Florentino Perez has declared football is "ill" as he attempts to revive the failed European Super League as an alternative to the Champions League.
The closed shop league has long been the dream of the Real Madrid president but the move appeared to be over after Barcelona, English Premier League giants Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham as well as Atletico Madrid, Inter and Milan all pulled out of the maligned project. However, Perez appears undeterred in his vision to reshape European football as he used Los Blancos' General Assembly as a chance to pitch the division once again.
He fired back at critics of the Super League as he ripped apart the current set-up of the Champions League as he insisted the likes of Liverpool and Real Madrid regularly facing off, who have met twice in the last five Champions League finals, would attract more interest in the game from a younger generation. The 75-year-old compared the meeting to tennis greats Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer facing off on a massive stage.
Both champions Celtic and Scottish Premiership runners-up Rangers have played two group games in this season’s competition and the winners of this season’s title are set to qualify automatically again next season. The Champions League is already set for a major revamp for 2024 with the competition expanding from 32 teams to 36 and playing in a single league and UEFA are continually looking at ways to improve it.
However, in Perez's vision the smaller nations and domestic competitions would be sidelined allow more heavyweight side to regularly face off. He declared: "Our beloved sport is ill, losing global leadership. The young people are increasingly less interested, a trend to revert before it is too late. The new generations prefer other spectacles, like the online platforms or video games.
"They are asking for a quality product that football does not provide because the current competitions do not attract them. Even the final phases. With maximum respect to the national leagues, the big European leagues should offer matches throughout the year, matches that bring the young people back.
"We believe European competitions must change, to offer fans top-level games year-round between the strongest teams, with the best players competing. If we look at tennis legends, Nadal and Federer have played for example 40 times in 15 years.
"Nadal and Djokovic have so far played 59 games in 16 years. Is this boring? These historic clashes have boosted tennis as a whole, all the players and all the tournaments, because it is tennis that is strengthened by the clashes between the best. And why isn't football organised like this?
“In football, on the other hand, the data is amazing. If we look at the last Champions League finalist, Liverpool, an historic team with six European Cups, it turns out that we have played with them only nine times in 67 years. And only three times here in Madrid.
"What is the point of depriving fans around the world of these matches? To make a comparison, if UEFA organised tennis, in its entire history we would hardly have seen two or three matches between Nadal and Federer."
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