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Daily Record
Daily Record
Sport
Robbie Hanratty

Celtic and Rangers on Champions League alert as Barcelona join Real Madrid in Super League revival plot

Barcelona have joined La Liga rivals Real Madrid in an attempt to rekindle hope of creating a European Super League.

And Barca president Joan Laporta believes they aren't pushing for change due to the financial benefits but actually because they deem it to be better for the interests of the clubs. The Super League concept fell flat last year with many of the continents top clubs now distancing themselves from the idea.

However Laporta remains on side with Real as respective presidents, Florentino Perez and Laporta, continue to support such a competition being introduced and pushing for it to happen as they deem it the only way they will be able to compete with the spending power that the likes of PSG and Manchester City currently hold. “The financial situation of football clubs is very worrying," he said. "The clubs assume all of the costs and all of the risks. 38 clubs from the Spanish league have had to mortgage their future. Barca did not consider [the Super League] from a financial point of view. We believed we could do things better for the interests of the club.

“European football is suffering in order to attract young people and if you add into that, the state-run clubs, there is an evident destabilisation.

“The previous board tried to compete with the state clubs, something which is impossible to do. These clubs are financially doping with support from outside. That means that clubs like ours have to choose between having stars or suffering economically.

“It is for that reason that we want to support the Super League, a more equal competition that will help confront these problems. The clubs are going to govern their own destiny. It makes me laugh when state clubs say that the teams of the Super League say we are the rich.”

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has previously branded the initiative as "disgraceful and that any move would be "a spit in the face for all football lovers''.

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