Javier Tebas Warns of Ongoing Super League Threat, Questions Pérez-Al-Khelaifi Alliance
Javier Tebas, president of La Liga, has warned that the Super League project continues to pose a threat to European football. He indicated that while the danger might not be immediate, it remains a persistent concern in the medium and long term.
Tebas expressed deep skepticism regarding reports of an agreement or alliance between Florentino Pérez, president of Real Madrid, and Nasser Al-Khelaifi, chairman of the European Club Association (ECA), asserting that the threat posed by the project has not entirely vanished from the sports landscape.
Tebas criticized Al-Khelaifi's business model, describing it as a slower version of the Super League. The La Liga president stated, “The model Al-Khelaifi advocates is, in my opinion, like the Super League but in slow motion. While Florentino Pérez wanted to move quickly, Al-Khelaifi wants to achieve the same goals but over 15 years.” Tebas added, in the context of the supposed balance in the agreement between the two parties, that he has enough experience to know that one party must have made more concessions than the other, emphasizing that he is “not convinced that the threat has disappeared” from the game.
The Spanish official addressed the details of the agreement announced by Pérez and Al-Khelaifi regarding Real Madrid's return to the European Club Association, considering that this rapprochement does not necessarily reflect an end to the project's separatist ambitions. While Tebas continued his criticisms, he affirmed that “the Super League still represents a threat, not an immediate one, but in the medium and long term.” He views this as a challenge requiring continuous monitoring from sports bodies to counter attempts to change the structure of continental competitions.
In a related context, Tebas raised the issue of conflict of interest represented by Nasser Al-Khelaifi's dual role as president of French club Paris Saint-Germain and the beIN Sports network, considering this situation one of the main problems facing French football. The La Liga president linked this duality of positions to the difficulties faced by the French league in marketing its television broadcasting rights, which casts a shadow over the financial stability of clubs in Ligue 1.
