“This ruling is not authorizing the Super League.” Javier Tebas, president of LaLiga, is convinced that the ruling of the European Superior Court of Justice does not support the new competition defended by Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. He defends that, contrary to what A22, the organizing company of the new competition, claims, the Court does not authorize the Super League, “but rather says that UEFA and FIFA cannot discriminate against it.” He also assures that there is a legal path to prevent it from being formed, “there will be no Super League in the short or long term, it will not be possible,” and he predicts a bad future due to its financing method: “The Super League would be an economic failure, also destroying European football.”
For the president of the employers’ association, the Court’s ruling is nothing more than a slap on the wrist for UEFA, which “has to establish a procedure for the protection of new competitions. For this there must be transparent, clear, objective rules. Simple disapproval is not enough and there should be a regulatory structure with conditions comparable to the entire sector, since if it is left to the free discretion of the specific leaders of FIFA and UEFA, we would be faced with a situation of abuse of dominant power. It was indisputable that there was a UEFA monopoly, but that does not mean that it is not legitimate,” said Tebas.
Regarding the format, the president of the employers’ association has criticized the different proposals, but has assured that it remains “a closed format. A little more open than in 2021. Then we announced that we would do this format and they denied it. “With this competition format it would be a disaster.” Tebas alleges that “this would be ruin for modest clubs. It is a model incompatible with the football we know. In Europe there are 52,000 players and we have to take care of them. We must take care of football environments. From the masseuses to the press. And it seems that we are only concerned about important games being played. Many jobs are going to disappear, players’ salaries will go down, clubs will disappear…,” he announced.
He also criticized that A22 has not explained the competition’s governance method. “They have not explained how this competition is going to be governed, I suspect that it will not be one club, one vote. It is not the system that the president of Real Madrid (Florentino Pérez) likes. He, too, does not agree with the financing model and considers what they have said to be economically unsustainable. This cannot be said by something that he apparently understands about audiovisual rights. European football cannot be built by the richest teams,” he lamented.
In the judicial field, Tebas does not consider the battle lost, since it considers that “the ruling refers to the national commercial court many of the questions about whether there may be abuse of a dominant position because we believe that there are quite a few exemptions.” Furthermore, he described the position of Real Madrid and Barcelona as a “profound strategic error.” “I don’t think I do it for money, but to fight against the State clubs and compete against the Premier League,” he explained.