‘Enjoying the Super League’s new knockout format’: Football reacts as ESL comes crashing down

Chelsea fans celebrated outside Stamford Bridge while social media was rife with memes poking fun at those at the heart of the Super League plot

Football fans celebrated on Tuesday evening as the controversial European Super League was on the verge of crashing down fewer than 48 hours after 12 powerful clubs announced the breakaway venture.

Chelsea and Manchester City became the first clubs to ditch the Super League in the wake of a monstrous backlash against the idea, which proposed ditching Uefa’s Champions League and concentrating money and power within the ‘founding’ members.

The memes soon started up as football fans began revelling in the news that the widely despised Super League format was clearly losing momentum.

Spurs and Arsenal were on the receiving end of many jokes over the past two days, giving their questionable credentials among Europe’s top clubs, and it appears they will not be living this one down for a while.

Plenty of players, retired and current, also had their say. Former Chelsea midfielder Pat Nevin, covering their match against Brighton on Tuesday night, told BBC 5Live: "I'm not going to make excuses for Chelsea, they got it wrong.

"But the best thing to do when you realise something is wrong is hold your hand up and get out of it. Chelsea might pat themselves on the back and say 'we've destroyed this'.

"It is so obvious that it is going to fall apart now."

Ex-England captain Gary Lineker posted the simple message: "We've got our ball back."

Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher had also been passionate critics of the Super League and its participant clubs:

And Henry Mance, chief features writer at the Financial Times, captured the mood on Tuesday night perfectly as the world watch club after club tumble out of the Super League’s grasp. “‘Enjoying the Super League’s new knockout format,” he tweeted.

There wasn’t much love lost for Ed Woodward, the Manchester United executive at the heart of the Super League plans who accelerated the announcement of his retirement on Tuesday night in the wake of the debacle.

The Manchester Evening News said Woodward would stay in his role until the end of the year despite offering his resignation.

United have been one of the leading clubs involved in the breakaway project and Woodward was singled out for criticism by the head of European football’s governing body Aleksander Ceferin, who described him as a “snake”.

And there were even some revellers on the streets too. Chelsea fans who had turned up at Stamford Bridge for tonight’s game with Brighton transformed their vitriol into joy, singing and dancing outside the stadium.