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The plans of twelve European football top clubs for a Super League have crashed, at least for the time being.

On Wednesday night the English teams announced their withdrawal from the project - and the makers now want to "rethink" the project.

This emerges from a message about which, among other things, the US news agency AP reported.

"Given the current circumstances, we will rethink the most appropriate steps to redesign the project, always keeping our goal in mind of giving fans the best possible experience while increasing solidarity payments for the entire football community," it said.

Protests before the home game of Chelsea on Tuesday evening in London

Source: Getty Images / Rob Pinney

The ranks of the rebels had previously thinned.

As the first of the initiators, Manchester City canceled its participation on Tuesday evening.

This was followed by the other five English co-founders Liverpool FC, Manchester United, Arsenal FC, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea FC.

In Spain, according to media reports, FC Barcelona and Atletico Madrid want to take this step.

"Not in the best interests of the club"

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"We made a mistake and we apologize for it," said a tweet from Arsenal FC. Chelsea FC wrote: “Having joined the group late last week, we now have time to delve deeper into the matter and we have decided that our continued participation in these plans is not in the best interests of the club, our fans and the wider football community. "

Twelve European top clubs, including City and Chelsea, Liverpool FC, Real Madrid and Juventus Turin, had announced the establishment of a billion-dollar Super League on Monday night. This would be in direct competition with the Champions League of the European Football Union UEFA. No club from the Bundesliga had joined the Super League, and France's series champion Paris Saint-Germain had also refused to participate. The project was to be financed by a major US bank.

In England, home to half of the twelve founding clubs, Prime Minister Boris Johnson threatened severe sanctions.

He announced in the "Sun" to show the "ridiculous" billion dollar project the red card.

His sports minister Oliver Dowden presented drastic ideas in parliament to prevent the "Big Six", the top English clubs, from participating.

Even Prince William - president of the national FA - got involved.

In addition, thousands of fans protested against the plans, especially in England.

Clubs should be excluded from the Champions League

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National associations and many other clubs also massively criticized the plans.

The Uefa around its president Aleksander Ceferin had attacked the initiators of the Super League sharply and threatened with harsh sanctions.

The clubs should be excluded from the Champions League, their national players were threatened with a ban for the European Championship in the summer.

European club football was threatened with a mud fight in court, possibly even before the semi-finals of the current Champions League season at the beginning of May.

This danger now seems to have been averted.

Both Prime Minister Johnson and Uefa boss Ceferin welcomed the co-founders' plans to withdraw.