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Juventus captain backs Super League, calling for football reforms

Giorgio Chiellini
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Giorgio Chiellini believes the reforms to the football calendar are inevitable.

In April 2021, 12 European clubs announced they had agreed to form a new continental competition named European Super League. 

The proposal received a huge backlash from football officials and fans, resulting in the departure of nine of the ‘Founding Clubs’.

However, Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Juventus have continued their efforts to keep the project alive. 

Chiellini backs the breakaway league!

Despite the general pessimism toward the breakaway competition, Juventus captain Giorgio Chiellini believes the football reforms are inevitable.

 “I’ve been talking to [Agnelli] for a few years now about this [ESL],” he told DAZN Italia (via Evening Standard).

“The future of football is increasingly towards a European approach compared to national leagues. A player at Juve’s level wants to play those games, with all due respect. Athletes of our level, but also perhaps the fans, want to see more of these European level fixtures.

“We have reached the point of no return. Institutions, clubs and players must meet to reform the calendar and create new competitions to relaunch this sport, which remains the most beautiful in the world, but can also be improved.

“In the USA, who are masters of this sort of thing, they created Super Leagues in every sport.”

Is Super League still ‘alive’?

In recent months, the Super League pioneers have achieved important legal victories against UEFA.

Last month, Barcelona president Joan Laporta claimed the Super League is “alive” and called for dialogue between the clubs.

“It’s not parked, the opposite, it’s alive and dialogue is open with all sorts of people in football who are working on it. Juve, Real Madrid and Barcelona are all there and we keep winning in the courts. We’re still working on making a more attractive competition.

“It could be favourable economically for the clubs that take part that it’s an open competition, with promotion and relegation. We’re not closing the door on UEFA, as much as they have acted aggressively from the start.”

Juventus and Barcelona are eighth and ninth in their respective domestic leagues. 

Critics accuse the leading clubs of forming a closed league, where they will never relegate. However, the project leaders have vowed to implement new rules to make the competition appealing to the smaller clubs.

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