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One by one the English clubs dipped out of the European Super League, so much so that there was only half of the 12 “founding clubs” remaining when the day came to an end Tuesday. The Super League, after all of about 48 hours, was looking like it can’t happen.
And then, as typing out that last sentence, both Atlético Madrid and Inter Milan also announced that they were done with being involved with the Super League, leaving all of four of the original 12 left — Juventus, AC Milan, Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Prior to the latest two teams bowing out of the Super League, Juventus President Andrea Agnelli — one of the driving forces in trying to get the breakaway league going — gave his first public comments since everything went down Tuesday across England and Europe as a whole. Talking with Reuters, Agnelli was frank in his assessment in where things can go from here. And if you were hoping that with all of the English representation pulling the plug on their involvement in the Super League, seeing it continue in this iteration seems .. rather unlikely.
Andrea Agnelli, Super League vice chair and Juventus chairman just told Reuters they can no longer progress with the breakaway after the exit of the six English clubs.
— Simon Evans (@sgevans) April 21, 2021
Full Agnelli interview to come but was hard to disagree with his final comment when asked if he had any regrets about the methods used over the weekend: "I don't think our industry is a particularly sincere, trustworthy or reliable one in general"
— Simon Evans (@sgevans) April 21, 2021
With these being some of Agnelli’s first comments regarding the Super League outside of a press release or two over the last couple of days, it’s essentially serving as Juve’s first public statement since announcing their involvement in the breakaway league.
The Super League collapsing even before it really got its feet off the ground just goes to show how fragile of a situation it was always going to be whenever something went down. Agnelli, who was rumored to have potentially stepped down as Juve president at multiple points Tuesday before the club confirmed his position through the press, has obviously done himself no favors with his role in the creation of the Super League and the desire to accumulate more power and financial prowess within the European game.
Just what comes out of this remains to be seen. Maybe Agnelli does end up stepping down in an attempt to try and save face and do some sort of damage control in the process. Or maybe Agnelli and Juventus as a club continues to embrace the complete heel turn that has come with their Super League involvement. Either way, the Super League won’t be happening, but the public relations nightmare this has been won’t be fixed with a couple of interviews and some wins on the field. There’s looooots of work to do now — even more than before.