Real Madrid president Florentino Perez and Juventus counterpart Andrea Agnelli have been the most important losers of the short-lived European Super League (ESL) fiasco which dangers tarnishing the picture of two of probably the most influential males in world soccer.
Almost thirty years might separate 74-year-old Spaniard Perez, and Italian Agnelli, 45, however the pair are united by the identical driving ambition to make their respective golf equipment world manufacturers, all the time producing cash by way of TV rights and supporters all through the world.
Their imaginative and prescient was embodied within the stillborn Super League venture, of which they have been two of the principal instigators.
Agnelli, scion of one in all Italy’s strongest and richest households, has been on the helm of Juventus since 2010, throughout which era they’ve received nine-consecutive Serie A titles however completed runners-up twice within the Champions League.
“Football is no longer a game but an industrial sector and it needs stability,” argued Agnelli in Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Wednesday.
For Perez, not too long ago re-elected unopposed as president of Spanish champions Real Madrid and named chairman of the brand new ESL, his driving ambition was additionally basically monetary.
“Football has to keep changing and adapting to the times. Football is losing its appeal. Something must be done,” he stated of the bid by 12 highly effective golf equipment — six from England, and three every from Spain and Italy — to type a league providing assured spots to its founder members and billions of {dollars} in funds.
Both bore the brunt of criticism because the Super League venture unraveled after simply two days amid a backlash from livid followers.
“He’s selfish and an egotist. He thinks only of Real Madrid. In Villarreal, we don’t need Florentino to come and save us,” fumed Villarreal president Fernando Roig on Spanish radio
“To say that this project will save football is a joke,” added former Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon.
UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin lashed out at a “disgraceful self-serving proposal from a select few clubs purely fuelled by greed”.
The Slovenian singled Agnelli “as the biggest disappointment of all” for working with UEFA on the brand new enlarged Champions League similtaneously the Super League venture.
“I’ve never seen a person that would lie so many times, so persistently as he did. It’s unbelievable,” stated Ceferin of the previous president of the Association of European Clubs (ECA).
Agnelli resigned from each the ECA and UEFA within the wake of the announcement of the Super League with a ensuing lack of affect in European soccer.
In Italy too, Agnelli has alienated the leaders of different golf equipment.
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Torino president Urbano Cairo accused Agnelli of sabotaging negotiations he was main with funding funds to contain them within the administration of TV rights.
These discussions have stalled, based on some sources as a result of these funds demanded, in change for his or her funding of 1.7 billion euros ($2 billion), that golf equipment don’t take part in a closed league venture that may have devalued the championship.
“It’s bad faith, unfair competition,” fumed Cairo.
Paradoxically the Super League fiasco may value each Real Madrid and Juventus dearly.
Shares in Juventus plunged by greater than 13 % on Wednesday, having reached their highest degree since September on the announcement of the venture.
But whereas noting the digital impossibility of the venture following the withdrawal of many of the groups, Juventus insisted on Wednesday that it needed to proceed on the lookout for options to extend their “value”.
They added that they have been “convinced of the soundness of the project’s sport, commercial and legal premises.”
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