saved, all three opportunities coming from poor Chelsea defending.

“I’m all for castigating the corrupt crew who steered the ship onto the rocks, but I don’t think we should start applauding the rats who jumped off when they saw it was holed beneath the water line,” writes David Wall. “I hope they all drown. At the least they should be barred from next season’s European competitions. And perhaps domestic penalties should be imposed too. Otherwise they’ll just wait a bit and try something similar again.”

Sadly I fear the only way to get rid of the regular threats of breakaway super leagues from the same sides would have been to let them go, to still now force them to go. Then they could quietly die of irrelevance, or indeed thrive in their little relegation-proof mini-league if that’s what happened, while the rest of English/world football created a more sporting future without them (and did everything possible to assist their ex-fans in the creation of phoenix clubs). Instead Ceferin has basically said that there will be no repercussions, just an instant return to the top table.

The game between Chelsea and Brighton has now been ongoing for more than an hour, and pretty much nothing has happened.

Meanwhile, Liverpool’s official global wristwatch and timing partner has announced the end of their partnership with the club:

Aleksandar Ceferin, the president of Uefa, has had this to say on City’s withdrawal from the Super League project:

I am delighted to welcome City back to the European football family. They have shown great intelligence in listening to the many voices - most notably their fans - that have spelled out the vital benefits that the current system has for the whole of European football. As I said at the Uefa Congress, it takes courage to admit a mistake but I have never doubted that they had the ability and common sense to make that decision. City are a real asset for the game and I am delighted to be working with them for a better future for the European game.

Updated

Arsenal’s Hector Bellerin has also been on Twitter this evening:

Confirmed: Manchester City withdrawing from Super League

Manchester City have posted a short statement on their website, which reads as follows:

Manchester City Football Club can confirm that it has formally enacted the procedures to withdraw from the group developing plans for a European Super League.

Manchester United have confirmed the impending departure of Ed Woodward as executive vice-chairman. He will leave at the end of 2021. A statement has been posted on the club’s website, which does not mention the Super League. Woodward said:

I will treasure the memories from my time at Old Trafford, during a period when we won the Europa League, the FA Cup and the EFL Cup. I am proud of the regeneration of the club’s culture and our return to the Manchester United way of playing.

We have invested more than £1bn in the squad during my time here and I am particularly delighted with the progress the players have made under the astute leadership of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and his coaching team in the last two years.

I am sure that with the changes we have made on-field and to the coaching and football staff in recent years this great club will soon be lifting silverware again. It deserves to.

Arsene Wenger has been speaking about the Super League: “I didn’t believe a second that would ever work. Our fans would never accept that and rightly so.”

This thread is worth reading. In brief: a lot of football executives are just not very bright, and they tend to be selected from an unhelpfully small gene pool (white men, often sons of executives, sometimes former players).

News of Watford’s victory over Norwich this evening, along with a draw for Brentford and defeat for Swansea, has clearly reached Spain. Either that or Sid’s about to tell me something really interesting.

The same message posted a few minutes ago by Jordan Henderson has been posted by Trent Alexander-Arnold and James Milner (and probably others). For those who can’t see Twitter embeds, it reads:

We don’t like it and we don’t want it to happen.

This is our collective position.

Our commitment to this football club and its supporters is absolute and unconditional.

You’ll Never Walk Alone

Simple and to the point, from Jordan Henderson.

The first half at Stamford Bridge is all but over, and it has been played as if the 22 people on the pitch are also distracted by having to liveblog global sporting administrative chaos.

Sir Kenneth Dalglish has spoken:

CNN has spoken to the former Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon. This is what he had to say about the Super League:

I think this project has died today ... and it is on the way to becoming a complete botch. I think it deserves it because it was a project destined to kill football. I think mainly at this time that we are living where many clubs are struggling to survive due to the economic problems from the pandemic, what football needs is unity, solidarity.

Kurt Zouma is booked for fouling Danny Welbeck, a different kind of boomer from Zouma.

Fingers firmly crossed here. As the Super League storm raged some really very rubbish changes were made to the Champions League, and now might be a good time to frantically row back from them.

Juventus are denying that Gianni Agnelli has resigned. As of this moment he continues to be their president, and also the vice chairman of the Super League.

Meanwhile in the Chelsea game, Havertz really should have put the home side ahead, and the commentator got the chance to say “a boomer from Zouma”.

“For years to come, Super League will be a byword (or two) for greed and incompetence on an unimaginable scale,” says Julian Gauld. “Incredible to think that these [silly people] sat down together in advance and convinced each other that it was a good idea and that they would be able to ride this out. Hopefully this will be the death of the super league idea forever, although it has had the startling effect of making Uefa the good guys so that they can push through their own dreadful reforms of the European Cup. Greedy [bad people], the lot of the them.”

Really the 2022 World Cup vote should have been the moment the sport went too far. Instead everyone involved in football administration were able to conclude that supporters are nothing but mindless cash dispensers, who will just accept whatever decisions are made, however despicable. Turns out there are some lines that can’t be crossed.

Quarter of an hour into Chelsea’s match against Brighton, and so far Alonso’s extraordinarily difficult far-post volley is the best chance either side has had.

Our sources at Barcelona insist the club has not yet pulled out of anything thankyou very much.

We are updating our news story as the news changes, which is a lot. Here’s the latest:

Jamie Jackson tells me that City do intend to withdraw from the Super League.

Meanwhile, it’s been a hell of a couple of days for Manchester United’s share price:

The timing of the Zoom call isn’t exactly key, but the Gazzetta dello Sport are saying the 12 teams are not chatting now, but at 10.30pm BST. You would have thought they would have to wait until Super League side Chelsea finished playing their old-fashioned-league match.

A football match has kicked off.

Meanwhile, a football match is about to kick off.

Woodward was planning to leave Manchester United anyway, according to new reports. “Not ESL related,” says the Telegraph’s James Ducker (though the timing sure as hell was).

Reports: Andrea Agnelli resigns as president of Juventus

This is the wild west right now. There are people being gunned down all over the place.

Updated

Apparently a Zoom call between the 12 Super League teams is in progress right now.

There’s a great book to be written about the events of the last 72 hours.

The Guardian’s own Jamie Jackson is now reporting news of Ed Woodward’s resignation:

I apologise for the fact that so much actual stuff is happening that I have been unable to read all/many of your emails. I’ll get there when it slows down. This may be the early hours of tomorrow morning.

Reports: Ed Woodward resigns as executive vice-chairman of Manchester United

The Super League, one way or the other, is going to make or destroy reputations and careers. According to this report, Ed Woodward’s may be one:

Updated

A news story on Boris Johnson’s principled, authentic opposition to the Super League:

Plans to create a new European Super League amount to a “cartel”, the prime minister said today as the government paved the way for millions of football fans to have a greater say in the future running of the game.

Speaking before a series of clubs signalled their intention to pull out of the ESL, Boris Johnson used a coronavirus press conference to condemn the proposed league – in which 15 founder members, including six English clubs, could never be relegated – as “against the basic principles of competition” and “propelled by the billions of banks”.

Much more here:

A good point here from Simon Kuper:

Reports: Super League abandoned

TalkSport are reporting that the Super League is an ex-thing:

YouGov have used their cutting-edge surveying techniques to discover that the Super League isn’t very popular:

Here’s a bit from Thomas Tuchel’s pre-match interview:

We allowed the players to talk about it. I did not have the feeling, talking today and yesterday, that focusing only on the game would help them. It’s too many things going on. The captains of the league talked to each other I think. So the players are involved in this and you have to accept it. The bus had a delay. It is not normal, so I do not feel I should pretend that everything’s normal. We accepted it, and we still want a good performance and a top result.

A bit more detail on Manchester City’s withdrawal, from the Mail’s Mike Keegan.

“On the backs of Chelsea’s and City’s withdrawal, no doubt FSG are planning to release a statement doing the same and apologising for yet another mistake,” writes Daniel Fitz. “Enough is enough. As a Liverpool fan, I cannot abide by their constant denigration of the club, its history and our sport at large. They’ve managed to turn my unconditional love and support for my club into a conditional affection. They have tarnished the reputation of my club and the sport and need to go.

Charlatans like them are part of the reason why football is in trouble. When profit becomes more important than success or the fans, then its no longer a sport but simply a business. We cannot allow that to happen and to help prevent it, we need to rid the game of people like that and get the money in football under control. Only then can the beautiful game begin to look beautiful once more. Kick the rebels owners out, send a message that avarice will not diminish our game further. Lets start to put things right in the footballing world.”

Yeah, nice idea. But the only way to get these owners out is for alternative owners to come along with an absolutely massive cheque, and who are they going to be? The problem is cultural and structural, it was not caused by the owners of six clubs, but by the system that let them in - and now there’s no easy way to get them out.

Chelsea v Brighton delayed

Kick-off in tonight’s Premier League match has been put back by 15 minutes to 8.15pm because of the delay in getting players into the ground.

Unravelling latest. Apparently Joan Laporta has said that Barcelona have not committed to the Super League, and their participation is subject to ratification by the club’s membership.

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has written an open letter to London’s three/two Super League clubs. Here it is:

Over the last year I have been humbled by the generosity of London’s Premier League clubs as our city has battled through one of the toughest times in our history. Your clubs have provided food, medical facilities and accommodation for our communities and the NHS heroes who serve them. And you have provided entertainment to millions when we’ve been stuck at home and needed it most.

It is that spirit of football that our city and your fans can be so proud of, which is why it has been so disappointing to see your involvement in plans for the European Super League - something that is against the ethos of merit and fair competition, and without the fans and wider community at its heart.

From the top to the bottom of the football pyramid, the game has always been more than about money - bringing people together, supporting the grass roots and emerging talent, providing a sense of belonging that connects people with little else in common. These are the things that make football, and your clubs, so special.

The European Super League is the antithesis of that.

I urge you to rethink your involvement, to listen to the fans upon whom your success depends and remember the wider footballing community in this country, of which you are an integral part.

This appears to be unravelling at pace, though there’s time for a few more twists yet:

A reminder of something that Florentino Pérez said earlier today:

The contract of the Super League is binding. Nobody can leave, we will work all together. All the clubs signed the contracts last Saturday, there’s no problem.

There is more information dripping out about the cause of Chelsea’s decision to withdraw, which was in train before this evening’s protests outside Stamford Bridge:

And Keir Starmer has reacted to news of Chelsea’s planned withdrawal:

Reports: Manchester City pulling out of Super League

Hello everyone! I’ll start with news, via the Sun’s Martin Lipton, that Manchester City are also planning to pull out of the Super League:

Right, with the startling news that Chelsea have saved football I’m going to hand over to Simon Burnton. He will guide you through the coming developments. Thanks you for your many, many emails. It’s been emotional. Bye!

One would expect that other breakaway clubs will very quickly be preparing ways to extricate themselves from the proposals now that Chelsea appear to be primed to bathe in the goodwill (as much as there can be after such tumult) of being the first club to break ranks. Nobody wants to be the last to go home.

Chelsea set to pull out of European Super League!

