Super League smashup: US business crashes into English soccer values

When, in the late hours of Sunday evening, 12 of European soccer’s powerhouses announced the creation of a brand new European Super League, few could have foreseen the rapid collapse that would soon follow.

The plan was meant to award the founding clubs a share of upwards of £4.8 billion ($6.6 billion) a season from global broadcasting and sponsorship rights for a closed league in the American tradition, like the NFL. Instead, it earned fierce popular and political backlash.

British newspapers described the scheme as an all-out “war” by foreign owners on the beautiful game. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson dubbed the move a “cartel” in need of a “legislative bomb.” Within 72 hours, mass protests across the United Kingdom had tilted owners’ heads enough that they scrapped the Super

“Europeans just flatly said, ‘No’”“Their connection with their roots”