The chairman of the controversial European Super League (ESL), Real Madrid chief Florentino Perez, has reacted to most of the teams pulling out of the breakaway competition earlier this week.
On Sunday, the world of football was rocked by an announcement that 12 clubs in Europe had agreed to form the European Super League.
While the likes of Manchester United owner Joel Glazer and Liverpool's John W. Henry were said to be the leading forces behind the breakaway group, Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli and Los Blancos president Perez were said to be the men pushing the ESL project.
However, it took only 48 hours for clubs to start pulling out amid heavy backlash from supporters, with Perez claiming that once one English side began to get cold feet, the rest followed in withdrawing from the controversial tournament.
"I am a bit sad, disappointed," he told El Larguero.
"We have been working three years on this project, on fighting the current financial situation in Spanish football. It is easy to understand – you cannot touch La Liga, so you look for more money midweek.
"The leagues are sacred. What we can change is the midweek games. The Champions League is obsolete – it's only interesting from the quarter-finals onwards.
"Among the 12 teams, we lost €650 million last season. This season two or three more times. This format clearly does not work.
"They started a campaign, which was totally manipulated, that we were going to terminate domestic leagues. That we were ending football, it was terrible.
"There was someone in the English clubs who did not have much interest. That started to affect the others. There was fear. One of the English clubs was never really convinced.
"The English clubs tried to do something, but they were being told they were killing football. But there is no other solution than the Super League. Or somebody invents something else.
"Nobody has yet paid the penalisation fee for leaving. We are almost all still in this, they have not left yet.
"All 12 founder clubs signed the same contract, not a comma more or less."