This is huge news. Our Chelsea correspondent, Jacob Steinberg, reports that Chelsea are preparing a communication to the European Super League to tell them they are withdrawing. That will surely be the beginning of the end of the ESL proposals. Chelsea fans have begun to disperse so perhaps Cech really was relating news that the club were going to pull out.

Updated

Petr Cech, the technical performance director at Chelsea, has faced up to protesting fans to ask them to move so they can park the bus (no pun intended). He appears to be getting quite an earful and can be heard saying something like: “Let me sort this out. Let the bus go in. Give people time.” He was a good stopper, but can he really stop the Super League? Let’s hope so.

Updated

This is from Ben Mabley, our occasional Japanese language live blogger.

Of great comfort to me has been the overwhelmingly very negative reaction to the Super League I’ve had from Premier League fans here in Japan. Even from afar, they love the history, culture, and local identities associated with the Premier League. While most (certainly not all) Japanese Premier League fans support a big club, they generally love the diversity of competition. The rise of Bielsa’s Leeds, the fact that Burnley can win at Anfield, Leicester/West Ham can go for top four – all part of the appeal. So the American owners’ apparent assumption that they can discard local roots and ‘legacy fans’, in favour of fans in faraway countries who just want to see big teams and big stars, might well be just as flawed as their moral fibre.

Updated

Another view on player wages: “Re: Phil Greig (17.52). This is quite a disingenuous take,” writes Sadeq Ahmed. “Players and their collective demands for higher wages is one of the drivers for clubs seeking higher revenue, for sure. But this ignores the fact that players are atomised individuals who by themselves, have little power. Contrast this to the owners, who actually do have the unilateral power to pay more, and break away to form a league.Clearly players wage demands are a problem, and a salary cap is an excellent structural mechanism to keep finances in check. But this logic of the players demands being the cause of the ESL, is a neat sidestepping of the primary problems of governance.”

Updated

Hundreds of protesting Chelsea fans have now started to sit down outside Stamford Bridge as they prepare to make their feelings about the ESL clear when they greet the team coaches before their side’s match against Brighton at 8pm BST. Police are in close attendance but all is peaceful. Some flares have been let off and chants of “it’s not football anymore” can be heard. Here’s what the Chelsea staff will see on some of the banners:

  • Fans not customers
  • RIP Chelsea FC (1905-2021)
  • Sold our Soul
  • RIP Football (1862-2021)
  • Buck Off Super League
  • Roman, Do The Right Thing
  • Super Greed
  • Blue is the Colour, Money is our aim

It’s the biggest protest so far and is getting increasingly more impassioned.

Chelsea fans protesting near Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea fans protesting near Stamford Bridge. Photograph: Matthew Childs/Reuters

Updated

And here’s a Texan Arsenal fans’ take on how habits are hard to break, however much they may hurt you. “I’m a long-distance Arsenal fan and am just as repulsed by this SL plan, but does my revulsion (or Arvasu’s) mean that I won’t watch the club I’ve loved for 25 years?” asks Sam Hankins. “I don’t know, but I do know that the habits of decades, of those early Saturday mornings to watch the Arsenal, win or lose … that’s going to be incredibly hard to break.”

How fans of the six breakaway English clubs plan to protest against the ESL proposals:

Why is it that all footballing roads – even potentially ruinou ones – lead to Stoke?

And for that the pyramid has to work.
And for that the pyramid has to work. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

The view from India: “I’ve seen a lot of people saying ‘The fans living in Asia or Africa will LOVE seeing Real Madrid playing Manchester City every week for 23 years’ as a point against the ESL,” writes Arvasu Kulkarni. “Well, that could not be further from the truth. I live in India, and watch Manchester United on the telly every chance I get.

“I love that club as much as the people who live in Manchester and are lucky enough to be able to go to Old Trafford every week. I shed tears of joy when Scott McTominay scored the winner in the Derby last March that were just as real as the screams of joy that rung in Old Trafford. And I was just as disgusted and heartbroken when the announcement was made on Sunday. And it wasn’t just me. Everyone I know who watches football hates this idea. We’re a group of people who may never even get to see our teams (like United, Barcelona or Chelsea) play live in Europe and we still despise this idea.

“We don’t know what it feels like to be a season-ticket holder, or what it is like to go to your first game with your father. But we know the ESL’s only aim is to destroy football. The reason we stay up to 12:30am to watch United play out a soulless 0-0 draw against Real Sociedad is because we know what football is about, even if we live thousands of miles away, and we know that the ESL forgets all that. It forgets you, the fans in England, and it forgets us, the fans who stay up late into the night to watch the teams you built only for us to be derided as ‘plastic’ and ‘not real fans’ in the ESL conversation.” Thanks Arvasu.

Phil Greig wants to talk about wages: “Look at any recent set of accounts from these 12 clubs and you will find a ridiculously high wage bill, in most cases it accounts for well over 50% of revenue expenditure and in other cases much higher. The continuing absurdity of paying players £200k, £350k and in Messi’s case €1.3m per week (insane!) is being ignored entirely. The players and their agents are responsible for negotiating these contracts as much as the clubs. The clubs may be greedy, yes, but it is the greed of players that is driving the clubs to borrow more and more, and now to extreme measures such as the ESL so they can remain competitive with each other, under the hyper pressure of 24-hour news and fans screaming on social media.

“Whether or not the ESL happens, until a hard salary cap is brought in, I simply don’t see any other way to dissuade clubs from doing stuff like this. They are companies after all and driven to make a profit where possible, but instead are stacking up unsustainable debt to meet player wages and yes of course, pay the crazy transfer fees negotiated by the players’ agents. Jordan Henderson can have as many meetings with Premier League captains as he wants, but I doubt any of these players nor their agents would make any wage concessions to ease the financial pressure on their clubs.
The ESL is a terrible, anti-competitive, anti-football move. But the players are just as much to blame as the owners.”

The Spanish banker who created the controversial new European Super League, Anas Laghari, has promised the new JP Morgan-backed competition will pump €400m (£350m) into the national leagues that the elite clubs plan to leave behind. He also claims that it will reignite interest in football among young people (which is a roaring fire I’m not sure needs reigniting) and end the “madness” of big money transfers.

Here’s the full story from Peter Walker and Rupert Neate:

And that’s that from Boris Johnson. He stuck with what he said earlier today that the government would consider passing laws to stop the ESL going ahead but did stress that he would prefer the football authorities and clubs to find a solution before it came to that. Meanwhile, a few miles down the road from Downing Street, Chelsea fans have mobilised and are protesting against the European Super League in significant numbers.

The Guardian’s Jessica Elgot asks what is Boris Johnson’s own view on the German model of ownership (50+1) which gives fans a controlling stake in their clubs?

Johnson says it’s a matter for the minister for sport Tracey Crouch to address in her review and he is of the opinion that she is impressed by those models.

Updated

Boris Johnson: 'It is against the basic principles of competition'

At his 5pm press briefing Boris Johnson has just been asked if he really believes he can stop the the ESL from happening. Here is what he had to say:

Our first step is to clearly to back the football authorities in this country in the steps they’re taking. There is no doubt that we don’t support it. It is not in the interest of fans and football. How can it be right that you create a cartel where you stop clubs playing against each other. It is against the basic principles of competition. We will seek a legislative solution but we hope they can find a way forward themselves.

What would he say to the billionaire club owners?

Football was invented and codified in this country. These clubs came from famous towns and cities in our countries and it’s not right they should be dislocated from their home cities and turned into international brands to circulate the globe [to suit the banks].

Updated

Richard Williams writes: “Just following up on Tom Wright’s point about Barça and Madrid being broke, in debt and having a failed business model, this hasn’t been lost on Borussia Mönchengladbach’s Sporting Director Max Eberl who said this afternoon:

When I hear Mr Perez’s quote that there is no alternative to the plan because these clubs would no longer exist in 2024 due to Corona, then I don’t know whether this is the club of the super-rich or the club of the super-indebted. These are clubs that have lived beyond their means in recent years and are simply trying to save their own arses with this Super League.

Here in Germany it’s also noticeable that some clubs are not only critical of the proposals but also the Champions League reforms which have already taken place. Bremen’s Sporting Director Frank Baumann has said: “We reject the creation of a Super League with everything we have. What is unfortunately forgotten is that the Champions League reform is through, which is one reason for this threatening backdrop. Perhaps a few have now reached their goal through the back door.”

Phil Thompson asks a question which I think we all know the answer to. But it would still be nice to hear from the owners of the 12 clubs instead of players and managers having to front up for plans they had no part in cooking up.

Boris Johnson is speaking at his 5pm press briefing. He is currently talking about the Covid-19 pandemic but he will undoubtedly be asked about the European Super League and you can watch the press briefing live by clicking on the lead image above. I’ll provide text updates if you can’t watch it.

“I have to reflect on what Tom Wright says,” emails Stephen Wright. “It isn’t Brighton v West Brom that I don’t want to see. That could be a good game. It’s your Liverpools, or Cities against ‘smaller’ teams. Boring games of attack v defence, where no-one seems to care about the entertainment and it’s all about trying to kill the game instead. Results (cash for staying in Prem) are more important than the football. Do you get that in a closed shop where you don’t go down?” But the fact that fans of the breakway clubs do want to watch their team hammering smaller sides in their millions is what is pushing the executives to try and gobble up that TV interest all for themselves. Sigh.

Elsewhere in sport, here’s some interesting news:

At 5pm BST Boris Johnson is to hold a Downing Street press briefing. It will largely be focused on Covid-19 but I expect he will also be asked about the plans for the European Super League which he said he could drop a “legislative bomb” on to halt them. I’ll bring you any updates that are relevant. In the meantime, here’s The Fiver’s hot take on today’s developments:

Brentford are the latest club to sniff an opportunity to grab some silverware:

The European Super League has been dealt a further blow with Amazon taking the unusual step of publicly criticising the proposed competition, which effectively rules the streaming giant out as a potential international broadcast partner.

“Amazon Prime Video understands and shares the concerns raised by football fans regarding a breakaway Super League,” the company said. “We believe part of the drama and beauty of European football comes from the ability of any club to achieve success through their performance on the pitch.”

Amazon, which streams live Champions League matches in Germany and Italy and Premier League games in the UK, also made it clear its allegiance lies with existing rights holders and leagues. The move by Amazon, which has 150m users of Prime Video globally and recently splashed out $1bn on NFL rights, rules out an important potential partner for the Super League.

“We have not been involved in any discussions for this proposed Super League,” Amazon said. “We are proud to offer our Prime members the football which matters most to them.”

On Monday BT, which has spent more than £2bn on Champions League and Premier League rights in the UK, said that the proposed new competition “could have a damaging effect on the long term health of football in this country.” Late on Monday night Sky, the biggest investor in football rights across Europe, said it was “completely focussed on supporting our long term football partners in the UK and Europe.” Sky added that it had also not been in any discussions with the ESL.

Milan chief executive Ivan Gazidis, formerly of fellow breakaway club Arsenal, has written to the club’s sponsors outlining why he believes the European Super League will benefit football. Milan, Inter and Juventus are the Italian clubs who have joined plans to be founding members of the European Super League.

