‘Preposterous arrogance’: Everton condemn ‘big six’ for Super League split

Everton have fiercely condemned the six Premier League clubs pushing to join the European Super League, accusing them of preposterous arrogance, subversive practices and disenfranchising their own supporters. The club’s owner, Farhad Moshiri, has also called for the Premier League to “discipline” breakaway clubs, potentially with points deductions.

Moshiri, speaking on TalkSport, said: “Every facet of this is against the very idea of British football. Football clubs are community assets, they belong to fans and their communities. This just takes much of their romance away. It just makes it a money game – it’s not football any more. This is six clubs attacking the very heart of the Premier League, and I think they should be disciplined.”

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The Merseyside club, the fourth most successful club in English league football with nine league championships, are not involved in the controversial breakaway and expected to argue for the strongest possible sanctions against the self-anointed “big six” at Tuesday’s Premier League meeting.

Before the meeting, Everton’s board of directors issued a joint statement that accused the owners of Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Tottenham, Arsenal and Chelsea of eroding trust at the top of English football for their own self-interest.

In a separate message to season ticket holders and members the chief executive, Denise Barrett-Baxendale, vowed to do “everything possible to ensure our position on these proposals is made in the strongest possible terms – and the voice of Evertonians is heard, loud and clear”.

The statement read: “Everton is saddened and disappointed to see proposals of a breakaway league pushed forward by six clubs. Six clubs acting entirely in their own interests. Six clubs tarnishing the reputation of our league and the game. Six clubs choosing to disrespect every other club with whom they sit around the Premier League table. Six clubs taking for granted and even betraying the majority of football supporters across our country and beyond.

“At this time of national and international crisis – and a defining period for our game – clubs should be working together collaboratively with the ideals of our game and its supporters uppermost. Instead, these clubs have been secretly conspiring to break away from a football pyramid that has served them so well.

“Iin that pyramid Everton salutes every club, be it Leicester City, Accrington Stanley, Gillingham, Lincoln City, Morecambe, Southend United, Notts County and the rest who have, with their very being, enriched the lives of their supporters throughout the game’s history. And vice versa.

“The self-proclaimed Super Six appear intent on disenfranchising supporters across the game – including their own – by putting the very structure that underpins the game we love under threat. The backlash is understandable and deserved and has to be listened to. This preposterous arrogance is not wanted anywhere in football outside of the clubs that have drafted this plan.

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“On behalf of everyone associated with Everton, we respectfully ask that the proposals are immediately withdrawn and that the private meetings and subversive practices that have brought our beautiful game to possibly its lowest ever position in terms of trust end now.

“Finally we would ask the owners, chairmen, and board members of the six clubs to remember the privileged position they hold – not only as custodians of their clubs but also custodians of the game. The responsibility they carry should be taken seriously. We urge them all to consider what they wish their legacy to be.”