Barcelona president Joan Laporta breaks silence: "The Super League is absolutely necessary"
Barcelona's president broke his silence about the project headed by Florentino Pérez, saying that he is totally in favour of a European Super League.
FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta has broken his silence to express his support for the European Super League in spite of the backlash from the football community. After new broke of a breakaway competition involving 12 top clubs at the weekend, the project which is headed by Florentino Pérez has foundered over the past couple of days - to the point where only Real Madrid and Barcelona remain. All of the other clubs who had originally signed up for the Super League have since backtracked and abandoned ship after buckling under pressure from UEFA, their fans and the UK government.
Real Madrid and Barcelona go it alone
Florentino Pérez has tried to defend his project in two interviews given to Spanish media outlets this week, only to see his Super League dreams fall apart at the seams. Six English clubs were the firdst to leave, followed the three Italian clubs and a Spanish club. That leaves just Real Madrid and Barcelona hoping to continue running a competition which will run parallel to the Champions League.
Laporta's views on the Super League were only disclosed today. The Blaugrana president attended TV3 cameras at the Barcelona Open this morning. For Laporta, the Super League is “a necessity” but admitted that the final decision to whether Barça will continue in the project “is in the hands of the club members, as it should be”. One of the conditions which Laporta gave Florentino before signing the document along with the other 11 clubs, was that the club's commitment to the project must be approved by club members at the next General Assembly for it to be made official.
Big clubs hit hard by the pandemic
“The big clubs contribute a lot of resources and we have to voice our opinion about how the economic side is shared out,” Laporta said, in clear reference to Florentino's argument that the current format of the Champions League needs to be modified in order for the bigger, debt-saddled clubs to survive.