We’re confident that this new competition will capture the imagination of billions of soccer fans all over the world and will be a new, exciting chapter for the game. The Super League will provide value and support to the whole soccer pyramid with greater financial resources. [Serie A] will remain the most important weekend competition in Italy and Milan is proud to remain.

“Value and support” to the football pyramid, which the 12 clubs can’t close the door on fast enough.

Roma are one of the biggest clubs in Italy and are not involved in the ESL. Here’s their statement on the breakaway league:

AS Roma is strongly opposed to this ‘closed’ system, as it fundamentally flies in the face of the spirit of the game that we all love. Some things are more important than money, and we remain firmly committed to Italian football on a domestic level, and to fair, open European competitions for all. We look forward to continuing to work with Lega Serie A, the Italian Federation, ECA and UEFA to grow and develop the game of football in Italy and around the world. Fans and grassroots football are at the core of our sport, and this must never be forgotten.

Reuters have a snap update reporting that a Madrid court says that Uefa and Fifa must not impose sanctions on clubs or players taking part in the proposed European Super League until it fully considers the ESL case. This court ruling may have something to do with preserving Madrid’s status as semi-finalists in this season’s Champions League. I’ll have more on that when it lands but it seems like courts will be where the action is with this story. Legal action could be more exciting than the football matches that might take place if the ESL ever gets the green light.

Updated

Some more emails, including a pro-ESL one:

“I’m broadly in favour of a European Super League,” writes Tom Wright. “I really can’t be bothered tuning in to Brighton v West Brom. That kind of game is for hardcore fans of those clubs. Real v PSG would get my attention every time. While the UK MSM have concentrated on the Greedy Six there hasn’t been much discussion of Real Madrid or Barcelona. Both these clubs are broke and massively in debt. The business model of paying £80m for a squad player then paying him at least £150k a week has been disastrous. If the PL, Uefa and Fifa really want to keep the status quo then player wages have to be somehow capped.”

Andrew Champney writes: “I can’t agree with the anonymous email (15:49) that because things have gone to shit, it doesn’t matter if they get more shit. It’s a bit like the fight against privatisation. We lost the fight for coal, steel, rail and the utilities. Does that mean we shouldn’t fight against NHS privatisation? We can’t be defeatist as accepting this is the final death knell for the game we love.”

'It's not for the good of football'

Aston Villa were in the running for a top-four finish until quite recently. Their manager Dean Smith, who Florentino Pérez would probably describe as a passionate “legacy fan”, drew on his history of support for his club and the beauty of the football pyramid as he made clear his views on the European Super League plans:

I was born in 1971 at that time Aston Villa were a Third Division club and 11 years later I watched them lift the European Cup. That was the dream, they earned the right to do that by winning the league. While I understand competitions evolve - I liked the European Cup being the winners of the league - that changed, it needed to because of the finances which were coming into the game and the Champions League now needs to evolve now and change. But then to create your own Super League where there’s no promotion or relegation, it totally baffles me. For me it’s not for the good of football, it’s totally a commercial venture. Football and sport is about competition and this is not about competition.

Nick Lewis writes: “As an Evertonian, I would like to say two things: thank goodness we aren’t involved with this contemptible cabal of grasping venality. (Although we’ve more right to it than Spurs. Just saying, like). And Stephen Mackie has actually made my day. Thank you, sir.”

Among the emails landing in my inbox like jackpot coins, there are some asking where the pro-Super League views are. My inbox scan has not brought up any but there have been a few that, fairly, make the point that the fight to maintain the status quo should be celebrated gleefully if won given that what we are protecting is already pretty grim. The Guardian has not been shy of reporting on how football should share its wealth to save itself down the years. Here’s an anonymous email:

“I’m not really feeling the general tone of this being a fight for the heart and soul of football, mainly because I think that heart and soul of football has been grotesquely warped over the last couple of decades already. We have clubs used as sportswashing for corrupt regimes, a World Cup about to be held that people have literally died for, billionaire foreign owners or ownership groups, players being bought and sold for sums beyond the financial concept of normal people and being paid millions of pounds a year, and of all things the FA Cup Final not being played at 3pm.

“I think the battle for the heart and soul of football was lost a long time ago. What happens if, as seems likely, this falls apart amongst acrimony? Do fans just go back to the above and pat themselves on the back that the evil menace has been seen off and everything is right with the game again (with the exception of VAR)?

“I remember being similarly outraged when the 39th game proposal came out but since then I have gradually walked away from top level football as Kroenke and Usmanov battled for my club, and I decided that it was no longer what I wanted from ‘my club’. I enjoy watching my local non-league team and the odd non-league match around the country but my emotional connection with the game at the highest level has been broken because it’s not the game I grew up with, it’s one so hugely warped by money as to be near-unrecognisable.

“There’s no doubt some of the football and players have been of a much higher level, but at what cost? So many clubs have lost that link to the local area, the fans, and the domestic game as a whole, and this is the inevitable outcome. If this proposal is defeated and no lessons are learnt and no realignment happens then nothing of great value will have been won or lost. The real battle for the heart and should of the game isn’t the fight against the Super League, it’s the fight for whatever happens next.”

Updated

The Football Weekly podcast has landed!

Listen up! The pod look at the mounting reaction to the European Super League breakout, as non-ESL clubs line up to condemn the proposals. Could the Premier League end up with a 50+1 ownership model, imposed by the government? Archie tells us why he thinks the German ownership model is a non-starter. Hansi Flick has announced he’ll leave Bayern at the end of the season, perhaps to take on the Germany job. Will Julian Nagelsmann replace him?

It was thought that players at the breakaway clubs might be shy of voicing an opinion on the plans but reports suggest Jordan Henderson has called an emergency meeting of Premier League captains on Wednesday to discuss the European Super League and how players might respond to it. Clearly footballers have been empowered by their activism in the past year in trying to tackle racism, poverty and abuse on social media. Strong opposition from players who would have to take part in the breakaway – and receive heavy criticism for doing so – really could help give the plans an almighty kicking.

Updated

Stephen Mackie clearly has too much time on his hands but his work is an amusing distraction for a moment. “That funny tweet from Wolves retrospectively claiming the 18-19 Premier League title got me thinking. Technically if you’re going to expunge the breakaway teams from the record books you also have to expunge the games they played in. Unfortunately for Wolves they did really well against the top six that season but not so well against the rest of the league, so in the revised league table they actually only finished seventh which, ironically, is exactly where they finished anyway. So instead congrats to the 18-19 Alternative Premier League Champions Watford, who picked up 47 of their 50 points that season against the other 13 teams which was enough to take the title! I’ve attached a revised list of Premier League winners if that sort of thing interests you (it does me!)” It makes nice viewing for Everton fans.

Alternative Premier League champions.
Alternative Premier League champions Photograph: Stephen Mackie

The, erm, evolution will not be televised on Amazon Prime.

“We have seen games on TV with the best clubs in the world and the best players … and it was so boring.” Go on Eric!

While the government has promised it will do what is necessary to block the ESL, including using legislation if needed, ministers have so far been vague about precisely how this could happen. But Ed Davey has an idea.

The Lib Dem leader has suggested passing a law to impose a new rule, made retrospective to the start of this season, which would mean club owners wanting to join a new competition must first get approval of the club’s season ticket holders, via a ballot. The argument is that this would be a quicker, interim way towards a German style fans’ veto, without having to change ownership rules.

Davey said: “I am sure the billionaire owners of clubs that use expensive PR agencies to communicate their commitment to fans should welcome this change.”

Would it work? That might depend on the view of lawyers. But it’s more specific than any Downing Street plans so far.

'This is not sport'

Here’s Jamie Jackson’s story on Pep Guardiola’s strong rebuke of the plans. Here’s a key quote from the Manchester City manager:

I want the best competition, the strongest competition possible, especially the Premier League. It is not fair when one team fight, fight, fight, arrive at the top and cannot qualify because success is already guaranteed just for a few teams. I don’t know what is going to change. [Even if] the people say: ‘No, no, maybe four or five teams can go up and play this competition’, [then] what happens to the 14 or 15 not playing a good season and every time will be there? So this is not sport.

The Leicester manager, Brendan Rodgers, believes that the Foxes’ recent success has perhaps helped accelerate plans for the European Super League. Here’s what he had to say before his side’s match against West Brom on Thursday:

We understand now as much as any time that football is moving from sport to business but we must never lose the fact that it is a game for the fans and players. It’s for every supporter. The game is for the supporters and I think there’s been a line drawn in the sand with all of this and it’s been moved across to what looks like a purely business proposal. It looks like [sporting meritocracy] isn’t really taken into the ideas going forward. We see the evolution of the game. Teams that progress and develop [like Leicester]. That’s the beauty of the Premier League. The top six teams’ success is rooted in the other sides in the league. [Leicester’s success] has probably played a part in these developments. Our job was to disrupt the market. I always said ‘what defines the top six?’ Clearly it was money and I tried to disrupt that on the pitch.

I’m getting submerged below a pile of passionate emails and I wish I could post them all but I just can’t keep up with them. One that struck me was this missive about Florentino Pérez’s concerns that “40% of young people” are uninterested in football. Here’s Ben Lake:

“I honestly think the ‘40% of young people are not interested in football’ is a really key block of this tower of nonsense. In the past, sports only had to compete with other sports and football was the most accessible of all, needing only the classic jumpers for goalposts to play (also a ball). Now, football is competing with other sports, all of which are easier to access thanks to streaming, social media, multitudes of programming both traditional and modern and key, in my mind, gaming and esports.

“You can stick on Twitch (I’m going to be charitable to this live blog and assume I don’t have to explain this) right now and watch 24/7 of various people playing your favourite game. There are tournaments for these games being held all the time and communities spring up around individual creators and organised events. There’s also fewer spaces left to play football and fewer trained people and clubs to provide a structure because of austerity cuts. I genuinely think it is much harder to get kids into football.

“While nearly every house has the ability to watch or play games. Most kids have a super computer in their pocket they can pull out to play or watch games at any time. Now, the super rich have decided the answer to that is to go for the FIFA (the game) route and assume kids attention will be held by their favourite stars playing against it each other over and over again until their bodies crumble and they are replaced with newer stars or androids.”

His email goes on but I’d also add that even when I was growing up I would have thought 40% of young people being uninterested in football was about the average. It might even have been more. Why should everyone like football? It’s a brilliant sport but there are so many other engaging things that people can do, too. It’s staggeringly arrogant (but not surprising) for Pérez to think this figure should be higher. Apologies if this has been covered further down below but it’s just my humble opinion.

Bill Shankly’s grandson, Chris Carline, would be happy to see his grandad’s statue removed from its location behind the Kop at Anfield. Speaking to the Liverpool Echo, he said:

I’m appalled and embarrassed. When you talk about Liverpool Football Club and its history and its roots, you could reference seven, eight or nine of grandad’s quotes which are all appropriate to the current situation - socialism, greed and the Holy Trinity - but I also think about one of the less well known comments. It’s from his book, when he spoke about wanting to bring the football club closer to the fans and the fans closer to the football club. And he achieved that. It’s not an understatement to say he would be spinning in his grave at the current situation because it couldn’t be further removed from his ethos. Given the chance I’d happily see the statue removed.

