English soccer clubs leave Super League, and more exits are expected in a stunning reversal

Manchester City was the first in England to backtrack, followed by Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur — known as the Premier League’s “Big Six.”

Arsenal said it had “made a mistake.” Daniel Levy, chairman of fellow north London club Tottenham, said the club regretted the “anxiety and upset” caused by the proposal.

United said it “listened carefully” to the dissent, but in an indication that issues that prompted the Super League’s creation still need to be addressed, the club said, “We remain committed to working with others across the football community to come up with sustainable solutions to the long-term challenges facing the game.”

Aleksander Ceferin, president of UEFA, the European soccer governing body, said in a statement that Manchester City has “shown great intelligence in listening to the many voices, most notably their fans. … It takes courage to admit a mistake, but I had never doubted that they had the ability and common sense to make that decision.”

It was a rapid and astonishing turn of events after Sunday’s announcement rocked the world’s most popular sport. It drew threats from the sport’s biggest governing bodies, FIFA and UEFA, to ban players on those teams from playing for their national teams in the World Cup and the European Championship.

It also prompted condemnation from players and fans. Hours before Chelsea’s Premier League match Tuesday in London, hundreds of supporters took to the streets outside Stamford Bridge to protest the Blues’ involvement, forcing a 15-minute delay to kickoff.

Petr Cech, a former Chelsea goalkeeper and current technical adviser, pleaded with the crowd to allow team buses to enter the grounds. But as rumors of Chelsea’s withdrawal began to spread, fans started chanting, “We saved football!” Protests that began Monday continued outside dormant stadiums in other European cities as well.

Before Manchester City’s formal announcement, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote on Twitter: “The decision by Chelsea and Manchester City is — if confirmed — absolutely the right one and I commend them for it. I hope the other clubs involved in the European Super League will follow their lead.”

Players for Liverpool, another breakaway club, spoke out against the move. Speaking on behalf of his teammates, Jordan Henderson tweeted: “We don’t like it and we don’t want it to happen. … Our commitment to this football club and its supporters is absolute and unconditional.”

The Football Association, which oversees soccer in England, said in a statement the Super League was a “proposition that, by design, could have divided our game; but instead it has unified us all.”

The proposal is deeply unpopular in Britain, with fan groups from all six English clubs involved denouncing it. A YouGov survey published Monday showed 79 percent who follow the sport were opposed to the new league.

The Super League clubs had planned to continue competing in their respective domestic leagues but skip the Champions League in favor of their own tournament.

The 66-year-old Champions League gathers teams from European countries and, through a nine-month competition overlapping with domestic circuits, determines the best team on the continent. The annual final attracts a global TV audience of roughly a half-billion, four times greater than the Super Bowl.

A Champions League exit by titans such as Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United threatened to not only diminish the popularity of the competition but jeopardize lucrative TV and sponsorship contracts.

The Super League would establish permanent membership for the 12 named clubs and three others — the antithesis of European soccer’s model of rewarding only those teams that have performed well in their domestic leagues with an opportunity for continental glory.

The notion of automatic participation generated significant blowback. Manchester City Manager Pep Guardiola, who led Barcelona to two Champions League titles, said soccer “is not a sport where success is already guaranteed, or it is not a sport when it doesn’t matter where you lose.”

The Super League said it would invite five additional clubs annually, for a total of 20, though details have not been disclosed. The tournament was to begin this August.

All of the founding teams were from the Premier League, Spain’s La Liga and Italy’s Serie A. The most popular teams from the other major European leagues, Bayern Munich in Germany’s Bundesliga and Paris Saint-Germain in France’s Ligue 1, declined to join, casting doubt as to whether the plan would go forward.

The breakaway clubs have grumbled for years about the economic framework of the Champions League, claiming they were the ones driving global viewership and sponsorships, not the smaller clubs, and they should reap greater rewards.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Super League clubs said their bottom lines have been severely damaged by schedule disruptions and spectator-free stadiums. Three of the six English Super League clubs that had planned to break away are owned by Americans: Manchester United (the Glazer family), Liverpool (Fenway Sports Group) and Arsenal (Stan Kroenke). JPMorgan Chase, the U.S. banking giant, pledged more than $4 billion to finance the Super League.

Earlier Tuesday, FIFA President Gianni Infantino warned the 12 breakaway clubs they “cannot be half in and half out,” referring to going about business as usual in their home countries.

UEFA weighed whether to ban three clubs (Chelsea, Manchester City and Real Madrid) from the 2020-21 Champions League semifinals, which start next week.

Real Madrid President Florentino Pérez, the Super League’s chairman, attempted to defend the breakaway plan, saying during a Spanish talk-show appearance that weekly matches between the world’s top clubs would be “the greatest show in the world; there’s nothing like it.”

Broadcasting entities, whose rights deals were expected to fund the Super League, also began to distance themselves from the idea Tuesday.

BT Sport, which holds British TV rights to the Champions League, said in a statement the new league “could have a damaging effect to the long term health of football in this country.” Amazon Prime Video, which streams Premier League and Italian matches in England, also condemned the idea, tweeting that it had “not been involved in any discussions for this proposed Super League.” Sky Sports also said it had “not been involved in any discussions” with the Super League.

It is unclear whether teams withdrawing from the Super League would face legal ramifications after signing on to the plan.

Karla Adam in London and Matt Bonesteel contributed to this report.

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