The formation of the European Super League will change football as we know it or at least it would have had it not been for the fans of the 12 initial clubs who accepted the invitation into the league. Barcelona were one of these 12 elite clubs who decided to participate in the elitist tournament and upon further investigation, it was revealed that the club’s ex-president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, was not only for the league but also played a vital role in giving life to the idea.
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Up until a few days ago, the Super League seemed to be unstoppable with the biggest teams on the planet supporting the new concept. However, it has now come crumbling down after the six Premier League sides pulled out of the competition and Atletico Madrid has also announced that they will no longer be participating. Thus as clubs are pulling out, it is sad to see that Joan Laporta, Barcelona’s current president has not decided to take a similar action or even put out a formal announcement addressing the fans.
This could be due to the hopes that the league might still go through as the league will generate a ton of money which the Catalans could definitely use right now. According to Goal, the club’s former president was one of the big brains behind the operation along with Juventus’ president Andrea Agnelli, Real Madrid’s president, Florentino Perez, and Manchester United as well as Arsenal. These five clubs started discussing the ESL five years ago but did not announce anything to the world at that time.
Apparently, Bartomeu really wanted the league to happen and he even signed a contract of confidentiality to keep things under the table and very secretive. He finally revealed the plan to his board members as well as the fans of the club the day he resigned from the role of the club’s president. While fans thought that Laporta would reject this contract, he has not made a formal statement yet and the only thing that we know is that Barcelona will only participate in the tournament after voting by the socios, perhaps a smart move by Laporta to tackle the legal aspects of joining the Super League.
The financial gain from the Super League is attractive for Barcelona
The club is not too keen about joining such a super league however, the money involved in it could be too much to ignore. In an interview, the club said,
"“We believe that it is a very attractive sporting competition that provides more financial resources and also because we maintain the domestic leagues,”Source Goal"
The proposed plan was that each club would receive upwards of three billion euros from JP Morgan who are the main investors of the tournament. This loan would definitely help the club out of a tough financial crisis however, fans are not happy about the involvement of their club in such a tournament and they made their voices heard. We must now wait for the socios to vote and wait for the club to make an official statement regarding their participation in the ESL.