The Bill Shankly statue outside Anfield.
The Bill Shankly statue outside Anfield. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

The Premier League rule that would give the “Other 14” the greatest chance to prevent the ESL breakaway would appear to be Rule L9. Here it is:

“Except with the prior written approval of the board, during the season a club shall not enter or play its senior men’s first team in any competition other than:

L.9.1 - The UEFA Champions League
L.9.2 - The UEFA Europa League
L.9.3 - The FA Cup
L.9.4 - The FA Community Shield
L.9.5 - The Football League Cup or
L.9.6 - Competitions sanctioned by the County Association of which it is a member.”

As you can see, “Lucrative European Super League” is not on that list.

Premier League 'unanimously and vigorously' rejects ESL plans

The Premier League has released a statement making it clear the “Other 14” clubs will do all they can to stop the six English clubs joining a breakaway European Super League. The statement follows a meeting of the 14 clubs that took place this morning. Here it is in full:

The Premier League, alongside The FA, met with clubs today to discuss the immediate implications of the Super League proposal. The 14 clubs at the meeting unanimously and vigorously rejected the plans for the competition.

The Premier League is considering all actions available to prevent it from progressing, as well as holding those Shareholders involved to account under its rules. The League will continue to work with key stakeholders including fan groups, Government, UEFA, The FA, EFL, PFA and LMA to protect the best interests of the game and call on those clubs involved in the proposed competition to cease their involvement immediately.

The Premier League would like to thank fans and all stakeholders for the support they have shown this week on this significant issue. The reaction proves just how much our open pyramid and football community means to people.

The line about “holding shareholders to account under its rules” suggests action may be taken. How far could they go?

Updated

Marcus Rashford gets his views across in one photo:

West Ham have released a strongly worded statement following the meeting of the “Other 14” Premier League clubs. It will likely give us a gist of what we can expect from the Premier League when it issues an update on what was discussed at the meeting very shortly:

West Ham United shared its views and those of its supporters expressing vehement opposition to the proposal for a Super League at a Premier League meeting held on Tuesday morning. Following a meeting between senior club officials and the Independent Supporters’ Committee within 24 hours of the news breaking, Vice-Chairman Karren Brady met with representatives from 13 other Premier League clubs to share the Hammers’ unequivocally strong disapproval of a proposal by six clubs to create a breakaway league that undermines our values and those of the game we all hold so dear.

As a club that was founded by working-class shipbuilders over 125 years ago, is deeply rooted in its own community and is acutely aware of the traditions of English football, we passionately believe that there should be no barrier to supporting West Ham United and these proposals go entirely against the integrity of our Beautiful Game. Thames Ironworks FC was formed in June 1895 by Arnold Hills, a man who believed his local community should have its own football team. Well over a century later West Ham United, owned by two supporters, remains at the heart of our community, true to its working-class values.

From humble origins, the Club grew, attracting more support and better players, working its way up through the football pyramid to earn its place at the highest level of the game, where we are proud to be today and giving our all in line with those values, to achieve a place in Europe. The foundations of our Club and our sport are based on the integrity of competition and the loyal support of our fans who have grown up as members of the Claret and Blue Army and followed us over land and sea.

These proposals are an attack on sporting integrity, undermine competition, and ignore those supporters, and those of the thousands of clubs and millions of players, from the Premier League to Sunday League, who can aspire to reach the top of the game just like our 150-plus homegrown Academy of Football graduates who came from grassroots and were developed into first-team players. Our supporters have been there throughout our 125-year journey, for our FA Cup and European Cup Winners’ Cup wins, our promotions and many other memorable moments.

These proposals go totally against the ethos and values – the West Ham Way – that have inspired us to those unforgettable successes and will shape the next generation of Hammers, on and off the pitch. West Ham United will continue to do everything possible standing together with its supporters, government, governing bodies and the wider football community to resist this attack on football in the best interests of our Club and of the game we all love. We believe we have a social responsibility to do so and will continue to keep supporters fully updated.

Hello. Thanks Daniel. I’ll try to keep you up to speed on efforts to save the heart and soul of football as this story runs and runs. Sean Ingle has this update on PSG, one of the big clubs who chose not to follow the rush to break away.

This from Sean:

Paris Saint-Germain chief executive Nasser Al-Khelaïfi has emphatically ruled out joining the Super League and committed the club to working with Uefa instead,

Paris Saint-Germain holds the firm belief that football is a game for everyone. I have been consistent on this since the very beginning. As a football club, we are a family and a community; whose fabric is our fans - I believe we shouldn’t forget this. There is a clear need to advance the existing Uefa competition model, presented by Uefa yesterday and concluding 24 months’ of extensive and collaborative consultation across the whole European football landscape. We believe that any proposal without the support of Uefa – an organisation that has been working to progress the interests of European football for nearly 70 years – does not resolve the issues currently facing the football community, but is instead driven by self-interest.

That will make good reading for the majority who oppose the plans.

Right, my watch is done for today – thanks all for your company and comments, I’m off to sob gently. Gregg Bakowski is here for you now, email him on gregg.bakowski@theguardian.com

Updated

Ryan Mason speaks

He says his role is to get results and that” it’s a really good group of guys, they’re professional and they work hard”. He’s told his team how he wants them to play, and given them a structure, but won’t be looking at the League Cup final until after the Southampton game tomorrow. He’s got a lot of emotions going through his body at the moment, pride most of all, and he’s got a great relationship with the fans which he thinks is important.

I’m surprised we got more out of Guardiola than we did out of Klopp. I wonder if there’ll come a point at which managerial opposition intensifies – are CFG and FSG really firing their mangers, or allowing them to walk away, given how much of their success is predicated on them?

Well that’s something and more than I was expecting. He’s given his bosses room to extricate themselves – they’ll be able to argue that clubs can reach the ESL, nonsense though that is – but the identity of the founder members is not based on sport, and there’s no way to argue otherwise. I think we can also wonder whether, if this is what he’s saying publicly, he’s saying plenty more privately.

More Guardiola, and now he's getting into it!

He wants the best, strongest competition possible, but that it’s not sport when success is guaranteed – “Sport is not a sport when the relation between the effort and reward don’t exist. It’s not a sport when it doesn’t matter if you lose. It’s not fair if teams fight at the top and cannot qualify”.”

He also says we need to be told why, for example, Ajax Amsterdam and their four European Cups aren’t involved – “explain this” – and that to arrive at this point tells us that Uefa have failed. He’s not spoken to his players about it yet because they’ve got a game coming up, then says all clubs and bodies are looking after themselves, noting that Lewandowski missed Bayern’s tie against Paris because he got injured on international duty.

Updated

Pep Guardiola speaks

Guardiola says he doesn’t know what the super league is going to create and only found out about it just before the announcement. He goes on to say that managers speak about a lot of things but they’re not the right people to ask about the ESL because they don’t have all the information; when he does, he’ll give his opinion. He says he loves and supports his club and he’d love the president of the committee to go around the world explaining the reasons for what’s happening. As yet, he’s not been asked how he feels about what we know right now.

“On Florentino Pérez’s comments on 40% of young people not being interested in football,” says Alex Esson, “it’s yet another example of either their barefaced lies or pure delusion. Perhaps the rise of ticket prices making it so expensive and soulless stopped parents taking young kids to games and expensive TV subscriptions stopped lots of kids being able to watch it on tv so never got interested. How is this proposal changing anything?”

Yes, and add the selling off of playing fields to that. I do think that some people are consuming football differently and I’m pretty sure the data says a lot of that is kids watching highlights or short videos on their phones. But as you say, the response to that should be facilitating access so they grow to love the whole thing, not stripping football of context, feeling and place. For what it’s worth, I wrote a bit about this, last week, with regard to cricket and the Hundred.

“If Boris Johnson is so minded,” says Geof Walker, “he only needs to bring forward a short bill banning any football in England other than matches organised by the FA. Such laws are already in place in France and Germany. That would oblige the owners to expatriate their franchises.”

Yes, I wonder if that’s the end goal – matches all over the world played by clubs with no serious geographical base. At that point, I think there’s a strong chance the players refuse to get involved.

Now, the content of that “legislative bomb” will need a lot of clear thinking and precise wording, particularly with regard to not contradicting existing law, but the sentiments are strong enough to think that, at the very least, it will be attempted and – perhaps more than ever in UK politics – parliament is sovereign. I’ve no doubt that the ESL lot will have already instructed lawyers, but they can’t prevent the making of law and they can’t fight law that doesn’t yet exist.

Boris Johnson has very strong words on the ESL

Apparently he told Richard Masters, the chief exec of the Premier League, that he is committed to the free market but that the ESL is “anti-competitive”, saying “we should drop a legislative bomb to stop it – and we should do it now.”

Goodness me.

This line here made me feel...

“As my business partners and I have now been working and living in Burnley for several months and are in the process of moving permanently to the area, I would greatly encourage my fellow chairmen to walk the streets around their local communities and get to know them personally, rather than creating more distance between themselves and fans.”

...but I don’t think it matters. It matters to me, a lot, but I remember Joel Glazer pointing and laughing at Manchester United fans, and I know what Roman Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour have been involved in away from football.

What matters is this:

“As my business partners and I have now been working and living in Burnley for several months and are in the process of moving permanently to the area, I would greatly encourage my fellow chairmen to walk the streets around their local communities and get to know them personally, rather than creating more distance between themselves and fans.”

As anyone who’s fought racism, sexism, antisemitism. homophobia and transphobia will tell you, warm feelings don’t work but legislation and policy do. Don’t hope people do the right thing, compel them to.

Alan Pace, the chairman of Burnley, has his say

And what a say it is. Beautifully done.

Dear supporters,

A breakaway Super League should never have happened, but this is about much more than club self-interest and is an example of how the governance of football in this country and throughout Europe needs to be reformed.

The six Premier League clubs taking this step have turned their back on our moral duty as custodians of the game to protect English football and, the spirit of the sport, at all costs.

Weak governance has led us to this point.

Therefore, today I am calling on Boris Johnson and Oliver Dowden to follow their welcome intervention and now appoint an independent regulator to protect English football with legislation.

As a former financier, I understand the commercial considerations for these clubs and can appreciate their frustration at being the largest revenue drivers for the UEFA Champions League, without receiving the same levels of influence and reward.

However, this is a move which does not treat fans or the game’s history with the respect it deserves and is not the solution.

We need to ensure that football is protected. The game is bigger than all of us, and its future cannot be compromised by self-interest.

The contempt the proposals have received was inevitable.

It is truly a shame that it has come to this. We are the greatest league in the world and we can do more to bring people together and set the path forward for all and not just the few.

We have a responsibility to all that have come before us and all those who will follow in the wider game.

While we too at Burnley have ambitious plans to grow the club’s revenues, those plans have always been on the back of performance, both on and off the pitch, and not artificial protectionism.

As my business partners and I have now been working and living in Burnley for several months and are in the process of moving permanently to the area, I would greatly encourage my fellow chairmen to walk the streets around their local communities and get to know them personally, rather than creating more distance between themselves and fans.

