New European Super League plan has been dreamt up by money-hungry fat cats with no interest in fans or player welfare - but it will not die until football is fixed

As a result, the two Clasico clubs never gave up on the ESL, even after the ill-fated and horribly rushed launch of April 2022 ended in an embarrassingly rapid collapse precipitated by the withdrawal of support from the English members of the original 'Dirty Dozen'.

So, it was not in the least bit surprising to see both Madrid and Barca immediately express their joy at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling that FIFA and UEFA had acted unlawfully in banning its member clubs from joining the ESL in 2021.

Madrid president Florentino Perez, one of the driving forces behind the attempted breakaway, said shortly after Thursday's announcement, "In the coming days we will carefully study the scope of this resolution, but I do anticipate two conclusions of great historical significance.

"First of all, that European club football is not and will never be a monopoly again. And secondly, that from today the clubs will be the owners of their destiny. In short, today the Europe of freedoms has triumphed again and today soccer and its fans have also triumphed.

"Faced with the pressures we have received for more than two years, law, reason and freedom are imposed today. And for this reason, Real Madrid will continue to work for the sake of football."

The Spaniard's sentiments were shared by Bernd Reichart, the CEO of ESL backers A22. "We have won the right to compete," he declared. "The UEFA monopoly is over. Football is free!"

It was all very amusing. Perez's claim that Madrid work for the sake of football was hilarious, as was the idea that the ECJ ruling means that the game has been somehow set free.

Make no mistake about it: Madrid, Barca, A22 and every single club that backed the initial breakaway, including the six Premier League sides, have only their own interests at heart.

They are solely concerned with generating as much revenue for themselves as possible, which means they share enough common ground to come up with new ways of making money off fans, who are the ones funding the sport-turned-business that is football.

It's also worth pointing out that this is not as big a victory for the ESL as Perez and certain sections of the press are making out. UEFA has already amended the rules and regulations that the ECJ deemed "unlawful". Establishing a rival competition without either UEFA's or FIFA's backing remains almost impossible.

Furthermore, Manchester United - who initially supported the 2021 breakaway only to pull out, like the five other English teams, after a bitter fan backlash - are among several major European clubs to have already issued statements saying they have no interest in joining the ESL.

And why would they? United are already members of a Super League in England. In addition, the Premier League and the United Kingdom government have also taken steps since 2021 to ensure that no club is ever allowed to break away again, while the disdain for the ESL has only intensified in the media and among the fans in the interim.

There is less hostility towards the ESL on the continent, though, at least among those that support the Clasico clubs or cash-strapped Serie A sides such as Juventus and Inter.

However, Football Supporters Europe have already reiterated their stance that "there is no place in European football for a breakaway super league", while Atletico Madrid pointed out that among the 'Big Five' leagues, "Germany, France, England, Italy, Spain (except for Real Madrid and Barcelona) oppose the Super League."

UEFA, then, remains in a very, very strong position, which is why president Aleksander Ceferin was bordering on smug when he appeared at a news conference later on Thursday.

"I hope they start their fantastic competition as soon as possible, with two clubs," he said sarcastically before sticking the boot into the ESL's new plan for a three-tier super league featuring promotion and relegation.

"I watched the so-called presentation of A22. It's hard to decide if you should be shocked or amused by the show. It's even more closed than 2021 and that was rejected by everyone..."

He's right, of course. Only a fool would fail to see that the new, improved ESL is even worse than the original. The goalposts may have been moved but the target remains the same: protecting the elite clubs by placing them in a top tier that will be almost impossible for others to access. In that sense, it really is a non-starter.

However, two things should not be overlooked here. Firstly, the ESL's proposal isn't really much worse than the new format for the revamped Champions League, which is becoming a Super League in all but name anyway.

For years and years now, the gap between the haves and the have-nots in European football has grown into a chasm, meaning only a few select clubs are capable of competing for the game's major prizes. That's an issue in all of Europe's existing leagues - and not enough is being done about it.

In fact, sometimes it seems as if nothing can be done about it, and that brings us onto our second point: UEFA and FIFA being found to be "abusing a dominant position".

Indeed, it was genuinely heartening to see such a reputable institution state something that we, as football fans, have known for years; that those running the game are doing whatever they please with scant regard for either its players or its supporters.

In that sense, the hope is that some good will come out of the ruling, perhaps the realisation that while clubs like Madrid and Barcelona are most certainly not fit to govern themselves, UEFA and FIFA certainly aren't working solely in the interests of fans and supporters either.

Ceferin somehow managed to keep a straight face on Thursday when he said that "football is not for sale" when he and Gianni Infantino have been doing nothing but hawking it to the highest bidder for years now.

Something has to be done, then, because the ESL didn't happen in a vacuum. And not everyone who supports it is solely interested in making money. Many of its supporters understandably feel it is the only way to redress the economic imbalance that has been allowed to increase unchecked for decades; that a European Super League is the only possible response to the English version.

No matter what happens next, then, the idea of an ESL is not going away. It is not going to "f*ck off" - because it is an inevitable consequence of a broken structure that nobody appears fit to fix, meaning an endless and ugly war for control of a once beautiful game.