The president of UEFA, Aleksandar Ceferin, has issued a warning to the 12 football clubs, which includes Liverpool FC, who tried to form a breakaway rival league, the European Super League, at the expense of the Champions League.
While all six ESL-founding Premier League clubs withdrew from the project 48 hours later, and Liverpool owner John Henry issued a ‘grovelling apology’, according to the Daily Mail, it is yet to be seen what actions UEFA will be taking against the rebel football clubs.
Ceferin has confirmed UEFA will meet next week to decide what actions to take against the 12 sides for their attempted departure.
“We will see what happens next week. We have a meeting tomorrow morning, but if within 24 hours after the congress so much has happened, I expect a lot more to happen by Friday [23 April],” he said.
He added that he had received messages of support from ‘practically’ all of the football clubs in Europe and that a reluctance among a number of the ESL founders to sign uphold led to representatives to call him to apologise following the initial launch.
“I got calls from five clubs out of those 12,” he revealed. “They all apologised to me that they were sorry, but that they had to sign it. Because if they didn’t, they would have dropped out of that league and so on.”
He admitted that UEFA would be considering the fact that the six Premier League clubs pulled out of the project when deciding on potential punishments.
“The doors of UEFA are open, and at the same time everyone will have to suffer the consequences for their actions,” Ceferin said, “The fact is that if any club wants to play in our competition, he will have to approach us and we will have to arrange the things that happened now.”
Are you looking for office space in Liverpool? Get in touch today.