What If... the Super League had happened?
🎧 Listen to Original Episode →1. Executive Overview: Core Theses & Key Revelations
The ill-fated launch and instantaneous collapse of the European Super League (ESL) in April 2021 remains the most defining structural inflection point in modern sports business. What was initially framed by its architects as an inevitable modernization of European football instead triggered an unprecedented counter-revolution across political, regulatory, and supporter ecosystems. In a retrospective masterclass episode of The Athletic FC Podcast titled "What If... the Super League had happened?", host Emma Payton, alongside senior sports news reporter Matt Slater and football writer Dan Kilpatrick, conducted a rigorous counterfactual interrogation of this watershed moment. Far from treating the breakaway attempt as a dead historical artifact, the panel dissected the structural mechanisms of the proposed league, revealing that the systemic pressures that birthed the ESL have not vanished—they have merely mutated.
The central thesis established during the discussion is that the European Super League was neither a spontaneous act of corporate hubris nor an isolated tactical blunder. Rather, it was a carefully calculated attempt by an elite oligopoly of twelve clubs—spanning England's "Big Six," Spain's top three, and Italy's traditional powers—to construct a closed-shop financial cartel. Underwritten by Wall Street investment banking titan JP Morgan with a $3.5 billion upfront infrastructure grant, the proposal aimed to insulate legacy European titans from the existential hazards of sporting performance, relegation, and volatile broadcast rights markets. As Matt Slater noted during the discussion, the project was fundamentally designed to reset the economic baseline of European sport, guaranteeing annual revenues in the realm of $400 million per club—roughly triple the maximum yield achievable from a triumph in the UEFA Champions League at the time.
Furthermore, the podcast conversation highlighted several vital revelations that alter the mainstream narrative surrounding the breakaway:
- The Wage-Depression Cartel: Beyond guaranteed broadcast revenues, the inner charter of the ESL included explicit non-poaching agreements and strict spending caps designed to curb player wage inflation and suppress transfer fees—importing North American franchise cartel dynamics directly into European football.
- The Asymmetric Motives of Non-Signatories: The refusal of Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, and Paris Saint-Germain to sign the original agreement stemmed from fundamentally different structural constraints. German clubs were bound by the democratic veto of the 50+1 ownership model, whereas PSG’s leadership navigated a complex web of geopolitical stakes, including BeIN Media Group's lucrative broadcast commitments with UEFA and Qatar’s upcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup.
- The Paradox of the De Facto Super League: The defeat of the ESL did not preserve European competitive balance. Instead, the domestic growth of the English Premier League has effectively established an alternative Super League on British soil, driving financial polarization that leaves continental giants like Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, and Juventus permanently disadvantaged in the transfer market.
- The Reform Irony: UEFA's defensive pivot—implementing an expanded, 36-team "Swiss-model" Champions League—has satisfied big-club demands for more guaranteed fixtures, but at the cost of creating a diluted, overly complex league phase that Dan Kilpatrick characterized as suffering from a severe "jeopardy deficit."
2. Context & Background: The Landscape Leading to This Conversation
To fully understand the analytical weight of the podcast’s counterfactual inquiry, one must re-examine the volatile environment of April 2021. European football was reeling from the economic devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Empty stadiums, breached broadcast contracts, and deferred commercial sponsorships created liquidity crises across the continent. For clubs already carrying unsustainable wage-to-turnover ratios and mounting debt loads, the pandemic acted as an accelerator of existing structural distress. It was against this backdrop of fiscal panic that twelve clubs—Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur, Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Atlético Madrid, Juventus, AC Milan, and Inter Milan—announced their intention to form a midweek breakaway league starting in August 2021.
The proposed structure was unapologetically Americanized. Fifteen permanent "founding members" would enjoy immunity from relegation, joined annually by five qualifying clubs. The competition schedule guaranteed a minimum of 18 midweek matches per club across two groups of ten, culminating in a multi-stage knockout tournament. The participating clubs insisted they would remain in their domestic leagues, effectively converting UEFA's flagship Champions League into a redundant shell. However, the political and social response was swift, ferocious, and total.
