\n<\/p>\n
The outrage was immediate. UEFA put out a strongly worded statement condemning the proposal before FIFA could even officially announce it. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis crosses a line that football\u2019s governing institutions should never cross. UEFA takes it extremely seriously. So should every national football association. So should every stakeholder: leagues, clubs, players, supporters, governments and everyone who cares about the future of the game. The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade – especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially. None of us are the owners of football. It is not FIFA\u2019s to sell,” it said. <\/span><\/p>\n After that, it emerged that FIFA is basically trying to push this thing through as quickly as possible. They offered a one-off payment of up to $20 million from Jan. 1, 2027, alongside up to $20 million in FIFA Forward development funding during the 2027-30 cycle. UEFA responded with another angry statement.<\/span><\/p>\n “UEFA knows there is significant and growing opposition to FIFA’s scheme. FIFA cannot continue to use our sport to enrich themselves and their friends. We can grow the game correctly.”<\/span><\/p>\n It is worth admitting, at this point, that it’s funny that UEFA are now the good guys after repeatedly expanding and commercializing the Champions League. But the Super League was not their doing: UEFA opposed it from the outset.<\/span><\/p>\n The English FA, German FA and numerous supporters’ groups have all either condemned the move or expressed serious concern. Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter, <\/span>hardly the shining example of a man with a moral compass<\/span>said on social media that “No one has the right to sell our game.” Blatter may be a deeply compromised messenger, but at least he loves football.<\/span><\/p>\n Yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, the reaction from elsewhere has been a bit mixed. Czech FA president David Trunda publicly backed the idea, although the association is not expected to formally discuss its position until August. CONCACAF, of which, notably, U.S. Soccer is a member, expressed concern about a lack of transparency, and called on FIFA to practice “good governance.” It did not, however, condemn the plan outright. The Asian Football Confederation struck a similar tone.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The outrage was immediate. UEFA put out a strongly worded statement condemning the proposal before…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}