MY ACCOUNT
Chelsea co-owner Behdad Eghbali does not believe many clubs are interested in a revival of the Super League, despite a new proposal for the competition being in development.
The Super League’s launch failed in spectacular fashion last year, with nine of the 12 founding clubs withdrawing in the face of fan, media and player pressure.
While all six English members quickly reversed their support for the competition, Spanish giants Barcelona and Real Madrid, as well as Juventus, remain committed to the project.
Media executive Bernd Reichart has been recruited to head up plans for a relaunch, and said on Wednesday: “Even fans will have a lot of sympathy for the idea”.
However, Eghbali – part of the Todd Boehly-led consortium which acquired Chelsea earlier this year, says “vocal” duo Barca and Madrid are those most interested.
“I think the sport needs more premium high-quality matches and content, but it doesn’t have to be a Super League,” Eghbali said at an event in New York on Wednesday.
“Todd went there on an All-Star Game, the baseball talent competition or draft generates £200million to £300million of revenue on a Monday or Tuesday each year, none of that exists in the English Premier League.
“Could there be a Premier League versus Serie A game? Could you see pre-season matches producing more premium content on the pitch? You could.
“But structurally, given how botched that episode was, does anybody have any appetite for something like that? A couple of teams in Spain do and they are vocal about it, but everyone else doesn’t want to go there anymore.”
Reichart, however, claims the Super League project is “very alive”, though he was keen to stress the ability to qualify through sporting merit must exist in any reworked format.
“[The Super League is] very alive, there are some who want to declare that it is dead, but if they say it a lot, there is much to suspect,” he told Cadena SER on Wednesday.
“There are clubs in Europe that surely share the vision of Juventus, Real Madrid and Barcelona, and now they have the opportunity to contribute what they think.
“It is a long road, but we have the humility to do it step by step, but without pause. The hand is extended to all the members of European football, we want to be inclusive.
“The concept of a fixed position is not something that we are currently contemplating. The design of the format ultimately has to be the result of dialogue, but we don’t have a predefined format, the dialogue we propose is real and that’s why I don’t want to speculate on how it will definitely be. Sporting merit will be applied to all members of that Super League.”
