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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Dan Marsh

Premier League CEO responds to Super League return rumours after Gary Neville comments

Premier League CEO Richard Masters has quashed renewed talk of a European Super League - just hours after Gary Neville warned the murky proposal was far from dead in the water.

A host of top European clubs, including six from the Premier League, outlined their proposal for a Super League last April.

Those plans were promptly shelved after a damning backlash from the public - with the majority of the clubs involved doing their utmost to distance themselves from the claims.

But now, chiefs from Barcelona, Juventus and Real Madrid are poised to unveil their new, fine-tuned plans for the breakaway league.

However, those claims haven't concerned the Premier League chief, with Masters hinting that he believes the project is destined to crash and burn again.

Join the debate! Do you think the new plans for a European Super League will be given the green light? Let us know here.

Richard Masters has played down the impact of any new proposal for a European Super League (Getty Images)

“I am not worried," Masters claimed at the Financial Times Business of Football Summit. "The other time it lasted 48 hours, it was a badly thought out project and it went ahead. It defeated itself.”

Although the proposal from the 12 founder teams was brutally rebuffed in England, there remains some support for the idea in European football.

One of the main criticisms of the initial plans was the prospect of a closed shop in terms of new teams joining the competition, with plans instead based around a core of 15 'founder' members making up the majority of the league.

Reports claim that the trio still driving the plans forward have amended that aspect of the proposal - but it's hard to imagine fans having any appetite for the type of radical revamp that a European Super League would bring.

Although Masters is seemingly unconcerned by murmurings of new plans being launched, Neville is less convinced.

The Manchester United icon was one of the most vocal critics of the initial plans - with his scathing comments on the proposal widely commended.

Gary Neville has been vocal over the prospect of a breakaway European league (Twitter@footballdaily)

And he issued a stark warning that plans for a breakaway league would keep occuring until all life is stamped out of the proposals.

"It will make a comeback I don't believe the hierarchy and elite in football that exists are going to go away," Neville insisted at the same event.

"They want more money, they want to create more wealth for themselves and they don't have a great interest in the wider game beyond their own clubs.

Neville launched into a spectacular rant about the initial plans live on air when they were announced last April (@SkySportsPL/Twitter)

"Tracey Crouch, the Conservative MP, has done a fantastic fan led review that was part of the Tory manifesto at the last election, it is a great report and it now needs to move through legislation in parliament and if it does then I will finally believe the ESL is dead.

"Until that point I don't believe the ESL is dead, I believe it will come back rehashed, reworked and maybe with a cherry on it this time."

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