UEFA have opened proceedings against the club
Fc Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus have issued a joint statement, condemning supposedly unfair treatment from UEFA, and reiterating that they remain committed to "modernising" football through open discussion with European football's governing body.
On Tuesday, UEFA opened disciplinary proceedings against the trio of clubs, who are the only three remaining from the initial 12 not to have declared their withdrawal from plans to form a Super League.
UEFA said the proceedings had been opened "for a potential violation of Uefa's legal framework."
In response, a
statement on Barcelona's club
website reads: "FC Barcelona, Juventus FC and Real Madrid CF wish to express their absolute rejection of the insistent coercion that UEFA has been maintaining towards three of the most relevant institutions in the history of football."
It continued, describing UEFA's attitude to the situation as a "flagrant breach of the decision of the courts of justice, which have already made a clear statement warning UEFA to refrain from taking any action that could penalise the founding clubs of the Super League while the legal proceedings are ongoing."
It then claims that the ongoing proceedings are a "direct attack against the rule of law that we, the citizens of the European Union, have democratically built up, while constituting a lack of respect toward the authority of the courts of justice themselves."
The statement then goes on to repeat the (quite frankly, laughable) claim that the Super League was set up with the intention of "improving the situation of European football through permanent dialogue with UEFA and with the objective to increase the interest in the sport and to offer fans the best possible show. "
Show, key word.
The statement concludes: "Instead of exploring ways of modernising football through open dialogue, UEFA expects us to withdraw the ongoing court proceedings that question their monopoly over European football. Barcelona, Juventus and Real Madrid, all of them more than a century old, will not accept any form of coercion or intolerable pressure, while they remain strong in their willingness to debate, respectfully and through dialogue, the urgent solutions that football currently needs.
"Either we reform football or we will have to watch its inevitable downfall."
