The potential ESL has rightfully been met with a lot of opposition since it was announced, but it’s going to take players and coaches to start speaking out against it.
It’s very possible that Carles Alena didn’t have a future at Barcelona next season anyway as he’s been out on loan for the past couple of seasons, but he’s the latest player to speak out against the new league.
Some of his comments were reported by Mundo Deportivo, and it’s clear that he’s not in favour of this happening:
“But I think that for football in general it is not good for that Super League to be created. We will see how that issue ends.”
This is going to be a fascinating test for Barcelona because they’ve gone on for years about their “Mes que un club” philosophy and how they value their history and the fans.
The problem is that this comes down to money and they have a lot of debt, while we’ve also seen in recent years that they’ve quickly ditched their heritage of having no shirt sponsor to getting involved with Qatar and going to play “glamour friendlies” in places where the human rights record is sketchy at best.
READ MORE: Former Barcelona defender shares thoughts on European Super League
It will need bigger names than Alena in the club to speak out against it, but it’s admirable to see him stepping up when you consider he’s probably just ended his Barcelona career if he’s not agreed to stick to the script.