European Super League can no longer go ahead after Premier League withdrawals, admits Andrea Agnelli

European Super League founder and Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli has conceded that the breakaway league can no longer go ahead after the Premier League's six members withdrew on Tuesday night.

Chelsea, Manchester City, Tottenham, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United all reversed their decisions to take part in the controversial Super League after pressure from the rest of football, government and even royalty since it was announced on Sunday night.

A statement from the Super League overnight said that they would "reconsider the most appropriate steps to reshape the project", but the Juventus chairman and one of the key driving forces behind the attempted breakaway has admitted that it cannot continue - though the Italian remains "convinced of the beauty", stating it would have been the best competition in the world.

Asked whether the project could still happen after the exits, Agnelli told Reuters: "To be frank and honest no, evidently that is not the case.

"I remain convinced of the beauty of that project. But admittedly ... I mean, I don't think that project is now still up and running.”

As part of the push to breakaway from Uefa and the Champions League, all 12 clubs involved in the Super League withdrew their membership of the European Clubs Association (ECA) while Agnelli resigned his role as chairman.

The ECA are yet to comment on whether any of the clubs will be readmitted.

Agnelli also claimed that he had "a number" of clubs getting in touch to join the Super League before its collapse.

The Juventus chief declined to name those clubs, but the plan was set to involve 15 founding members, with only 12 included in the announcement after Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and Paris Saint-Germain all refused to take part.

"I'm not going to say how many clubs contacted me in just 24 hours asking if they could join," said Agnelli. "Maybe they lied, but I was contacted by a number of teams asking what they could do to join."

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised a "legislative bomb" to tackle the threat of a Super League and Agnelli claims the proposals were seen as an "attack to Brexit."

"I have had speculation to that extent that if six teams would have broken away and would have threatened the EPL (Premier League), politics would have seen that as an attack to Brexit and their political scheme," he said.

Asked if he regretted the way the breakaway - which was heavily criticised by his former ally Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin - was conducted, Agnelli referred to the nature of the football business.

"If you tell me other methods for putting together such projects... if you were to ask the authorisation of others, I don't think you would have carried out a project like this," he said.

"The relations are there, I have seen relations changing in time, some people I am quite sure that people will be open and talk to each other.

"I don't think our industry is a particularly sincere, trustworthy or reliable one in general."

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