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According to various reports, UEFA will be holding another extraordinary meeting this week after the bombshell that was The Super League announcement on Sunday. UEFA already had a meeting on Monday during which their soft-Super League-esque revamp of the Champions League (starting in 2024) was announced.
This new meeting will be all about how to respond to The Super League. It was originally said to be on Friday, but now apparently will be today (Tuesday). No time to waste! Gotta strike while the moral outrage iron is hot(test)!
NEW: A further UEFA mtg will now take place within the next 24 hours. There will be a motion to formally expel Arsenal and Manchester United from the #UEL and Man City, Chelsea and Real Madrid from the #UCL - meeting will also decide how the competitions will be completed. https://t.co/TBe5lgXR6y
— Chris Williams (@Chris78Williams) April 19, 2021
Primary item on the agenda will be what to do with the Dirty Dozen “Founders” of the Super League, three of whom are in this year’s Champions League semifinals (including Chelsea, plus Real Madrid and Manchester City), and two of whom are in this year’s Europa League semifinals (Manchester United and Arsenal). As reports and quotes on Monday made it abundantly clear, there are many within UEFA who will be pushing for an immediate ban of those teams, expelling them from the final stages of these competitions. How the competitions would actually finish is another matter: congrats, PSG on your title before jumping ship in the summer!
Not that UEFA would listen to me, but here’s a word of common sense caution: if you do this now, UEFA, you will guarantee that The Super League does actually get created, funded, populated. (And also create some interesting legal issues with regards to broadcast payments and obligations.) None of the teams involved in The Super League have actually broken any UEFA competition rules; UEFA themselves weren’t even sure what, if anything their own laws would allow them to do! If these teams get banned, any remaining incentive to keep working within the confines of UEFA will be gone.
Next season would be an entirely different story, and that battle is only just beginning. But it’s in everyone’s best interest — including UEFA’s! — to continue with the status quo for this season.
For what it’s worth, slimy The Super League galaxy brain Florentino Perez, the only one of the Dirty Dozen talking, believes that UEFA have no leg stand on as far as bans for this season are concerned.
Florentino Perez to El Chiringuito: "Real Madrid and other SuperLeague clubs will NOT be excluded from this 2020/2021 Champions League. It won't happen, the law protects us. This is impossible".
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) April 19, 2021