Superliga Why are young people not seduced by football?
Disintegration A chain of events
Reverse Abandonment of Atlético, Inter and Milan
Free direct Florentino is not Galileo
The waste of the elites 8,700 million in transfers
The brain of the Super League A discreet Moroccan lawyer
The silence of FC Barcelona regarding the Super League was abruptly broken last morning, but not through any of its official channels, but through the mouth of its third captain. "Football belongs to the fans. Today more than ever," proclaimed
Gerard Piqué
through Twitter. A little more than 48 hours had elapsed, which separated the first Super League attack from the disbandment of the English clubs. After that brief period of time, the Barça center-back charged hard against the project led by
Florentino Pérez
. However, his argument clashed head-on with what he himself has been applying in his business projects.
The Davis Cup and Andorra FC, Piqué's two main bets, apply a business model that banishes any aura of romanticism. In fact, the role of the public has been particularly cornered with the change in format of the Davis, a tournament that for more than a century forged its legend around what happened in the stands.
According to the latest format, approved just two weeks ago by Kosmos Global Holding and the International Tennis Federation (ITF), the Davis Finals will be played between November 25 and December 5 in Madrid, Innsbruck and Turin.
Three venues instead of a fixed one.
An opportunity for two cities without tennis tradition as a complement to Madrid, which in 2019 had hosted a first edition without the expected success in the stands of the Caja Mágica.
Then, the agenda was also turned upside down with unusual early morning games.
2019 accounts
Since then, racquet legends such as
Nicola Pietrangeli
and
John Newcombe have
reiterated their criticism of the tournament. "The ITF must assume that it has dynamited for money a competition with 120 years of history. I imagine the greats of this sport, now deceased, outraged from heaven to see how it was marketed with the origins of tennis," said the Australian champion, with five Salad Bowls in his record.
Just hours after Piqué's aforementioned tweet,
Nicolas Mahut
also came out with a reply to the owner of Kosmos.
"What about the Davis Cup?" Wondered the winner of the title in 2017. The Frenchman, nostalgic for the traditional qualifying rounds, had already been showing his disagreements with a Davis for some time whom he accused of having lost money in 2019 "It is possible that they should cancel so that the same thing does not happen to them again," he commented regarding the 2020 edition, suspended due to Covid-19.
"They will tend to be worth zero"
The other source of controversy regarding Piqué has intensified from an interview in #Vamos. "If I look at it from a player's point of view, I would say that it is not positive. Do we want this for the world of football? Do we want Seville, Valencia, Everton, Leicester or Naples to disappear? Because these clubs are going to tend to be worth zero" He told
Universo Valdano
hours before the final collapse of the Super League.
Piqué's support for mid-range clubs, which in recent seasons have earned respect on the grass, contrasts with his performances at the helm of Andorra FC.
In September 2019, just one year after buying the club, Piqué paid 452,000 euros to buy the Plaza del Reus, plunged into an economic bankruptcy.
In this way, the principality's team made the leap from Primera Catalana to Segunda B without a single sporting merit.
According to the Spanish Federation (RFEF), Andorra FC fulfilled "the established requirements and the order of preference established in the regulations", which is why it unseated other candidates, such as Intercity de Alicante, Jaén CF, Zamora CF or Linares Deportivo, who They had already been battling for a long time in search of promotion.
"Satisfaction" rojiblanca
Likewise, Piqué's frontal opposition to the Super League collides with the position of
Joan Laporta
, who at this time is still aligned with Real Madrid.
The only small movement of the president of Barcelona had been staged mid-afternoon on Monday, when he leaked to some media that the club would subject its adherence to the project to the opinion of the members.
The farewell of Atlético, on the other hand, did elicit the full support of
Koke
, who conveyed the "satisfaction" of the rojiblanca squad after his resignation.
"We will continue to fight to help Atleti grow from our position through the values of effort and sporting merit that have always characterized us," commented
Diego Simeone's
captain
.
As for the Real Madrid footballers, the main reactions came in a much more nuanced way.
Throughout Monday,
Luka Modric
,
Lucas Vázquez
and
Marcelo
showed their support for a letter from
David Beckham
, owner of Inter Miami, who demanded respect for the fans.
Already last November,
Toni Kroos
had also rejected the idea of the Super League claiming that "not always everything has to be more and more money".
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Know more
Atlético de Madrid
FC Barcelona
Joan Laporta
Toni Kroos
Luka modric
Davis cup
sports
football
European Super League
Gerard Piqué
tennis
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