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Liverpool are set to kick off against Leeds United in Premier League action with a top four place still on the line and it doesn’t especially seem to matter. Not after news broke the club were to become founding members of a European Super League.
The proposed closed European league would do away with the need to qualify via league position, which has obvious appeal for the owners of the involved clubs—including Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea, Real Madrid, and Juventus.
However, from the lack of late-season interest in domestic competitions to more predictable European opponents, there are good reasons why most fans and pundits dislike the idea. And in the past, Jürgen Klopp has spoken out against it.
“My opinion didn’t change [since 2019],” the Liverpool manager said ahead of tonight’s match against Leeds. “I heard for the first time about it yesterday. We got some information but not a lot, mostly just the things you read in newspapers.
“It’s a tough one. People are not happy, I can understand that, but I can’t say too much more. We were not involved in any process. The boys didn’t do anything wrong other than not winning all the football games and I want people to understand that.”
It appears that as many suspected, this was a decision made in boardrooms far from the club, in the midst of an ongoing pandemic that will make a fan response difficult and without even a manager as highly regarded as Klopp kept in the loop.
Along with earlier reports that the clubs intent on forming a Super League referred to supporters as “legacy fans” and stressed a need to focus instead on “fans of the future,” this will likely sour even more on owners Fenway Sports Group.
In 2019, Klopp stated: “I hope this Super League will never happen. With the way the CL is now running, football has a great product. For me, the Champions League is the Super League [but] you do not always end up playing the same teams.”