Florentino Perez makes strange claim there were only ‘40 Chelsea fans’ protesting outside Stamford Bridge

The Real Madrid president has claimed there is a group who organised the protests surrounding the breakaway competition

Jack Rathborn
Thursday 22 April 2021 10:50 BST
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Chelsea fans react as club withdraws from Super League

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Florentino Perez has made a strange claim that there were just 40 Chelsea fans protesting against the European Super League outside Stamford Bridge on Tuesday night.

Amid the uproar surrounding the breakaway competition, with the Blues confirmed as one of the founding members before their eventual withdrawal on Tuesday evening, hundreds of fans gathered outside the team’s stadium.

The protests, which can be seen in the video above, forced the Premier League match against Brighton to be delayed until 20:15 BST, with Petr Cech summoned to plead with Chelsea fans to allow the team bus to enter the stadium.

But despite visual evidence to the contrary, the Real Madrid president insists there were only 40 in attendance and that their presence was linked to the anti-Super League shirts worn by Cadiz in Wednesday’s 3-0 win for Los Blancos in La Liga.

“Chelsea fans? They were 40 people outside Stamford Bridge... and if you want, I will tell you who took them there,” Perez told El Larguero.

“Who took Chelsea fans at Stamford Bridge are the same people who put those anti-#SuperLeague shirts on Cadiz tonight…”

Perez also likened the ESL to tennis, and Rafael Nadal’s matches against Roger Federer.

“This is a pyramid, and the money runs down, there would be money for everyone,” Perez added.

“If Nadal plays Federer, everyone watches, if Nadal plays the number 80 in the world, nobody watches.

“Football changes, and new generations appear and ask for different things,” Perez added. “We think they want the same as us, but they don’t. Today there are many distractions for kids, we need to get them to watch football, with competitive games, so TV pays.

“The contracts are signed by serious people, businessmen who know this world. We agreed last night to wait and to try and explain better, and we are open to other ideas.

“The problems is they (Ceferin) killed us the very next day, with terrible aggression. We have made some mistakes for sure. But they knew what we were going to do, and were waiting for us. Those who do not want to lose their privileges.”

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