Spanish La Liga champions FC Barcelona announced on Saturday its official withdrawal from the European Super League project, dealing a new blow to a competition that, years ago, threatened to cause an earthquake in European football before quickly collapsing under the weight of widespread fan and institutional rejection.
The Catalan club said in an official statement: “FC Barcelona announces that it has today formally notified the European Super League company and the concerned clubs of its withdrawal from the European Super League project,” thereby confirming its final abandonment of an idea it had clung to for longer than most of the continent’s major clubs.
With this decision, Real Madrid becomes the sole remaining founding club still defending the project, after Juventus, one of its most prominent former supporters, withdrew in July 2023. All six English Premier League clubs had withdrawn within days of the project’s initial announcement in 2021.
The European Super League project was proposed in April 2021 with the aim of restructuring professional European club football by creating a semi-closed tournament limited to an elite of the wealthiest and most famous clubs. This was intended to guarantee them stable and predictable financial returns and reduce their dependence on results in domestic and continental competitions.
However, the announcement of the competition was met at the time with an unprecedented wave of fan protests, explicit political and governmental opposition in several European countries, and strong rejection from UEFA and domestic league associations. This led to the project’s effective collapse within a few days.
Despite this, Barcelona and Real Madrid continued to cling to the idea, considering it a necessary solution to the escalating financial crises plaguing major clubs, especially in light of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing economic gap between large and small clubs.
In January of last year, Barcelona’s president hinted at the club’s readiness to move forward with the project, calling on interested clubs to “return to UEFA,” suggesting the possibility of reaching a consensual formula with European football’s governing body.
But recent developments, including the continued opposition of major leagues, the decline in institutional support for the project, and the reforms UEFA has introduced to the Champions League format starting from the 2024-2025 season, appear to have pushed Barcelona’s management to reassess its position and rejoin the existing system of European competitions.
Super League organizers attempted to revive the idea in December 2024 by presenting a new concept called the “Unified League,” featuring 96 clubs across four tiers and based on promotion and relegation principles, in an attempt to soften criticism regarding the exclusion of smaller clubs.
However, this new proposal also failed to gain widespread support, facing fierce resistance from major leagues, led by the Spanish La Liga and the English Premier League, which argued that any parallel project would threaten the stability and competitive model of European football.
In contrast, Real Madrid, the only club remaining in the project, continues its legal efforts against UEFA, demanding financial compensation on the grounds of obstructing the launch of the original Super League. The club asserts that the reforms approved by UEFA represent an implicit acknowledgment of the need for radical change in the European competition system.
Barcelona’s withdrawal, as one of the project’s historical pillars, closes a new chapter in the story of the European Super League—a story that transformed from an ambitious project to redraw the map of continental football into a divisive idea that has effectively ended without ever seeing the light of day.
