David Beckham voices feelings over European Super League

Matthew Briggs 20 Apr 2021 10:05 AM

David Beckham has taken to Instagram to spell out exactly why he is against the new European Super League.

The Inter Miami owner pointed to “football being for all” and questioned the integrity of the idea which was made public on Sunday. Twelve clubs, including three clubs Beckham used to play for Manchester United, Real Madrid and AC Milan made the bombshell announcement that they intend to break away and form their own competition.

Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham and Arsenal have also signed up. Indeed, the big three in Spain and Italy make up the 12 “founding” members.

The proposals have been attacked from every angle with Gary Neville leading the protest on Sky Sports.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has vowed to take a hard line on what he called a “nuclear war” and now Beckham has voiced his concerns to his 65 million followers.

“I’m someone who loves football. It has been my life for as long as I can remember,” Beckham said. “I loved it from when I was a young child as a fan, and I’m still a fan now.

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“As a player and now as an owner I know that our sport is nothing without the fans. We need football to be for everyone.

“We need football to be fair and we need competitions based on merit. Unless we protect these values the game we love is in danger…”

Leeds United players wore shirts emblazoned with the words ‘Earn it’ and ‘Football is for the fans’ ahead of their clash with Liverpool at Elland Road.

Speaking after their 1-1 draw with Liverpool, Leeds striker Patrick Bamford told Sky Sports: “I think that for me personally, what I have seen, I haven’t seen one football fan who is happy about the decision.

“I think football is ultimately for the fans, so without the fans every single club would be pretty much nothing, so it is important we stand our ground and show football is for the fans and try and keep it that way.“We’ve just seen what everyone else has seen on Twitter and stuff.“It it amazing the things they are talking about I can’t quite comprehend, it is amazing the amount of uproar that comes into the game when some of these pockets are being hurt, so it is a shame it is not like that with all the things that go wrong at the minute, racism and stuff like that, but it is just how it is.”

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Milner against ESL

Liverpool midfielder James Milner was unequivocal when asked for his views on the Reds playing in a Super League.

“Same as everyone, there is a lot of questions,” he said.“I can only say my personal opinion, I don’t like it and hopefully it doesn’t happen. I can only imagine what has been said about it and I probably agree with most of it.“The players obviously have no say, so the welcome we got to the ground tonight felt a bit unjust because we are here to play football and have no control of it.“I think for us we just try and concentrate on the game, there is obviously a lot going on, but for us we just have to try and be professional and concentrate on the game that is the only thing we can control.”

David Beckham European Super League