They were filing pre-emptive injunctions against FIFA, UEFA, the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A at the ECJ in an attempt to stop any legal action against them.
Their executives left the European Clubs Association and resigned from all their powerful seats on the UEFA board.
They had a corporate structure, funding and they had media broadcast partner DAZN on side.
They had been negotiating the changes to the Champions League in bad faith and designing a competition that will fail.
They also specifically timed the announcement for several things to align:
- It was prior to the Champions League semi-finals which their teams dominated so if they were kicked out it would harm the integrity of the competition.
- After both Perez and the Barcelona board were re-elected for four more years.
- This summer both Serie A and Premier League TV rights are up for negotiations so they thought were going to threaten with pulling out of the leagues and tank the income if they weren't allowed to be in their super-league and domestic leagues.
No, this wasn't "part of the con", this was it. This was
the con.