On the one hand there is the heir, on the other the billionaire. Reunited, they embody this “eve of Europe” of the round ball, convinced of having to change – or deny themselves, according to their numerous opponents – for “Save football”. The expression is signed Florentino Perez, king of Spanish construction, president of Real Madrid and the Super League, stillborn after forty-eight hours of a short sulfurous life. His counterpart at Juventus Turin since 2010, Andrea Agnelli (nephew of Avvocato Gianni Agnelli, ex-boss of Juve and modernizer of Fiat) has been an ephemeral vice-president and perhaps its most zealous and bruised promoter today.
The two “gunslingers uncle” drew too quickly and the conspiracy of twelve clubs to cool UEFA, and its Champions League, turned into a “pu-putsch”. Perez (74) and Agnelli (45) may be a generation apart, but they share the same vision. Their clubs are global brands and this Super League, private and almost closed (20 clubs, including 15 permanent), was to generate more TV rights and commercial revenues for client supporters scattered around the world.
“Football is no longer a game but an industrial sector and it needs stability”, assumed Mr. Agnelli in an interview published Wednesday by La Repubblica, but carried out on Tuesday, before the spectacular back-pedaling of the six English clubs, stakeholders in the project. The day before, Mr. Perez had developed, at past midnight, the strategy of streaming applied to football in the program “El Chiringuito de Jugones”, influential and highly charged Spanish talk-show. “It is wrong to say that the rich will get richer and the poor poorer. It will be a sinking pyramid for all. If we have more money, it will be better for everyone ”, pleaded the president of Real, elected and re-elected since 2009 after a first term between 2000 and 2006.
Today, MM. Pérez and Agnelli receive criticism and mockery. The Italian inherited the role of Brutus. He did not stab an adoptive father but a friend, and not just any one: Aleksander Ceferin, UEFA president and godfather of his daughter. In 2019, Mr. Agnelli, then president of the Association of European Clubs (ECA), signed a “memorandum” with the Slovenian supposed to guarantee close collaboration and proximity of view between the two parties until Euro 2024. But while phosphorizing the new formula of the Champions League (adopted, despite everything, on April 19), Agnelli is already drawing the outlines of this secessionist Super League.
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