Was this the night the European Super League was born?

They are the people that the world of football is waiting impatiently to hear from.

They are the men who have sat in silence while the game reacts in horror at their plans to upend the competitive spirit of the sport as we have always known it.

It seems remarkable that for all the sneaky, covert talks that have taken place to lead football onto the brink of a precipice, Liverpool owner John Henry and Arsenal chief Ivan Gazidis met with Manchester United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward and club-owning Glazer brothers Avram and Joel in one of New York's most popular restaurants in broad daylight in October 2017.

At the time, Sportsmail reported how television rights could well have been on the agenda of their meeting. Those three sides had been agitating for a greater slice of the pie.

Instead of splitting the income equally between 20 teams, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United wanted a model similar to Spain, where Atletico Madrid, Barcelona and Real Madrid - coincidentally also founder members of the Super League - get a bigger payout than the rest.

They had dinner together in Italian restaurant Locanda Verde in the trendy Tribeca district and at the time seemed the most unlikely of companions, given the fierce rivalry between their three clubs.

Fast forward nearly four years and the football fans in Britain and beyond have reacted in uniform horror at the Super League proposals - the fear of what will happen to the game transcending any rivalry on the pitch.

These owners, however, have come together and Joel Glazer was quoted by rival clubs explaining how the Super League was moving forward. Messrs Henry, Glazer and Woodward don't have too many other friends to turn to but they clearly have each other.

Gazidis, meanwhile, has since departed Arsenal and is now an executive at AC Milan  in Italy, who are also a Super League founder member.

At the time in 2017, Arsenal said Gazidis was in New York to see owner Stan Kroenke and it had been a dinner to discuss NFL meetings.

United said Woodward was catching up with the Glazers around the same NFL talks, while Henry was there for the 'common interests' of the Premier League.

It isn't a stretch to assume they've seen a lot more of each other in the time that followed, albeit not in plain sight to the public.

It was Henry's Liverpool side who have had to face the music first as they were in Premier League action on Monday night.

Manager Jurgen Klopp underlined his stance against the Super League - a position he has long held - while captain on the night James Milner also offered a withering rebuttal, saying 'I don't like, I hope it doesn't happen'. The silence from Boston, where Henry and his Fenway Sports Group company are based, has been deafening.

Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher, a pundit on Sky Sports, hit out at Henry and FSG and warned them that if the club's involvement forces Klopp to leave the club, there would be dire consequences for the American owners.

'The biggest thing is that everyone's against it tonight. Jurgen Klopp spoke about this in 2019 and made his stance very clear,' Carragher said. 'If Liverpool lose their manager on the back of this in the next 12 months, then the owners will be run out of that club in a week. I can assure you of that.

'It hurts me more because this ownership bought Liverpool on the back of other American owners who ran the club badly and the fans got them out.

'These [owners] got the club for a steal. It is now six or seven times bigger, they've made their money and they won the lottery with Liverpool.'

Meanwhile at United, one of their star men in Portugal international Bruno Fernandes tentatively broke ranks on Monday night by commenting 'Dreams can't be buy' on an Instagram post by Wolverhampton's Daniel Podence which was speaking out against the Super League proposals.

And like Carragher, United legend Gary Neville also blasted the Glazer ownership during his appearance on Monday Night Football.

'I feel slightly complicit,' Neville said. 'I have stayed pretty quiet over the Glazer family over the years, but I cannot live with attacking every single football fan in this country.

'They have stepped over the mark. They are scavengers and they need booting out of this football club and this country. We have got to come together now, some might say it is too late, but it is never too late. We have got to stop this. It is absolutely critical we do.'

Real Madrid president Florentino Perez will be the new Super League president and the 74-year-old spoke out on Monday night to defend the competition.

'Many important clubs in Spain, Italy and the UK want to find a solution to a very bad financial situation,' Perez said to El Chiringuito in Spain.

'The only way is to play more competitive games. If instead of playing the Champions League, the Super League helps the clubs to recover the lost earnings.

'Here at Real Madrid we've lost a lot of money, we are all going through a very bad situation. When there is no profit, the only way is to play more competitive games during the week. The Super League will save clubs financially.

'PSG were not invited, as of today. We haven't even spoken to German clubs. We are now 12 clubs, we want to become 15 clubs. If PSG and Bayern Munich refuse, the Super League competition will not be cancelled. This is bulls***.

'Football must evolve like everything in life. Football has to adapt to the times we live in now. Football is losing interest from fans, TV rights are decreasing. We wanted to do the Super League, the pandemic has given us urgency, and right now we are all ruined in football.

'Even in the Premier League, if the top clubs are economically stronger, all the other clubs will also become stronger. It is a consequence. We want a dialogue with UEFA as we proposed in the Super League, we want to save football.

'This Super League is not for the rich, but it's to save football. If this continues, football will disappear and by 2024 we would already be dead. This is the only way to save everyone: big, medium and small clubs.'

Meanwhile UEFA's president Aleksandar Ceferin has hit out at Juventus chief Andrea Agnelli, who he said backed proposals for a Champions League reform just a day before the Super League proposals came out.

'I don't want to speak much about Andrea Agnelli,' Ceferin said on Monday. 'He is probably one of the biggest disappointments or the biggest of all. I don't want to be too personal but the fact is that I have never seen a person that would lie so many times and persistently than he did. It was unbelievable.

'I spoke with him on Saturday afternoon and he said that these are only rumours, don't worry, nothing is going on, then he said I will call you in one hour and turned off his phone. The next day, we get the announcement.'