Roman Abramovich Apologizes for Chelsea Joining European Super League
The new league met with a furor from soccer fans everywhere.
Chelsea Fans Protest Team’s Move (YouTube Pic)
Jewish billionaire Roman Abramovich has now formally apologized to the fans of his British Chelsea Football Club for having made the disastorous decision to try and join the new European super league of soccer. Last week decided that his Chelsea Football Club would not join the new association just a few days after it was announced. His move led to the exit of all of the other five English clubs, including the power houses Manchester United and Arsenal, from the new league as well.
Soccer fans the world over, and especially in England, were shocked and dismayed by the announcement that 12 top European clubs had decided to form their own new league. The teams would not exit their local national leagues, however. The new league would just be an annual competition spread out over the season between the best teams from several different countries’ professional soccer leagues. The move was made due to the various clubs’ anger at how the current European champions’ League is being operated.
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The declaration of the establishment of the new European super League and its almost immediate disbanding will go down in history as the worst mistake made by a major business since the introduction of New Coke in the 1980s. Like with the failure of New Coke, the failure here can be found in the various teams’ owners not conducting the proper market research ahead of time. No one bothered to find out how the fans would about this.
Someone should have realized the importance of this ahead of time. They should have leaked their plans, or voiced their complaints publicly while hinting at the possibility of a break away should UEFA not make changes to its Champions League.
“The Owner and Board of Chelsea Football Club would like to address Chelsea supporters about the events which have taken place over the past few days. We have taken time since withdrawing from the ESL to speak directly to various supporter groups and listen to their views and concerns,” read a statement from the team.
The owners basically apologized to their fans for making such a huge decision without asking them how they would feel about it. They explained that their decision to jump from UEFA to the Super League was made to better the team.
“As a Club, we are committed to an open and regular dialogue with our fans and other stakeholders, but, on this occasion, regrettably, due to time constraints and confidentiality restraints, this was not achieved,” they said.
“As concerns were raised following the announcement, the Club took a step back to listen and speak to supporters. Following those conversations and taking into account the extremely strong views against the proposal, we reassessed our initial decision and decided we did not want to be part of this league.”
“We also recognize the sentiment that had been expressed about whether the ESL relied strongly enough on sporting merit. This is something we had strong concerns about from the start and were confident would have been addressed during a further consultation process with various stakeholders, along with other concepts in the proposal about which we had reservations. We firmly believe that we must protect a structure which allows all clubs, players and supporters to dream of, and achieve, success.”
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