This is also why I invite No10, the Government and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport to now legislate.

Ultimately, we need a strong regulator in the style of OFTEL or OFCOM to protect and build the interests of English football.

It’s time to do things differently!

Over the coming days, I will be working hard alongside my fellow club owners and governing bodies to fight these proposals and find a solution to improved football governance in this country.

I welcome initial noises coming from the UK Government and encourage them to provide strong leadership on these proposals, given their seismic impact on the UK’s cultural landscape.

Yours, in Football

Alan Pace

“My beloved Plymouth Argyle re-posted this on Twitter not long ago,” emails John Leonard, “a timely reminder of what football should be about. Voiced by David Friio, ex-player.”

This is great.

“Saw the comment by Luke Jones,” says Kevin Waskells. “I also support Liverpool and live in America. If the Super League does go through then I will stop supporting Liverpool. The history, the connection to the local communities, rivalries, promotion and relegation are things that make football so fascinating imho to many Americans. Fortunately, I live in Detroit where we have Detroit City Football Club, which is an amazing story of a club built from the ground up and still grounded with the supporters and local community. I’ll also be looking for a new English club to support as well!”

Apparently Pep Guardiola will be speaking to the press shortly, likewise Ryan Mason – at 29, he’s the youngest manager in Premier League history.

“I’m a longtime Liverpool fan and a fan of sports in general,” says Luke Jones. “I don’t understand most of the outrage about the ESL. I think a lot of it is rooted in an English presumptuousness that they are somehow entitled to have the biggest players in the world - and their country - playing in their local team but they don’t have to adapt at all to anything modern in return.

I bet the reaction would be a lot different if people expected that the alternative to this is that in 10 years the next Harry Kane would be playing in Los Angeles and you never got to watch anyone good in person (unless you paid huge amounts to watch pre-season friendlies with development squads). In fact, as a fan based in America, if you want to kick all of these owners and their money out of the Premier League, and all of the star players they pay for, and make them all come here and set up a closed league of the best teams in the world playing with international superstars, that would be great!”

It’s not about the best players at all - Manchester United had the highest attendances in the country when they were in Division Two, every weekend hundreds of thousands of people watch teams not competing for trophies in person – it’s about the clubs that were built by us and supported by us playing in our league. Football is about identity and heritage, not about being the best and watching the best.

“Just on that F1 comparison below,” says Josh Green, “it’s a fair point, but I think I’m also right in saying that Ferrari (and Ferrari alone) receive a “longstanding team payment” which amounts to about $70m, meaning that I think they’ve received the highest prize money of any team for as long as I can remember, despite not having actually won anything for more than a decade. I think its also still the case that Ferrari (and again, Ferrari alone) have a veto over potential new regulations. It’s essentially a recognition that F1 without Ferrari is a bit of a damp squib (probably true ultimately). I would like to think that might have been corrected in the course of the cost cap negotiations, but I doubt it has.”

Yup, that seems to be the case.

I feel like I’m in a parallel 2021.

BTTF

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In other sport:

For those opposed to the ESL, there’s a really crucial point to be gleaned here: sustain the attacks, maintain pressure. When the Glazers bought Man United in 2005, they rode the initial wave of anger – they needed police protection when fans went for them at Old Trafford – then again when protests rose in 2010. The lesson there is to keep going, and also to act, – whether by withdrawing funding, boycotting commercial partners, or more direct protests.

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More from Aleksander Ceferin, the president of Uefa

“Gentlemen, you have made a huge mistake. English fans deserve to have you correct your mistake. They deserve respect. Correct your mistake, turn back, come to your senses”.

“Uefa competitions needs Atalanta, Celtic, Rangers, Dinamo Zagreb and Galatasaray. People to know everyone has a chance. We need to keep the dream alive. Big clubs now were not necessarily big clubs in past and no guarantee there will be big in future.”

“To the English clubs, come to your senses. Not out of love for football, I don’t imagine you have much of that, but out of respect for the people who bleed for the team, out of respect for the home of football.”

That’s a more conciliatory tone than yesterday, but the essential points remain.

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Premier League clubs are meeting right now to work out what to do next. I’ve no idea what that might be – they might be firm but conciliatory, as Infantino was, offering a way back. Or they might be punitive, imposing deductions or exclusions. In the end, my guess is that they pursue the latter while warning of the former because their end goal is everyone working together.

Robert Williams emails in to note that “the PR for the ESL is being handled by iNHouse Communications, run by Katie Perrior, formally Theresa May’s advisor. Quelle surprise.” He also links to this, which gives a different perspective to what we’ve been discussing so far – how PR professionals appraise the ESL’s communications so far.

It’s a monstrous cloud, but David Squires on it is at least some kind of silver lining.

Ruben den Broeder emails in to suggest what football can learn from F1: “In Formula 1, concerns emerged over both the hegemony of Mercedes for seven straight years and the huge amounts of money spent by the big teams. Instead of the big teams crying for ever more money to continue the hegemony, they illustrated they actually cared about the sport itself and about the smaller teams: a budget cap will be imposed starting next season. This will level the playing field and prevent major financial difficulties down the road for the teams.

This is the road that should have been taken years ago in soccer by imposing caps on transfer sums, player salaries, and agent fees. Instead, Fifa and Uefa have steered the sport to this point by not imposing these regulations and ensuring the big teams got ever bigger (by guaranteeing their nearly untouchable coefficient ranking and thus guaranteed CL tickets and money). Where did this money go? Of course it went to ever larger transfer sums and player salaries, until clubs got to this desperate point by their own overspending.

Therefore, this situation to me not only illustrates the greed of the Super League teams, but also how the Fifa and Uefa are actually at the core of the issue. This is a problem of their own making which we should make them know and we should demand the previously mentioned reforms.”

Yes, I think if Fifa, Uefa and everyone else stop this we’ll see some kind of more general reform, and I agree they’re partially to blame for all this – though for now, it doesn’t matter because they’re on the side of right. The difference with F1, though – I think – is that F1 is a minority sport that costs dizzying sums of money to maintain, so the co-dependence is more obvious. The richest football clubs, on the other hand, think that the money they’re earning is less than the money they deserve and, more importantly, less than the money they can get.

Brighton issue a statement on the ESL

Ahead of today’s Premier League meeting involving the 14 clubs who haven’t signed up to be part of a European Super League, Brighton & Hove Albion has issued the following statement on behalf of Tony Bloom (chairman), Paul Barber (chief executive and deputy chairman), Dan Ashworth (technical director), and Graham Potter (head coach):

Brighton & Hove Albion are totally opposed to plans for a breakaway European Super League as it would destroy the dreams of clubs at every level of the domestic game.

These plans are the latest in an alarming and growing list of clandestine attempts from a small group of clubs whose actions would be wiping out close to 150 years of football’s tradition, competition, and sporting progress through merit.

The ups and downs of football – promotion, relegation, winning titles and cups, challenging for, or missing out on, a European place – are all part and parcel of the drama, jeopardy, joy and heartbreak that makes our game the most watched and most loved in the world.

These key attributes create significant value from which we feed a financial support structure which helps to sustain football at every level in our country and well beyond. By contrast, a European Super League would concentrate value for the benefit of a small number of clubs.

The efforts to create a closed-shop for all but the largest clubs demonstrate a clear lack of respect for the contributions of all clubs within the domestic leagues in this country and across Europe.

Plans for a European Super League also totally disregard fans, the lifeblood of our sport at professional levels, and fly in the face of the views and wishes of the overwhelming majority of football supporters of all clubs.

These clubs, like Brighton & Hove Albion, invest heavily to support their own dreams, and those of their fans, to play at the highest level they can, and to help create a sense of pride in their own clubs across the country.

Off the pitch, we remain custodians of our clubs on behalf of past, present and future generations of fans and the communities we all represent. This is a responsibility we believe we must all take very seriously.

It has been hugely encouraging to see universal opposition and widespread condemnation from across the game from various football authorities, fans, players, commentators, pundits and media, and all-party opposition in government.

We will continue to work with those groups, including the UK government and MPs of all political parties, football’s governing bodies and all of our colleagues across football to oppose and defeat these plans.

We are fully committed to a thriving domestic league and pyramid with the ultimate reward of European competition for achievements and success on the field. We remain open to a transparent, calm and rationale dialogue with all clubs to achieve this.

“In 1986 Middlesbrough FC were in the old third division and 10 minutes from liquidation, the end of a club that was formed in 1876,” recalls Richard Horrocks. “Just under 10 years later we signed a certain Juninho, then the fifth-best player in the world, with recent Champions League winner Ravanelli following shortly afterwards. In just under another 10 years we were in the Uefa cup final against Sevilla. Had we won that game then we would have played Barcelona in the European Super Cup. That’s Middlesbrough FC versus Barcelona FC in a legitimate competitive game of football. THAT is the dream. That game was so close to a reality for no other reason than merit ... we earned that position, and without a doubt, if that dream is possible for a club like Middlesbrough, who only twenty years previously were 10 minutes from non-existence, then it is a dream that is possible for anyone. I think it was a couple of years later that Middlesbrough was voted the worst place to live in the UK on a live countdown television show. And that is the context in which these dreams take place ... the mundane, painful, exhausting slog of daily life interrupted ever so briefly by the magic of a dream. This battle is so much more than a game. We all know that. They don’t. Let’s make sure that this is one battle we win.”

Yes, quite. I guess people might argue that Boro got to where they were because of Steve Gibson’s money, but ultimately it was spent well – on the pitch, I’m absolutely not having that ground – and anyway, for better or for worse, that’s football. I’d be in favour of spending caps and other related rules to make things fairer, but even the contribution of Gibson was earned because he fell in love with his hometown club on its unique merits.

Doubts from Chelsea and Manchester City

“Chelsea and Manchester City are wavering about joining the European Super League, according to a well-placed executive at another club approached to join the breakaway league.” Read more below.

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“When Florentino Pérez is asked whether Real Madrid is going to get expelled from the Champions League or La Liga,” writes Manuel Brocos, “he says ‘Absolutely not, I am completely sure.’ But his body language says the opposite. It is extremely rare to see a hint of fear in a figure that in Spain is close to almighty.”

I can’t be sure but I certainly see what you mean - his demeanour does change at that point. The video is below so you can all make up your own minds.

Let’s have a bit of light. I enjoyed this.

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“The talents concentrated in the elite clubs are the results of all the work done in the lower ends of the pyramid,” says Daniel Persson. “It is work that often is voluntary or underpaid, in kids and junior teams, in the lower ranks of the different series systems across Europe. The super league clubs should be cut off from that pool of talent, and have to develop their own players from scratch. Legislation and strong contracts between the remaining clubs could make that possible, i.e. it should only be possible to sell a player to another club still in the system, and there should be mandatory non-compete clauses that would force an hiatus on a player to join a super league club after their contract lapses. All the work being done to develop talent at the lower ends of the pyramid is the value that is turned into profit and exciting content under the super league club brands. Cut that off, and their profit model will sink.”

Yes, this would be a good sanction – but, I fear, one that would only have an impact once the ESL is up and away, at which point it’s done.

