European Super League: German football federation calls for 12 founding clubs of breakaway league to be barred

Berlin: The German football federation called on Tuesday for the 12 founding European Super League clubs to be thrown out of their domestic leagues and European competitions. No German teams were among the initial group of breakaway clubs and reigning European champions Bayern Munich have distanced themselves from the plans. “The clubs and their junior teams should be excluded from all competitions, until they have a second thought for their many supporters who made them into the giants of world football, and not just think of their wallets,” DFB president Fritz Keller said in a statement. A Super League, in which founding teams are guaranteed spots every year without the need for qualifying, “is something for the super rich and the super-scrupulous”, Keller said. “The selfish behaviour of these 12 clubs has nothing in common with the game that we all learned to love when we were children.” The DFB’s position aligns it with UEFA, whose president Aleksander Ceferin said on Monday that Super League teams would be banned from any other competition at domestic, European or world level. He also threatened that players involved would not be allowed to play for national teams, effectively banning them from taking part in European Championships and World Cups.