GENEVA (AP) – Super League Timeline:
The 1990s – Wealthy European soccer clubs make veiled threats of breaking away into a Super League to pressure UEFA into giving them more Champions League money and format changes in their favor.
2008 – European Club Association was created to make long-term peace with UEFA and lock club leaders into Champions League consultation. November 2018 – Real Madrid-backed Super League plan revealed in Football Leaks series using hacked documents.
2019 – ECA-backed plan for semi-closed Champions League in 2024 fails amid a backlash by leagues and mid-ranking clubs. October 2020 – Outgoing Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu reveals the Super League plan in a resignation speech, reportedly urged on by Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez.
December 2020 – UEFA works on a 36-team Champions League plan to start in 2024, giving clubs the extra games and money they have demanded.
January – Reports emerge of Real Madrid-backed Super League plan with financier JP Morgan Chase. UEFA and FIFA unite to oppose and threaten bans for participating players.
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March 8 – ECA chairman Andrea Agnelli of Juventus praises UEFA’s proposed Champions League changes and calls the 36-team, single-standings format “beautiful.”
March 29-31 – ECA-UEFA meetings to sign off on the 36-team Champions League format. Super League clubs start pushing for more financial control of the competition than the UEFA offers. UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin rebuffs their demands in a rift with Agnelli.
April 16 – ECA board and UEFA’s club competitions committee sign off on Champions League changes with no dissent ahead of the expected decision at Monday’s meeting of the UEFA executive committee.
April 17 – Rumors of imminent Super League plan emerge.
April 18 – Reports of a Super League announcement spark a backlash by former players and French President Emmanuel Macron. Agnelli resigns as ECA chairman and from the UEFA executive committee. The 12-team Super League is later announced in joint statements from the clubs after most European fans are asleep.
April 19 – UEFA executive committee confirms the 36-team Champions League revamp. British government warns of new legislation on club ownership to help block the Super League. Ceferin denounces the “snakes” who betrayed UEFA and warns Super League players to be banned from their national teams. Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp says he dislikes the Super League. Fans protest at Liverpool’s stadium and Leeds, where the team plays that night. April 20 – Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez, Super League chairman,
breaks his silence on an overnight Spanish show. He claims the project would save European soccer. At UEFA’s annual meeting later that morning, FIFA president Gianni Infantino disapproves of the Super League project. Ceferin delivers a powerful speech against the club owners, inviting some in England to change their minds. The other 14 Premier League clubs in England meet to discuss the six rebels. The project cracks in the evening. Manchester City and Chelsea are the first to withdraw. Manchester United vice-chairman Ed Woodward, a leading agitator, announces he will leave his job later this year. By midnight, all six English clubs are out.
April 21 – Atlético Madrid, Inter Milan, AC Milan, and Juventus drop out, leaving only Real Madrid and Barcelona. Juventus and AC Milan both signal a future for the Super League.
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