“There’s a lot of talk about government intervention and implementing a 50+1 rule in England to curtail the ‘big 6’ clubs,’ says Tom Leonard. “While I’d be all for that as a fan of one of those clubs I think the real stumbling block would be the other 14 clubs.

Why would the millionaires and billionaires who own Wolves or Leicester or Leeds or Newcastle readily accept a model that would see their ownership reduced? These people are rightly up in arms about the super league and being left behind, but they are also ruthless businessmen with ruthless business interests and they’re not going to want to share these clubs any more than the Glazers or FSG.

I’m a Manchester United fan who hasn’t been to a game since 2005, hasn’t bought any merchandise since 2005 and has been opposed to the Glazers since that time. If I look at things in the most positive light I can see government intervention as potentially a good thing.

This super league has been the Glazers’ endgame since they took over. If their plans are stopped at a parliamentary level then hopefully they finally decide to sell up and move on, or are forced to. It’s a very faint hope that I doubt will happen but last week there was a zero percent chance the Glazers leave United, and now at least there’s some chance however small.

I just can’t see the fan ownership model as viable. Hope to be proved wrong, on that account at least.”

I guess that if a 50+1 rule was implemented by government, then owners of the clubs you mention might just have to accept it. They might also accept it because ultimately, if it keeps the league intact, that serves their bottom line. I always thought the Glazers expected to break the collective TV deal, and think this is happening because that didn’t, but ultimately I’m sure we’re in agreement that they’ll do whatever makes them most money without the slightest compunction.

The Professional Game Match Officials Board will oversee Women's Super League and Cup games next season

“As a fan of a League 2 team,”says Stuart Henry, “it’s great to hear all the Big Six fans talk about the ‘community’, ‘soul’ and ‘pride’ a football team brings to their locality. I hope they will remember this when the new season kicks off and fans are allowed back in the stadium, all I would ask is that they go to one lower league game a season to support their local League 1, League 2 or National League side. Their anger at the greed and ruthlessness of the ESL has long been felt towards the Premier League by lower league fans.”

I agree with the sentiment, but disagree with the proposal. When dealing with things properly – see racism, for example - we don’t need warm feelings or token gestures, we need policy and legislation. So supporting clubs lower down the pyramid should be enshrined in the rules of the game, not something we hope for from supporters of other clubs – more money needs redistributing, and the only way to make that happen is to make it a condition of participation.

Farhad Moshiri, the owner of Everton, says ESL clubs should be deducted points

Speaking to talkSPORT, when asked if Everton would ever join the ESL, he said “Never, never”, going on to explain that “Every fact of it is against the very idea of British football. Football clubs are community assets, they belong to the fans and to the communities. This takes much of the romance of football away.

“It is something which makes the game a money game, it’s not football anymore.”

“Clubs get points deductions for poaching a manager or a player, or exceeding FFP, but this is the clubs attacking the heart of the Premier League and I think they should be disciplined. That is what I think they should do. They should’ve discussed [their plans] with the Premier League and reached a consensus. They should’ve discussed it with all of the chairmen , the Premier League, the FA, FIFA and Uefa.

“The Champions League is an amazing competition. It is the super league.”

“I think the Premier League needs to discipline these clubs. The Premier League has its constitution. They need to treat the powerful clubs as severely as the poor clubs. Football is about competition. When you watch West Bromwich Albion beating Chelsea, this is football. Every club can outperform another on a Saturday, it is 11 v 11. A club like Leeds can go down and come back and draw with Liverpool. This is football.”

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Florentino Pérez, president of Real Madrid, has hit back at Uefa by calling them a ‘monopoly’ while arguing that the Super League is being formed to ‘save football’.

Talking to late-night Spanish talk show El Chiringuito de Jugones in Madrid on Monday, Pérez said that he was sure that Real Madrid and other Super League participants and players won’t be thrown out of this season’s Champions League. The Super League would be ‘the greatest show in the world. There’s no other sport that can gather four billion people watching a few teams play’.

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More on government intervention

Boris Johnson is due to hold a virtual meeting imminently with officials from the FA and the Premier League, as well as representatives from fans’ groups, to discuss the government response to the ESL. The prime minister has said he will examine “everything we can do” to stop the ESL, with possible measures including recourse to competition laws, and as-yet unspecified ways of withdrawing official support for teams involved, potentially connected to areas like work permits, travel or even policing.

We are promised a Downing Street summary of the meeting, due to start more or less now, once it is over.

“It will be fascinating to see in the future if UEFA will act with the quickness they have to the ESL when it comes to racism,” tweets Yousef Teclab. “Because what the last few days have shown is they have the ability – which begs the uncomfortable question why didn’t they with racism?”

Yes, absolutely. We touched on this below, looking at what Patrick Bamford said last night, and just as I’m moved and inspired by the unity of purpose in our love for the game, I’m moved and despondent that we love it more than we love anti-racism.

Laugh!

“The difference with the planned ESL and US sports is that - in theory - US sports have built in mechanisms to prevent single team dominance,’ says Pete Smith. “Principally a salary cap and a draft system meaning you can’t splash megabucks on one player without reducing the pot for others, and the worst performing teams get the best young players. Not seeing evidence of this in the ESL closed shop.”

Yup, if you support a team for long enough, there’s a fair chance you’ll see them win the superbowl. I guess the idea in the ESL would be that there’ll be so much money sloshing about that all the teams in it will have great players of which there are enough to go round, and be capable of beating each other in a knockout tie.

Sky’s Kaveh Solhekol reports that among the six ESL clubs, there are differing opinions, with some unhappy with how this has been handled and saying “this isn’t what we signed up for”. They were expecting a controlled media policy, is “shocked and taken aback” at the lack of a media policy, and unhappy at players, managers, and some board members being kept in the dark. Clubs involved aren’t close to pulling the plan ... “not yet”.

“Preposterous arrogance” is an absolute jazzer of a phrase.

“On the topic of players participating in the ESL not playing international football,” emails Mike Rolfe, “there are numerous precedents from other sports to follow. National rugby union boards (e.g. Wales) maintain selection policies that prevent players playing abroad being selected for their national sides presumably to maintain the quality and integrity of their national club competitions. Similarly, the ICC initially banned players who took part in World Series Cricket from participating in international Tests and ODIs.

The biggest difference here is in those situations players we’e presented a choice beforehand and a lot of this will come down to the terms (and likely individual clauses and choice of words) in their contracts. In the event of a ban there would be some sympathy with the players but they are phenomenally well paid for what they do. The choice for them to earn in some cases 250k per week for an ESL club vs representing their country in an elite sport (whilst likely still earning 100k plus per week) is still a choice between two incredible opportunities. This is very different to the sort of sacrifices that exist in the amateur vs. professional splits in some sports or the relatively life changing sums of money Kerry Packer put on the table for cricketers who enjoyed international careers but meagre financial benefits.”

Yup. I don’t think World Series Cricket quite works as a comparator because employment law has changed so much since then, but the Wales situation is significant because it tells us that contemporary employment law, both in the UK and the EU, allows it.

Someone who’d like to remain anonymous says: “I think it’s worth considering how similar the European Super League will be to American professional sports. Leagues like the NFL are closed shops with essentially no change over time in who gets to participate. It obviously gives the owners huge monopoly powers. One noticeable thing is how frequently the owners have moved their teams to another city, like the Oakland Raiders moving to Las Vegas in 2020.”

Absolutely. If legislation prevents clubs from being domiciled in, say the UK, or if clubs are prevented from using the names of their cities, then moving their base to wherever works will absolutely be on the agenda. Similarly, why need matches be confined to home cities when others will pay more to stage them? The ESL is the big change, but if it passes I doubt it’ll be the only change.

“Just a thought,” says Colin Brookman, “but where does the ESL expect to get its referees from if it cuts ties with Uefa?”

I don’t know, but if they’re nothing to do with any authority other than themselves, they can do what they want. Ultimately, though, these kind of difficulties are ones the ESL clubs will be delighted to have because it means they’re away.

BREAKING NEWS: Ryan Mason will be in charge at Spurs until the end of the season

Chris Powell and Nigel Gibbs with be interim assistant head coaches, Michel Vorm will be interim goalkeeping coach and Ledley King will be first team assistant.

Daniel Levy said: “We have great belief in this squad of talented players. We have a cup final and six Premier League games ahead of us and we shall now focus all our energies on achieving a strong finish to the season.”

Yeah, that’s all that’s going on.

“What has it come to when we’re looking to Fifa and Gianni Infantino to protect the moral and economic values of the sport?” wonders Keith Hennigan. “Also, while I think the statement from Everton’s Directors is laudable, I can’t read it without that niggling thought that if they, rather than say Spurs, has been considered ‘Big Six,’ they’d be doing exactly the same ... apologies to Everton fans and Directors for my cynicism!”

I don’t think we can convict Everton for something they’ve not done, but I understand the sentiment so I think it’s worth restating what is, in mine, the key point: no one here is pure, but some people are on one side and others are on another. Those who want to stop the ESL need to support those who want to do likewise, not pick at their previous misdeeds, because that’s the only way this might work.

The president of the IOC Thomas Bach has also come out against the European Super League this morning, warning that: “In this polarising environment, narrow self-interest and egotism are gaining ground over solidarity, shared values and common rules.”

Bach stressed that he supported European Sports Model, where money went to the grassroots and success was based on merit. But speaking at the Uefa congress, Bach warned that such a model was under threat from the “purely profit-driven approach that ignores the intrinsic values and social mission of sport.”

“It is under threat because the social mission of sport organisations is losing ground to the purely profit-oriented goals of commercial sport providers and investors,” he added. “If everything is only looked at from a business perspective, if only the economic rules are applied to measure the impact of sport on society, then the social mission of sport is lost.”

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That’s much stronger than anything Infantino has said previously. He didn’t say anything about banning ESL players from international competition, though it can, at a push, be read into his half-in, half-out point. Either way, he understands the gravity of the situation, which makes you think that he’ll use all power and sanction available to him to make sure he wins. Whether or not that’s enough, who knows.

Gianni Infantino, the president of Fifa, speaks – strongly

“At FIFA, we can only and strongly disapprove the creation of the super league, of a super league which is a closed shop, which is a breakaway from the current institutions. No doubt whatsoever of Fifa’s disapproval. Full support to Uefa.”

“It is my task and our task to protect the European sports model, club competitions, national teams. If they choose to go their own way, they must live with their choice. They are either in or out. They cannot be half-in and half-out.”

“My task, our task, is to save club football, international football.”

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Everton have also written to members

“I feel it is only right that, as CEO of your football club, I write to you directly following the plans made public over the weekend for a European Super League.

As a proud custodian of Everton, I, along with my fellow board members, understand the responsibility that has been entrusted upon us to maintain the traditions of your Club and of the wider game.

Everton Football Club was a founder member of the Football League and a founder member of the Premier League.

Throughout our history the Club has always strived to move both Everton and the game forward. But we have always done so within the parameters of the pyramid structure which maintains the principles of open competition and sporting merit.

