Real Madrid president: Football losing battle with U.S. sports, calls for ESL revival
Real Madrid president: Football losing battle with U.S. sports, calls for ESL revival. According to Florentino Perez, football is “ill” and “losing the global entertainment battle” to U.S. sports.
He sees reviving the moribund European Super League (ESL) as the key to keeping it as the world’s most popular sport.
Since its failed inception in April 2021, the president of Real Madrid, speaking at the club’s annual general meeting on Sunday, has been one of the most prominent proponents of the breakaway tournament.
The European Court of Justice is expected to rule in December on whether or not UEFA’s efforts to halt the Super League violated European competition regulations, and the ESL and football’s governing organizations are awaiting this decision.
Declarations
You need to “acknowledge that you have an issue” before you can “address it,” as Perez put it. “As one commentator put it,” Our sport is ill.
It’s losing its leadership as a global sport. We mustn’t be deceived by the influence of Real Madrid’s European Cup run [in the Champions League last season], when we were involved in seven games of the utmost intensity and intrigue.
That’s how it ended up, and it’s a testament to how good of a team we have. It was a spectacular show that got everyone excited again. We believe European competitions need to evolve so spectators can enjoy high-quality matches all year long between the finest teams and best players.
Perez drew parallels between the frequency of matches between top European clubs and similar contests in other sports at the same level.
“[Rafael] Nadal and [Roger] Federer have played each other 40 times in fifteen years. We’ve only played Liverpool nine times in 67 years, while Nadal and [Novak] Djokovic have played 59 times in 16 years. For the record, we’ve played Chelsea four times in the European Cup. Why would you want to deny fans their right to watch all these games? “
Perez brought up a recent Forbes list that placed American sports teams ahead of their European counterparts and implied that European football clubs were lagging.
Facts
We used to be number one in all sports, but today we’re in thirteenth place, behind twelve clubs from American sports, he remarked. They’re doing something right in the States that’s going wrong in Europe… Football is losing ground in the global entertainment market to other sports and other platforms.
After the six Premier League teams (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tottenham) withdrew their support in April 2021, just three of the ESL’s original 12 clubs — Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Juventus — have continued to publicly back the concept.
The European Clubs’ Association chairman, Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi, recently said that Real Madrid is afraid of the competition when speaking about the Super League.
Statements
“We need a professional, modern, transparent management, not based on old structures designed in the last century,” Perez said. Perhaps the ECA’s head honcho needs a little refresher on who Real Madrid are. Competing is in our blood.
Real Madrid’s 2021-22 season financial statements were approved by the membership during the annual general meeting, where club legend Amancio Amaro was confirmed as honorary president following the passing of Paco Gento. The club reported a narrow profit of €13 million.
The membership also approved a proposal to resurrect Real Madrid C, the club’s third squad that was disbanded in 2015, by combining with Madrid’s Club RSC Internacional FC.
The change is being made to improve continuity between the club’s youth academy teams (up to the under-19 level) and the Castilla reserve team.
Meanwhile, at an EGM held after the AGM, members voted nearly unanimously (1500 in favor, 10 opposed) to tighten the criteria for candidates to the club’s presidency and board, requiring them to be able to give a guarantee for 15% of the club’s annual budget.