Top football boss scoffs at ‘David Copperfield’ Super League

BRUSSELS — The Super League’s proposed new format was rubbished on Tuesday by Javier Tebas, the powerful boss of Spain’s football league.

“The new competition format does not fulfil European sports law,” Tebas said as he delivered a withering assessment of Super League promoter company A22’s new model for the controversial competition.

The feud between A22 and the European football establishment has heated up since an EU top court ruling in December cracked open the door to potential upstart competitions.

Immediately after the judgment, A22 revealed a new format, including promotion and relegation, with which it aims to rival UEFA’s flagship Champions League and attract Europe’s top clubs.

But Tebas, president of Spain’s La Liga, isn’t concerned. “It will be difficult for A22 to convince leagues and clubs,” he said during a roundtable meeting with journalists in Brussels where he accused Super League chiefs of sleight of hand.

Pointing to the promotion and relegation that A22 envisions in its new 60-team model, Tebas said, “It’s like a trick; it really is a closed competition.”

He also laughed off suggestions from A22 that it could make the competition entirely free for fans to view. “Maybe David Copperfield, the magician, could broadcast the league free,” Tebas said, referring to the American illusionist.

In the wake of A22’s presentation of the new format in December, a host of top European clubs dismissed the new Super League — which was originally launched before immediately collapsing in April 2021, triggering years of legal wrangling.

Tebas said he expected a court in Madrid to implement the Court of Justice’s of the EU’s ruling “before the summer.”