MANCHESTER UNITED star Bruno Fernandes has become the first ‘Big Six’ player to break his silence on the much-maligned European Super League.
Premier League chiefs are furious at the Red Devils, Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham for pressing ahead with the £4.6BILLION breakaway plan, which was confirmed last night.
Now Fernandes has offered his thoughts on the matter as he shared an Instagram post from fellow Portuguese ace Daniel Podence in which the Wolves star appeared to condemn the proposal.
Podence’s post said: “The ball. The song. The dream. The Zidane’s volley… Kaka’s solo… Liverpool in Athens… Ole in Barcelona… Cris and Seedorf… There some (sic) things we just can’t really pay for.”
Fernandes replied: “Enorme (enormous).”
The United attacker then shared the post to his own Instagram Story, and included the text: “Dreams can’t be [bought].”
Fernandes’ intervention comes after Prime Minister Boris Johnson slammed the move, which plunged football into the biggest crisis it has faced this century outside of the Covid-19 pandemic — with the FA and Uefa threatening legal action.
Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham resigned from the European Club Association following the revelation of a Super League proposal, joining AC Milan and Inter Milan in doing so.
United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer remained tight-lipped when he was quizzed about the breakaway ESL following last night’s win over Burnley.
And Chelsea’s Thomas Tuchel gave little away also earlier, saying: “I trust my club to make the right decisions.
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“It is too early to judge everything and it is not my part. On my badge, it says everybody has to play their role and my role is coach.
“There are way too many opinions out there…. let’s be honest, I am an employee of this club.
“I can understand you are curious, there are emotional reactions out there but I honestly don’t know enough.”
However, United legend and now Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville slammed the ‘criminal’ behaviour of clubs involved saying he was ‘disgusted’ and calling for them to be RELEGATED, stripped of their titles and incur massive fines.
Neville blasted the owners of the Big Six, labelling them ‘imposters’ and ‘bottle merchants’ and said fans need to be protected from the greedy power grab.
While ex-United star Rio Ferdinand raged: “This is a war on football — a disgrace.
“It’s a closed shop for bigwigs, The rich getting richer and the rest not even being considered.”
Jamie Carragher took aim at former club Liverpool saying he was ‘sickened’, calling the Reds an ’embarrassment’.
He was joined by Liverpool fans who hung banners around Anfield in protest, one of which read ‘Shame On You’.
The Real Madrid-led, 12-club rebels broke cover on the eve of Uefa’s planned confirmation of its own plans for a revamp of the Champions League today.
Spanish giants Real, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid — plus Italian trio Juventus, Inter Milan and AC Milan — make up the group.
They make up 12 of what will be 15 founding clubs, who cannot be relegated from the closed-shop elite – with Borussia Dortmund REJECTING the opportunity to join.
Five clubs will be entitled to qualify every year, with the season running from August to May.
All matches will be played in midweek slots, with the clubs insistent they will be able to continue to play in their domestic leagues and “preserve the traditional domestic match calendar which remains at the heart of the club game”.
But a damning statement from the Premier League, LaLiga and Serie A claimed any club taking part would be “banned from playing in any other competition at domestic, European or world level.”
The 20 clubs will be split into two groups of 10, playing 18 games – nine home and nine away – with the top three in each group qualifying automatically for the last eight knock-out stage.
Teams finishing fourth and fifth in each group will then play off to fill the final two knock-out slots, with the ties played over two legs apart from a one-off final “which will be staged as a single fixture at a neutral venue”.
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Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
