Former Deportivo La Coruna President and owner Augusto Cesar Lendoiro has backed the Superleague project to get off the ground, in some form or another. Lendoiro, who jousted with Real Madrid and Barcelona during the 1990s and 2000s, has plenty of experience of both Joan Laporta and Florentino Perez.
Speaking to Relevo, Lendoiro declared that for him, it was inevitable that the clubs would form their own competition eventually.
“The clubs will be in charge. It seems unheard of to me that the leagues, including the Spanish one, are against the fact that the employers of European clubs are the ones in charge of European football, according to UEFA. A rule of three: the Super League is to UEFA what LaLiga is to the Federation. What cannot be is a closed league. But it is inexorable that one day, relatively soon, there will be, I don’t know if it will be called the Super League or what, a competition run by the clubs.”
He also said that Perez would be a solid choice as the head of any such competition.
“Florentino is a phenomenon of everything that the football apparatus represents. What he has done with the new Bernabeu is spectacular, it’s going to be a money-making machine. He would be a phenomenal president, among so many president who will also appear. But Florentino, with whom I have a very good relationship, is a special man in the world of football today.”
He would go on to speak to a number of major issues in Spanish football, declaring that the constant battle between the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) and La Liga was bad for business.
Lendoiro could not understand why Barcelona President Laporta was not concerned about El Caso Negreira, claiming that paying Enriquez Negreira was wrong and that Laporta did not have convincing arguments on the subject, otherwise he would have given them already.
He did however back Laporta to come through it.
“Survive yes, but the blows are going to be very hard for everyone, also for Spanish football. Out there they are going to stay with the headlines. Some have gone beyond the normal, unfair I would say. What is being sold on the face of it to international football is that in Spain there is refereeing corruption. And that is a lie.”
Barcelona may face sanctions from UEFA over the Negreira case, as the European body have opened an investigation into the matter. Meanwhile the Superleague continues in a state of stasis, with all actors maintaining it is alive but without much progress being made.
