Aleksander Ceferin has claimed that Andrea Agnelli’s time as Juventus chairman had to come to an end after the capital gains investigation.
The Bianconeri, along with Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona, still want to form the Super League despite the backlash it received when it was first announced in 2021.
After Juventus received a 15-point penalty for capital gains fraud, the UEFA president saw it as another opportunity to criticise the concept and Agnelli, who is a major advocate for it, as well as his presidency while he was on the board of La Vecchia Signora.
Ceferin criticises boards of Super League advocates
Although the capital gains scandal has brought an end to Agnelli’s time at Juventus, Ceferin claims that he does not feel any schadenfreude towards the former Bianconeri chairman.
“I wouldn’t call it satisfaction, there was no need for me to feel something like that,” Ceferin said to Slovenian newspaper Ekipa.
“Of course, I know more about many things than normal fans. The Juventus story had to end the way it did because everything was wrong. I do not have an emotional relationship with Agnelli, but I would like to stress that I still respect Juventus as a club and that I have a lot of respect for all three clubs in general.
“If a club has a board that makes bad decisions, it does not mean that I am against that club as such, let alone its fans or players.”
Despite this, Ceferin still made a cheeky comment about Juventus, Real Madrid, and Barcelona and the irony in their claim to save football.
“It is interesting to note that of the three clubs that claim to be the saviours of football, as far as we learn from the media, one is involved in criminal proceedings for budgetary issues, another for transferring money to one of the leaders in the refereeing organisation,” he said.
“We will see if the third one has anything too. Interesting to see how they would save football.”
Ceferin remains defiant about the Super League
Ceferin is confident that the UEFA competitions will remain as the pre-eminent ones for some time, and he also dismissed those wanting to form the Super League as nothing more than a noisy minority.
“A project that is still standing only for the interest of the newspapers and the ego of some people involved,” he said.
“They are trying to do something just to improve their position in a possible negotiation with us, but they have not understood that there is nothing to negotiate. Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge was clear, ‘This for you is your Waterloo.'”
