Barcelona president Joan Laporta spoke with Super League CEO during Italy trip – report
Barcelona flew to Italy this week as they faced Napoli in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League Round of 16 encounter at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona last night.
The Blaugrana president, Joan Laporta, was in attendance for the match which ended in a 1-1 draw, leaving everything to play for in the reverse fixture at Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys next month.
Another interesting presence at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium for the match was the CEO of A22 Sports Management, the company leading the European Super League project, Bernd Reichart.
Laporta spoke with Reichart
Now, Gabriel Sans of Mundo Deportivo is reporting that the Super League CEO spoke briefly with Barcelona president Joan Laporta to update him on the status of the project, although there was no separate meeting to discuss the matter.
The talks came weeks after the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) verdict, which ruled against UEFA’s monopoly on European football competitions, gave wings to the Super League.
Barcelona and Real Madrid stand as the only two major European clubs supporting the Super League.
Barça president Laporta has spoken in favour of the project in the recent past and even went on to name several clubs that would be ready to join, including Napoli.
“Inter, AC Milan, Napoli, AS Roma, any team in La Liga except Atletico de Madrid, which has another position, Marseille, the three Portuguese sides Benfica, Sporting and Porto, the three Dutch teams Ajax, Feyenoord and PSV and two Belgians, Anderlecht and Bruges,” he had said.
While a number of those clubs came forward to deny those claims, Napoli were not one of them. In fact, the Partenopei president Aurelio De Laurentiis is understood to be open to the idea of the new league with its new format.
The report from MD states that Barcelona have not confirmed that Laporta did indeed speak to Reichart on the matter, but claims the pair had time to briefly discuss the Super League project.
