Juventus President Andrea Agnelli waived the white flag today when asked about the future of the Super League.
The Italian was one of the masterminds behind the breakaway competition, which was unveiled on Sunday.
However, after intense backlash from supporters, all six Premier League clubs, Inter, and Atletico Madrid announced their withdrawals from the endeavor.
“I remain convinced of the beauty of that project,” said Agnelli to Reuters. “But admittedly … I mean, I don’t think that that project is now still up and running.”
Despite the project collapsing less than 48 hours after its formation, the Italian made an interesting revelation when asked why so many clubs have already withdrawn support.
“I’m not going to say how many clubs contacted me in just 24 hours asking if they could join,” he said, declining to name them. “Maybe they lied, but I was contacted by a number of teams asking what they could do to join.”
“I have had speculation to that extent that if six teams would have broken away and would have threatened the EPL (Premier League), politics would have seen that as an attack to Brexit and their political scheme,” he stated.
Finally, Agnelli discussed the communication strategy that was used on Sunday evening to announce the formation of the Super League.
“If you tell me other methods for putting together such projects — if you were to ask the authorisation of others, I don’t think you would have carried out a project like this.”
“The relations are there, I have seen relations changing in time, some people I am quite sure that people will be open and talk to each other,” he said.
“I don’t think our industry is a particularly sincere, trustworthy or reliable one in general.”