European Super League: Florentino Perez's entire argument was WRONG

It was designed to be a staunch defence of Sunday's announcement of a breakaway European Super League.

But Florentino Perez's appearance on Spanish radio sports programme El Larguero in the early hours of Thursday was, at times, an unconvincing ramble riddled with contradictions, conspiracy theories, unanswered questions and a sense of desperation.

Here, Sportsmail analyses his peculiar rant as the Real Madrid president refuses to throw in the towel regarding the breakaway movement.

ESL would not impact domestic football

Perez said: 'The national leagues are untouchable but the format of the Champions League is obsolete.'

He did not cover, nor was he pressed on, the devastating impact a European Super League would have on national leagues with big teams either being kicked out or continuing to participate but with B-teams because they no longer needed to finish in European places and are only interested in their midweek cash cow.

Meritocracy

Perez said: 'The 12 founding clubs were there on merit because they are the ones that have been in finals and semi-finals in the last 20 years. But his ESL founders included clubs who have never won the Champions League and others who have recently not been good enough to qualify for it.'

He maybe knew he was not on solid ground so he added: '[These clubs] have the most fans on social media.'

Ceferin the bad guy

Perez said: 'I have never seen such an aggression from the president of UEFA; it surprised all of us. I had never seen anything like it. It was as if we had killed football.'

He was at pains to defend Juventus chief Andrea Agnelli against perceived slights from Aleksander Ceferin. 'We asked to speak to the UEFA president,' he said and 'he didn't even answer our call.'

Is this the same president who is supposed to have phoned Agnelli on Sunday only for the Juventus president to hang-up and turn his phone off?

Three years of planning but no solidarity or unity?

For something that had been planned for so long the ESL seemed very brittle breaking at the first sign of football fighting back.

Perez said Sunday's announcement had been three years coming but admitted: 'There was one club in the group of the six English teams that did not have a lot of interest (in the project) and this spread.'

Care about the fans or not?

Perez said: 'We only answer to the fans, the fans are in charge.'

But when asked why he had not taken the ESL plan to Real Madrid's supporters first he replied: 'Why would we ask the fans about this?'

Coronavirus is or isn't the problem?

Perez did refer to the pandemic throughout the interview and repeated the claim that his club would have lost €300m because of it by the end of this season. But there were also times when it was conveniently forgotten.

He said: 'The 12 clubs [in the original ESL] lost €650m last season and this season it will be two or three times more so it occurred to us that we had to come up with a new format.'

This suggested club's were hemorrhaging money because the Champions League is boring.

Giving up or ploughing on?

While many of the headlines since have suggested this was Perez vowing to fight on, he seemed resigned to defeat at times.

He said: 'If [people think] we don't have to do it then we don't do it. I don't believe there is another solution. Let someone else invent something else.'

American friends

There was no animosity towards the six English clubs and most definitely not to the three owned by US investors.

'The American owners find themselves in a situation that they had not expected,' he said pushing a trickle down theory. 'This is a pyramid and if there is money at the top the money comes down and there is money for everyone.'

Good games all of the time!

'Young people don't watch football anymore. But if you have good games you will attract young people,' said Perez who was very keen to push a tennis parallel.

'In tennis people want to see Nadal v Federer. We want Nadal and Federer every midweek,' he said.

It was never put to him that the magic of big European games is that they don't happen every week. Or that games involving the likes of Atalanta and Ajax have been among the highlights of recent Champions League seasons.

Helping everyone, but not with everything

Perhaps forgetting that the Champions League final is to be played in Turkey Perez said: 'We are open for other ideas, but if a club from a smaller league say Turkey, wants to enter, the problem is that the money comes from the big games, where there is competition.'

In or out?

'At the moment all 12 are still in,' said Perez.

He was not asked the obvious follow-up question: If they are still in why have most of them made statements to say they are out and several club owners issued grovelling apologies to supporters.

Transparency

'I believe in transparency,' he said citing American sport where he said players' wages are made public.

But when asked to explain the penalty clauses clubs might have incurred by signing and then pulling out he refused to give details.

The protests in England

He was in denial over the tidal wave of fan outrage that flooded football in the 24 hours after the ESL's announcement and that involved multiple clubs.

'There were about 40 fans,' he said dismissively of the protest outside Stamford Bridge before indulging in a conspiracy theory: 'And I can imagine who put them there'.

Mbappe and Haaland

It's hard to strike a balance between saying the club has serious financial problems hence the need to rip up the current format and then show an interest in signing Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland, but he tried.

First he said: 'We cannot sign them without a Super League,' then he back-tracked saying they were things to consider after the season ended.

Thinly-veiled nub of their discontent

Sharing television revenue was for years something Real Madrid did not really have to do. It's clear that remains the thing that riles him and he's clearly been talking to the owners of the six English clubs about the same issue.

He said: 'It cannot be that in England, the six lose money, and 14 make money. In Spain the top three lose money, and the others make money. It cannot continue - at the moment the rich are those who are losing money.'

The urgency

It was difficult to hide the urgency of the situation.

Perez said: 'JP Morgan were offering money to get us out of the hole were are in. UEFA are planning these changes are for 2024 but we need it now. I don't know how long Covid will last.'

He was not asked if paying huge fees for players such as Eden Hazard, or in Barcelona and Atletico Madrid's case Philippe Coutinho and Joao Felix had contributed to the financial problems they are incurring.