European Super League: Jamie Carragher calls on football fans to ‘march on stadiums’

Jamie Carragher has called on football fans to “march on stadiums” and protest to stop the controversial European Super League.

Liverpool and the rest of the Premier League’s so-called ‘big six’ are among 12 founding members of the new Super League, a breakaway competition from Uefa’s Champions League which would see their participation and revenues protected regardless of performance, undermining century-old principles of competition in the game in favour of a more American franchise model.

Speaking on Sky Sports ahead of Liverpool’s match with Leeds United on Monday night, Carragher said: “This is not Liverpool: this is John Henry, FSG, the Glazers, Roman Abramovich, Sheikh Mansour, Daniel Levy, these are the people to blame [the club owners]. They are dragging institutions through the mud. The only reason Liverpool are in this is the fact they have won six European Cups and 20 league titles. Only one each have come through FSG.

“But I don’t think this is going to happen. The football world, everybody is against it, Jurgen Klopp made his stance very clear, and if Liverpool lose their manager on the back of this those owners will be run out of this club in a week. It hurts me more because it’s Liverpool. They bought this club. They’ve made their money, they won the lottery with Liverpool.

“My message to everyone is that these clubs think this is a done deal, I don’t think it is. Supporters up and down this country can stop it and I really do believe it. At the forefront of that will be Liverpool because I have seen it before.

“We have tribalism in this country, we have rivalry and that is what makes the game the way it is and that is what we love. Football fans get together – all of us in TV, pundits, players, managers get together and stop this. It can be stopped and I am convinced of it. Going forward that is what we need, marches on stadiums, supporters getting together, it should not be allowed to happen.”

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has previously spoken against the idea of a breakaway European league and told Sky Sports his views have not altered.

“It didn’t change. My opinion didn’t change,” he said ahead of the game at Leeds. “I heard the first time about it yesterday and when you are trying to prepare for a difficult game against Leeds, we got some information, not a lot, most of things you can read in newspapers or wherever.

“It is a tough one, people are not happy with that. I can understand that, but I cannot say a lot more about it because we were not involved in any processes – not the players, not me. We didn’t know about it. The facts are out there and we will have to see how it develops.”

Leeds players warmed up for the match wearing T-shirts bearing the message “Football is for the fans”.

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