I’ve Never Seen Threats Like This, Maybe We Didn’t Explain The Super League Well, Says Perez

On Wednesday night, with the European Super League project in tatters, Florentino Perez appeared on Spanish radio to try to explain what is happening.

The president of Real Madrid and of the Super League discussed the fact that so many of the founding members have already announced that they’ll leave the Super League.

“I’m quite sad and disappointed because we’ve been working on this project for around three years and maybe we’ve not been able to explain it well,” he said, speaking on ‘El Larguero’ on Cadena SER.

“The Champions League format is old and only interesting from the quarter-finals onwards.

“This format clearly doesn’t work, so we thought that we could have a format where the most important teams in Europe play against each other from the very beginning of the season.

“We worked out the numbers and felt we could make much more money, more money for all the other teams too.”

Asked about the English teams deciding to leave, Perez revealed that there was one particularly reluctant club from the start.

“There was one part of the English group that didn’t have much interest, I won’t say who,” he stated.

“I think this became contagious with the others.

“These directors are mostly American, maybe from the NFL or NBA.

“They’re leaving because of the atmosphere.

“FIFA created a big spectacle. It was as if we had let off an atomic bomb.

“Maybe we didn’t explain it well, but they also didn’t give us an opportunity to explain it.

“Some people just didn’t want that.

“I’ve never seen such aggression from the president of UEFA and some of the countries’ footballing authorities.

“I’ve been in football for 20 years and I’ve never seen threats like this.

“It was like we killed someone. It was like we killed football. But, we were trying to work out how to save football.”