Sadly, the plans that have been made public by 12 clubs from across Europe - and six in our own Premier League - do not maintain those principles.

At this time of national crisis - in the face of a global pandemic and in a defining period for football - clubs should be working together collaboratively with the thoughts of our game and its supporters uppermost in our minds.

Disenfranchising supporters across the game and undermining the very structure of the pyramid that underpins the game we love is, quite simply, wrong.

The response from voices across the game and beyond over the last 48 hours is understandable – and those voices should be listened to.

Rest assured, I, along with my fellow board members, will do everything possible to ensure our position on these proposals is made in the strongest possible terms - and the voice of Evertonians is heard, loud and clear.

It remains our hope that by working collaboratively, football will find the right answer for its future.”


Use of an upper case C for “Clubs” really does tell you all you need to know. But looking through this, what stands out beyond the greed is the fearfulness and the lack of understanding. Fooball isn’t about winning, it’s about family, friends, identity and love.

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Liverpool chief exec Billy Hogan cancels address to staff. Here's the email he sent yesterday.

Dear Colleagues,

You will be aware of the announcement published late last night regarding Europe’s leading football Clubs coming together to establish a new mid-week competition, the European Super League, governed by its Founding Clubs.

It’s important as a member of our team that I share with you some of the context.

For quite some time now, Clubs, including our own, have held numerous longstanding concerns about not only the future of European football but also the way football is run by UEFA. The global pandemic has also accelerated the instability in the existing European football economic model.

We have therefore joined AC Milan, Arsenal, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Juventus, Manchester City, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Tottenham Hotspur as Founding Clubs of the Super League. It is anticipated that a further three Clubs will join ahead of the inaugural season, which is intended to commence as soon as practicable.

The Super League will be the future of European football and if we want to continue our journey of being a sustainable Club with ambition to grow and continue winning trophies then we should absolutely be part of that process and have a seat at the table rather than outside that group.

The new annual tournament will provide significantly greater economic growth and support for European football via a long-term commitment to uncapped solidarity payments which will grow in line with league revenues. These solidarity payments are expected to be roughly three times what is currently achieved from UEFA competitions. One of the core commitments of the European Super League is to vastly increase financial support for the football pyramid.

After the start of the men’s competition, a corresponding women’s league will also be launched, helping to advance and develop the women’s game.

We know that this announcement has provoked strong feelings within the game and elsewhere but we believe this decision is in the best long-term interests of Liverpool Football Club.

Importantly, this is the beginning of the journey and we can now start an engagement process with you, supporters and key stakeholders to help shape this process in the right way.

There is still much more information to come in due course.

I will keep you updated as we progress on this journey and discuss further on our Town Hall tomorrow.

Thank you for your continued support.

Updated

“Not sure I agree with Shearer et al saying this has nothing to do with the players,” writes Alex Ecob. “Football is the players. They are in a hugely influential position to take a stand against this, and vote with their feet about which teams to represent. The possibility of an international ban coming into force may seem to be punishing the wrong people, but a concerted refusal from the players would throw any plans into absolute chaos.”

As per the below, I feel for the players but we are where we are. I also wonder if the ESL clubs are breaching the terms of their contracts with the players, assuming that this can be settled with an uplift in salary. If that’s so – and it’s big if, but not an unlikely one – then if they decide they’re doing well enough already, the clubs have a potentially insurmountable problem.

“A thought on players being banned from international appearances if their club plays in the ESL,” says Phil Gibson. “If a club decides to leave the Premier League and stop being FA-affiliated (or gets chucked out) then those players can’t be considered to be playing Association Football, since that falls solely in the remit of FIFA and its own affiliates. It’s why Rugby Union players don’t get picked for Rugby League international matches, it’s a different sport!

How about the ESL decides, once it controls its own game, that goals scored from a certain distance from the goalline count extra? Or making their own changes to the offside law?”

This is an interesting point, and relates to one we discussed earlier this morning: what if changes are made to the format of the game? If the ESL control the ESL, then they can do whatever they like. And will they have a compliance unit? What if particular results suit the financial imperatives of the cartel?

That is nails, well done the Ev.

ferguson freund

Everton release a statement strongly condemning the ESL clubs and plans

Everton is saddened and disappointed to see proposals of a breakaway league pushed forward by six clubs.

Six clubs acting entirely in their own interests.

Six clubs tarnishing the reputation of our league and the game.

Six clubs choosing to disrespect every other club with whom they sit around the Premier League table.

Six clubs taking for granted and even betraying the majority of football supporters across our country and beyond.

At this time of national and international crisis - and a defining period for our game - clubs should be working together collaboratively with the ideals of our game and its supporters uppermost.

Instead, these clubs have been secretly conspiring to break away from a football pyramid that has served them so well.

And in that Pyramid Everton salutes EVERY club, be it Leicester City, Accrington Stanley, Gillingham, Lincoln City, Morecambe, Southend United, Notts County and the rest who have, with their very being, enriched the lives of their supporters throughout the game’s history. And vice versa.

The self-proclaimed Super Six appear intent on disenfranchising supporters across the game - including their own - by putting the very structure that underpins the game we love under threat.

The backlash is understandable and deserved – and has to be listened to.

This preposterous arrogance is not wanted anywhere in football outside of the clubs that have drafted this plan.

On behalf of everyone associated with Everton, we respectfully ask that the proposals are immediately withdrawn and that the private meetings and subversive practises that have brought our beautiful game to possibly its lowest ever position in terms of trust end now.

Finally we would ask the owners, chairmen, and Board members of the six clubs to remember the privileged position they hold – not only as custodians of their clubs but also custodians of the game. The responsibility they carry should be taken seriously.

We urge them all to consider what they wish their legacy to be.

Everton FC Board of Directors

“Lineker is starting down a bad road there,” emails Ruth Purdue. “That’s not a united front. That’s not a hard line we need to take. If these men want to go make money, they can, off they go. (The women is a different issue). They can’t then be called up for international duty which we all pay for and a lot of them already give to charity. They understand, by giving it to charity that they don’t want/need the wage for playing for England. Yes, it is a punishment. That’s the point.”

I feel for the players because who wants this, but if they decide to be a part of the ESL, that might come at a price.

Mike emails in to point out that “Spurs and Arsenal still owe the Bank of England (and thus the taxpayer), a combined £295m through the Covid Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF). One of the terms of this is that they ‘make a material UK contribution”.

Assuming you’re wondering if joining the ESL would constitute a breach of that, presumably the money they trouser could immediately pay that off, or their owners could pay it off, easily, in the knowledge that much more money was coming back to them. But it does highlight, once again, the absolute venality of it all.

Alan Shearer has been on BBC Breakfast talking about Jürgen Klopp and sneaking in a glorious Mike Atherton “last evening”.

“He was in a really difficult situation last evening, but he said as much as he could say. He made his feelings clear on the European Super League over a year ago, didn’t he, when he said he didn’t want it. He also said that again last night, he didn’t want it.

“He doesn’t want what his owners want and that is a really powerful voice ... and I’m sure that he will tell his owners what he thinks.

“Where are these owners? Why don’t they come out and face the media and tell us why they’ve done it, why they want a closed shop that no-one else can get into?”

Shearer was also asked about the prospect of players from the clubs involved being banned from playing for their national teams. He said: “That’s deeply unfair. Everyone will come out and look at the legalities - I’m sure that the Premier League will do that, I’m sure that Uefa and Fifa are doing that - and it’s just not fair on the players to be put under this pressure.

“They want to go out and play football, they don’t want to read about the threat of not being able to play for their national team in huge competitions, because that’s what you want to do as a young boy, you want to come up and you want to represent your country.

“For people to be talking about them being barred from doing that when it’s got nothing to do with the players whatsoever, it’s just not right.”

David Beckham has “taken to Instagram” to share his thoughts on “the situation”. There is no relegation in MLS, no, but that’s slightly different to this, in mine, and again, this isn’t the time to be picking at people who are on the right side.

I’m someone who loves football. It has been my life for as long as I can remember. I loved it from when I was a young child as a fan, and I’m still a fan now. As a player and now as an owner I know that our sport is nothing without the fans. We need football to be for everyone. We need football to be fair and we need competitions based on merit. Unless we protect these values the game we love is in danger...

Updated

This is a really tricky one. Players are well paid, but players are still workers, who have a right to go about their professional business. On the other hand, though we’re all obliged as human beings to do the right thing and we’re at a juncture in history where that is now extremely important. The point here isn’t that owners care about players not playing international football per se, it’s that banning players from international football might mean players refuse to play in the ESL, and that might be enough to stop it.

Updated

“I think events of the last few days are part of a long-term strategy to deliver a European super league,” reckons Lee Smith. “The current furore means it won’t be next season or for another couple of years, but my fear is that this is founders’ way of creating the discourse that will eventually, say in five years, see the league come to fruition. These are the initial steps to building a rational and an acceptance to the idea, the founders might not win this time but they will be back until they do.”

I think that depends on what the government do. As explained in the last link I posted, if this mess leads to proper reform – a 50+1 ownership model for example – then it’s never happening.

“As a Liverpool fan, I was also hoping for more from Klopp,” says Matt Dony. “But he said something. And something is a start. He’d only had a day or so since he’d learned about the plan, and that day was likely spent preparing for a match. And some of the comments about Neville were obviously misguided, but they were motivated by a desire to protect Liverpool Football Club (in its ‘true’ sense, not in its commercial sense). Hopefully, that protective instinct will serve him well as this whole thing unfolds. Klopp (and Milner) have made a start. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than the silence coming from higher up.”

I’d agree with that. He didn’t do what Thomas Tuchel did, and say he trusted his club’s owners to do the right thing, and he club’s owners aren’t even Roman Abramovich. I worry, though, that he’s blinded by his duty to his club and his players, and misunderstanding how best to protect those things. But all things considered, he made things marginally better than thy were before.

Ultimately, it’s hard to see a way this doesn’t end up making lawyers a lot of money; the question is whether we keep the status quo until things are settled, or the breakaway happens before the legal battles.

Updated

Patrick Bamford makes a key point: football is not its own world, but part of a society that needs urgent repair.

All parties need to work together to improve this industry – it’s ironic that it could not exist without either the players or the fans and yet both these groups are often the last to be consulted on any key decisions.

Louis Saha has written thoroughly, thoughtfully and beautifully about his opposition to the ESL – you can read him here.

“Any word from the clubs’ sponsors yet?” asks Gary Naylor. “They pay a lot of money for the positive vibes their association provides, but there’s not a lot of those about right now. So, what say you Cadbury, Adidas, Nike, Santander, Quorn, Puma, Heineken, Nivea Men, Beats, Hyundai?”

I guess they might decide that they don’t want bad publicity, but thy might also decide that there won’t be a boycott or a boycott that’ll hurt as much as missing out on the ESL’s reach.

“He did criticise the plan,” says Yoaxall of Klopp, “briefly, but everything else he said has completely overshadowed that. It was bizarre and had it been Mourinho he’d have been hauled over the coals. For a man who holds himself out to have socialist principles he let himself down last night. I don’t buy this heat of the moment stuff either. He knew all day he would be asked about it and should have been better prepared. He needs to get out of that mentality and quick, because calling FSG good owners was a bad misstep.”

