MADRID, Spain, (AFP) – The main advocates of the Super League are not giving up.

Barcelona chief Joan Laporta on Sunday followed Real Madrid president Florentino Perez and their Juventus counterpart Andrea Agnelli in defending the project to his club’s supporters.

“It’s a competition that’s necessary, to choose our destiny. We, the clubs, will rule,” Laporta told the club’s annual general meeting.

“I’m optimistic. Given the inaction of UEFA, regarding the distortion which the financial doping by state-owned clubs generates, we have to react.”

Perez led a group of 12 major European clubs into the Super League project in April 2021 but it vanished a few days later after pressure from fans and authorities.

Real, Barcelona and Juventus are the only clubs that have tried to keep alive a project that would be direct competition with the Champions League.

Last week, Perez compared European football with tennis.

“What is the point of depriving the fans of the big matches? Nadal and Federer met 40 times. Nadal and Djokovic, 59, is it boring? Liverpool and Real Madrid have faced nine times in 67 years,” he told Madrid’s members’ assembly.

A court decision in 2023 will be crucial in determining the project’s future.

The Super League project came back to life in July, when litigation for an alleged abuse of a dominant position by UEFA was brought to the European Union Court of Justice, at the request of a Madrid judge to whom the Super League chiefs turned.

– ‘Healthy and beautiful’ –

UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin responded to Perez, telling a news conference in Rome: “Once again he has shown that his idea is to close everything off, without games against smaller teams.

On Thursday, in a letter to shareholders, Agnelli reaffirmed his “commitment” to the project and proposed “establishing a direct link with sponsors who dare to take business risks, and control of economic resources.”

On Sunday, Laporta told Barcelona members that he favoured an open competition.

“It will be an open league, based on meritocracy, and always respecting the national leagues. It’s something that’s awaiting approval in Luxembourg, and when it has the green light we can start to work, without pressure, on a format that everybody will like.”

On Saturday, in an interview with Sonora reported by Marca, Laporta explained why he would prefer not to have a closed format.

“I think that the big clubs always playing each other would be tiring,” he said.

“Those who like football among us, would end up tired. It’s healthy and beautiful that a smaller team can beat a bigger team.

“To back the underdog is very nice. You see a Euros won by Greece, and it’s beautiful. And when Leicester won (the Premier League) in England it was special.

“A Super League would be an improved Champions League, with a better format, it would surely be the most attractive competition in the world,” he added.