Aleksander Ceferin has distanced himself from the Super League in clear terms. The president of UEFA calls the plan of twelve European superpowers “shameful and selfish”. With the plan, the clubs’ spit ‘all football fans in the face,’ Ceferin added during a press conference on Monday afternoon. He makes it clear that players from participating clubs will be excluded from international tournaments such as the European Championship and World Cup.
“For these clubs it is not about solidarity, no, it is about one thing: money,” said the Slovenian driver. “The players who will participate in the Super League will be banned from the World Cup and the European Championship. They will not be able to play for their national team.” For the time being, the question is whether the plan has consequences for the European Championship next summer. Ceferin only said that in his eyes the players should be banned ‘as soon as possible’. “We are still reviewing the situation with our lawyers.”
Managers respond to European Super League announcement: ‘I didn’t know about anything’
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the Dutch internationals Virgil van Dijk, Georginio Wijnaldum, Donny van de Beek, Nathan Aké, Steven Bergwijn, Matthijs de Ligt, Stefan de Vrij, Frenkie de Jong are among the players who are under contract with the twelve initiators. They have not yet responded to the plans. Some other top players did, including Ander Herrera and Mesut Özil. “Kids grow up with the dream of winning the World Cup and the Champions League, not a Super League. The fun of top matches is that they only happen once or twice a year, not every week. This is really, really hard for me to understand. all the football fans out there, “Özil wrote for example on Twitter.
Ceferin also lashes out at Andrea Agnelli, the chairman of Juventus, Ed Woodward, the vice-chairman of Manchester United, and Ivan Gazidis, the director of AC Milan. He calls the club directors ‘snakes’. “I start with Ed Woodward. He called me on Thursday evening to say that he is very satisfied with the new format of the Champions League. He had clearly already agreed to another plan. Andrea Agnelli is the biggest disappointment of all. I don’t want to get too personal, but I’ve never seen someone lie so often and so incessantly. I spoke to him on Saturday and then he indicated that it was just rumors and nothing was going on. Then he hung up. “
“We didn’t know there were such snakes working around us, but we do know that now”, Ceferin says. “I’ve been through a lot in my life. I’ve worked as a criminal defense attorney for 24 years. But I’ve never seen anyone like him. I can’t stress enough how much everyone is united against this shameful, selfish, greedy proposal. to support us as we do everything we can to make sure this never happens. “
Agnelli has been appointed as one of the Super League Vice Presidents. The current president of Juventus is a member of the UEFA executive committee and is also the leader of the European Club Association, the body that represents the European club teams. He seemed to be an ally of UEFA president Ceferin, but their paths now explicitly part. Sunday, the Daily Mail all that Ceferin was enraged by Agnelli’s “betrayal”. In 2019, Ceferin became godfather to the then six-month-old daughter of Agnelli.