I’m not going to lie – I was hoping for more. But I think we need to understand that he had a game on which he was focused, and everything else needs filtering through that lens. It’s a start – let’s see what happens next.

“Having watched MNF and considered,” says Victor Rushton, “I think the key lesson, if we are to win, is the importance of everyone presenting a united front and sticking together. Even if we are not sure of everyone’s motives, we need all the help and support we can get. Once we start bickering and trying to out do each other in virtue signalling, defeat is inevitable.”

Yes, I agree with that – politically, a lesson the left is still to learn. Speaking personally, I found Gary Neville’s mea culpa about the Glazers both aggravating and inspiring, having been waiting 16 years for him to say what needed saying. But the reality is that it doesn’t matter at all, because he has reach, anger and a plan, and if this can be stopped, he can be a big part of that and currently, that’s all that matters. And the same applies to Sky and the Premier League, who are part of this - who helped cause this - but who, as far as this goes, are on the right side.

How people are thinking and feeling.

Here’s David Conn to explain some whys and hows.

“Interested in what grounds you think a government has to tell a football team who it can and cannot play and what you think the ramifications of that are,” emails Paul Roome. “Surely higher up the list should be legislation to prevent UK footballers taking part in the blood-stained 2022 World Cup. A midweek friendly competition should be miles down the list.

The Premier League are the only people who should be sorting this situation out. They could easily do it with a PL salary cap as the ESL doesn’t seem to work without still being in their national competitions.

Why don’t we see if the PL can get their act together before touting/asking Boris Johnson to protect the feelings of fans who are complicit in this anyway (and as has been mentioned elsewhere, were very quiet on the topic of their club helping Haaland’s agent to trouser £30m just as long as it was their team the latest megastar was about to join.

This ESL thing is just a friendly league basically. Honest, who cares (not a single Forest fan I’ve spoken to!). The scarier thing happening is that the wild-cards in the Champions League re-jig mean that whiter-than-white Bayern now have zero chance of ever being eliminated from that competition. Even if they are relegated to division 9 in Germany for misdemeanours(cheating) their ‘EURO COEFFICIENT’ (or whatever they decide to call it) will still plop them safely into the biggest competition in the world. But you’re all ignoring that.”

There are various ways of legislating. Most obviously, a law saying that if you want a licence to operate a football club in this country, then this is what you must do. I guess a ramification might be the clubs taken abroad to become franchises, but at that point they just aren’t those clubs anymore.

I agree the Qatar world cup is appalling. It’s not an either/or situation, for mine.

There’s no time to see what happens. To stop this, the biggest forces need immediate deployment. But I agree on the need for some kind of mechanism, whether that be a cap on salary, squad-size or something else, to make money less important in determining what happens on the pitch.

The ESL would not be a friendly league. Clubs would use their domestic leagues, if they stay in, as they use the Carabao Cup now.

Of course people are entitled to their opinions, but I’m surprised fans of a club who’ve won the European Cup twice want the chance to have another go at it removed forever.

Wanting your club to sign players is not the problem here.

I agree with what you say about the new Champions League, and that needs reforming too, but you need to qualify for European competition to be handed a wild card.

Updated

“I don’t understand why Jurgen Klopp is getting so much praise from you,” emails Steven Alcock. “He was unequivocal in his condemnation of Leeds United and Gary Neville, whose words and actions he seems to have completely misinterpreted, whilst refusing to directly criticise his owners or their plans. I know he’s in a difficult position and I’m not having a go at him per se, but I don’t think his interview was particularly laudable either.”

I didn’t give him “so much praise” I don’t think, and the way he went after Neville was wrong and a bit odd, in mine. But ultimately he criticised the plan, as he has in the past, and at this point, it’s a start.

“You’re right, we can save football from this,” emails Thomas Porter. “But the big question is can we save football properly? We need to go further than just stopping the ESL, we need to rebalance football and stop all the money being hoarded at the top, stop all the ridiculous kick off times for TV audiences that fans find it hard to attend etc ... I think this is a tipping point for an outpouring of frustration against all that, but whether we can actually do anything is another question.”

I agree. Stopping the ESL is the first thing, but we need proper governance of the game and for our clubs to be protected as community assets. Speaking personally, some things bother me more or less than others – as a matchgoing fan, I can handle the kick-off time thing, but I can’t abide owners who take money out of clubs or do far worse on a national or global stage, and I’d like checks on spending to protect the competitiveness.

Thinking back to MNF, the two points that resonated most strongly, I thought were Neville saying six families were stealing football and Carragher saying that place you go to when your team scores would be one you’d never go to again. Marcus Rashford has taught me many things, but near the top of the list is simplicity of messaging. One of the reasons he’s been so successful is that he boiled down the entirety of politics to a single, emotive question: are we happy with children going hungry? If the fight against the ESL is to work, that’s a good lesson to learn, I think.

“Just throwing this out there,” says James Clay. “Uefa already have processes for associations/teams to apply to organise other competitions (mentioned already by footy governance experts – here’s a list of club and national competitions. How about this example, the Baltic League, previously played between clubs from three nations.

Surely, just like a summer tournament, anyone can organise a competition, provided it fulfils certain criteria and gets the nod. The actual friction with the ECL and ESL is the timing of matches and number of matches in different competitions. So, there are precedents for other international competitions (think also pre-season tournaments). Pretty hard to see how the ESL can be stopped. It’s just a matter of when the matches happen.”

I’d say there are two ways it cane be stopped: with government legislation, or with players and managers refusing to take part. I agree with what you say about timing though, and perhaps this’ll be the compromise: a summer club world cup to take place in even-numbered years. In theory this would be incredible for those who follow a team involved, but the problem would be how much money it’d make, thereby distorting competition and allowing them to waste even more before pleading poverty once more.

“Have you watched American sports?” asks James Beedle “i.e. NBA ‘gametime’ is 48mins, but goes on for 2.5 hours. Bet the ESL will be working on this kind of outlook for that sweet ad revenue.”

Yes, I’d not be at all surprised to see changes to extend things – games chopped into quarters and such.

Florentino Pérez has been talking, so here are the “highlights” of what he said:

“Many important clubs in Spain, Italy and UK want to find a solution to a very bad financial situation. The only way is to play more competitive games. If instead of playing the CL, Super League helps the clubs to recover the lost earnings”. This is one way of looking at things. Another way would be to say these clubs have been horrifically mismanaged, despite a dominant market position and every possible advantage, and can always cut costs.

“Football must evolve like everything in life. Football has to adapt to the times we live in now. Football is losing interest, TV rights are decreasing. We wanted to do the SuperLeague, the pandemic has given us urgency: now we are all ruined in football”. Football is the biggest sport in the world and has a greater, wider reach than anything else. It’s not perfect, but if the pandemic has proved anything it’s how much people love it. This is about protecting revenue for a small cartel of owners, not protecting the game for a planet of obsessives.

“Football needs to change to be more attractive globally. Instead of making the Champions League because it lost interest as he had in 1950, change comes and even at the time FIFA and UEFA were against it. But that’s how football changed...” The European Cup came to be because of the thirst to explore new boundaries, cooperate across borders and find out who the best team is – something to which every club in the world could aspire. The super league would be the antithesis of that, a closed shop created to make money for individuals.

“The attractive thing in football is playing between big clubs, the value for television increases and more income is generated. It’s not just the rich who want the # Super League, we’re doing it to save football because it’s at a critical moment”. The attractive thing in football is identity, community and beauty. Football does need saving, but because of the super league creators (and ilk); they are not saviours.

“It will become like a pyramid because we big clubs will have more money and we will be able to invest it by buying players... if the big clubs lose their money as is happening, the whole football system crashes as with the Champions League”. If there’s one thing we can be sure of, it’s that the super league clubs are interesting in nothing but their bottom lines.

“The Super League is not a closed league, it’s absolutely not true. Whoever wins the five available spots will be able to play with the other best teams in the world”. But the founding clubs are there every season, earning so much money it’s impossible for the rest to compete, and potentially banned from competing against anyone but themselves.

“Players banned from international competitions and National teams according to UEFA? Don’t worry, this will NOT happen. They won’t be banned if they join Super League”. Let’s see.

“Real Madrid, Manchester City and Chelsea as the other clubs of Super League will NOT be banned from the Champions League or domestic leagues. 100%, I’m sure. Impossible”. Let’s see.

“President Ceferin insulted Andrea Agnelli today, it is not possible. It’s crazy to discuss a president of a world club like Juventus. This is something unacceptable, UEFA must change, we don’t want a president who insults other presidents.” But plutocrats with human rights issues are fine.

“Boris Johnson said he will do everything to cancel the Super League because they explained to him that the Premier League would disappear: it’s false, it’s not true. Everything will go back to normal...” Boris Johnson will want to be re-elected, and preventing the Super League will do him no harm in that aspect.

“Real Madrid and other SuperLeague clubs will NOT be excluded from this 2020/2021 Champions League. It won’t happen, the law protects us. This is impossible”. If legislators are so minded, laws can be changed – certainly in a post-Brexit UK.

“The contract of the Super League is binding. Nobody can leave, we will work all together. All the clubs signed the contracts last Saturday, there’s no problem”. Let’s see.

“If we can start the Super League in August, we would do it. We will do our best to start this year. We want to reach an agreement with UEFA and the other parties involved. We will talk with UEFA, FIFA and not only”. Or you want them to agree with your combined exchequers.

Updated

On which point:

“Good morning, Daniel” tweets @MaliciousA. “32 hours(ish) on, does this seem like it will turn out to be a misstep and rowed back on, or are events too far down the line for the clubs to turn back?”

It’s an interesting question that, because it touches not just on practicalities but on egos. Will your Joel Glazers, your Shekih Mansours and your Roman Abramoviches of this world be prepared to take a public L? And from there flows a further question: how can these people continue to be allowed stewardship of these community assets and public institutions? I’ve no idea, but I’m as certain that this can be rowed back on as I am that it’s not a misstep but a deliberate act.

What's going on today?

Today we’ve got the “other” 14 Premier League clubs meeting, we’ve got Boris Johnson meeting the FA and fan groups, and we’ve got Fifa meeting Uefa (I think). Fifa haven’t been that intense in their opposition thus far – let’s see how that plays out.

Now there’s actually the germ of a good idea here, but not for the reasons they think it is. Football isn’t too long, but it’s timekeeping is all wrong; I’d be right behind a change to 30 minutes each way of ball in play time.

Preamble

Morning all! I don’t know about youse, but I feel slightly better this morning. We’re going to need some leaders and we’re going to need a plan – ultimately, we’re probably going to need legislation too – but it feels like all that is possible. The brilliant performances on Monday Night Football, of Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher in particular but of Jurgen Klopp, Marcelo Bielsa, James Milner and Patrick Bamford too, felt like the start of something – I don’t know about you, but my eyeballs were sweating throughout; they’re sweating now. My days I love our game. It can be saved, and we’re going to save it.

Updated

Daniel will be here shortly; until then, why not catch up with all the latest developments and analysis.

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