Man United and Liverpool were the driving forces in Super League bid, says Uefa president Ceferin

File photo dated 03-12-2018 of Aleksander Ceferin, who a law firm representing Liverpool fans caught up in the chaos at last season's Champions League final says must personally accept responsibility for what went wrong. Issue date: Tuesday February 14, 2023.

Aleksander Čeferin has revealed that Manchester United and Liverpool were to the fore in the botched 2021 plan to form a breakaway European Super League.

Uefa’s President, speaking to Gary Neville as part of The Overlap series on Sky Sports, also suggested that Manchester City and Chelsea were less active in driving the rebels’ project.

Twelve European clubs – Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, Inter Milan and AC Milan – were signatories to the move which perished within 48 hours following a backlash by domestic federations, governments and, most vociferously, fans.

Uefa have remained on alert to any potential renegade activity but Ceferin believes the Premier League has the wealthy English clubs in check.

“As much as I know, unfortunately your club’s (United’s) owners were very much involved and Liverpool as well,” the Slovenian told Neville, who spent his entire career at United.

“I think that those two were from the English side the most involved (in the Super League). The last to join were Chelsea and Manchester City. I’m not sure about Tottenham and Arsenal.

“Both Chelsea and Manchester City were hesitant from the beginning, and it was one of these teams that called me.

“When I arrived in Switzerland, I got a phone call from one, saying that we’ll have to join this project. They didn’t like it but didn’t want to be the only ones out.

“Two clubs were hesitating in England very much, they said they wanted to stay friends with us, our friends from within.

“From that call, I lost it a bit and said, ‘You go to hell. From tomorrow, you are my enemies. I don’t want to speak to you anymore’. It was tough.

"I am not sure what they want because they never tell us what they want.

"They are not attacking Uefa - they are attacking football's system and the football pyramid. They are attacking everything that has been here for hundreds of years.

"It's their right to attack but it is our right to ignore them."

Čeferin – President since 2016 when he succeeded the deposed Michel Platini – also spoke for the first time about the mishandling of the Champions League final.

An independent panel’s report concluded that Uefa was “primarily responsible” for the shambolic scenes at June final in Paris, eventually leading to all Liverpool fans being offered refunds for their tickets.

“I feel sorry for what happened and we will make sure that it doesn’t happen again, that’s the most important thing for me,” he said.

“When I went to the match, I had a meeting with the King of Spain and someone came and said there is a problem with some entrances with the fans. We didn’t know how serious that was back then, because Uefa does not have jurisdiction outside the stadium. The French police did not communicate with us.

“Trust me, there is not a single person in Uefa who is not terribly sorry, and the main topic of conversation is how to make sure that it does not happen again. Thank God, nothing terrible happened.

“We must have better communication with the local authorities because in London (at the Euro 2021 final) again it was not Uefa who should protect outside the stadium. It was local police and, obviously, not very successfully.

“We are doing everything we can and we will not let it happen again.” 

On the bizarre decision by Uefa to initially blame ticketless Liverpool fans for the dangerous scenes, he acknowledged the “a mistake from our side”, adding: “It was hard to check what was right and what was wrong, we got some strange information. I really didn’t know the scale of the thing that was happening.” 

The issue of multi-club ownership is up for discussion, according to the Uefa chief. Current rules debar clubs from different countries with the same owners meeting each other in European competition, a rule which would, for example, affect the interest of Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos group in buying Manchester United. They currently own French outfit Nice.

“We are not thinking about Manchester United only,” he stressed. “We’ve had five or six owners of clubs who want to buy another club. We have to see what to do.

“The options are that it stays like that or that we allow them to play in the same competition. I’m not sure yet.

“We have to speak about these regulations and see what to do about it. There is more and more interest in this multi-club ownership. We shouldn’t just say no for the investments for multi-club ownership, but we have to see what kind of rules we set in that case, because the rules have to be strict. 

“From one point of view, it’s true if you are the owner of two clubs and they play in the same competition you can say to one club to lose because you want the other to win but, for you as a football player, do you think it’s so easy to do that - to tell a coach, lose the match because the other wants to win?”