Within 48 hours, the project unravelled under the combined pressure of mass fan demonstrations outside stadiums, explicit threats of legislative retaliation from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (who threatened a "legislative bomb" involving visa restrictions and stadium policing costs), and fierce condemnation from UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin. The institutional fury was personal as well as structural; Čeferin openly labeled the ringleaders "snakes and liars," reserving particular venom for Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli, who had resigned from the European Club Association (ECA) overnight despite serving as godfather to Čeferin’s daughter. By midweek, the English clubs initiated a panicked retreat, led by Chelsea and Manchester City, culminating in public apologies from club owners such as Liverpool's John W. Henry.
Yet, as the podcast panel emphasized, the collapse of the initial blueprint did not resolve the underlying structural crisis. The core economic drivers—escalating player wages, unpredictable European qualification, and the relentless financial dominance of the Premier League—remained completely intact. Consequently, evaluating the hypothetical timeline where the Super League succeeded offers indispensable insights into the past, present, and future direction of the global football industry.
3. Deep-Dive Thematic Breakdown
3.1 Cartel Engineering: Salary Caps, Non-Poaching Pacts, and Wall Street Underwriting
The financial architecture of the European Super League represents a radical departure from the open-pyramid economic model that has governed European sport for over a century. The structural core of the project relied on a $3.5 billion infrastructure and commitment grant provided by JP Morgan Chase. This capital injection was intended to serve as an immediate balance-sheet buffer, allowing founding clubs to write off pandemic-induced losses and refinance long-term stadium and player acquisition debts.
However, as Matt Slater underscored during the podcast breakdown, the true financial ambition extended far beyond an initial cash injection. The business plan hinged on projected seasonal distributions of $400 million per club—a figure that dwarfed UEFA's maximum payouts. Under the pre-2024 Champions League distribution model, winning the competition yielded approximately $130 million to $140 million (£100 million). The Super League guaranteed nearly triple that baseline amount simply for participating in the group phase, regardless of pitch performance.
"The speculation was they were all thinking in terms of 400 million dollars a year, which was about three times what a run to the final of the Champions League was worth at that time."
— Matt Slater, Senior Sports News Reporter
Significantly, the ESL agreement contained systemic regulatory mechanisms designed to alter labor dynamics. Standard European football economics operates under open-market conditions: clubs bid competitively for talent, driving transfer fees and player salaries upward in a perpetual arms race. The Super League charter attempted to dismantle this dynamic by embedding explicit non-poaching clauses and spending limits among member clubs.
"Within the ESL agreement, there was a rule that they weren't going to poach from each other. That sounds a lot like proper cartel-type behavior—trying to depress wages and transfer fees."
— Matt Slater, Senior Sports News Reporter
This non-poaching agreement mirrors the cost-containment strategies employed by North American closed-franchise leagues such as the National Football League (NFL) and National Basketball Association (NBA). By agreeing not to raid rival rosters or outbid fellow cartel members for contracted talent, the ESL founders sought to cap player wage expenditure, eliminate third-party agency leverage, and retain a significantly higher proportion of gross revenues as net profit for ownership. It was an intentional attempt to replace open-market risk with artificial corporate stability.
3.2 The Non-Signatories: German 50+1 Governance and Qatar's Geopolitical Balancing Act
A key analytical vector explored by Payton, Slater, and Kilpatrick is why three of Europe's undisputed super-clubs—Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, and Paris Saint-Germain—refused to sign the founding charter. Had all three joined, the ESL would have achieved an insurmountable monopoly over elite European football talent and television markets. Their absence created immediate structural vulnerabilities that accelerated the project's collapse.
The refusal of Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund highlighted the structural power of German football governance. Under the 50+1 rule enforced by the Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL), club members retain a minimum 51% majority of voting rights, preventing private investors or corporate entities from seizing unilateral operational control. The executive boards of Bayern and Dortmund recognized that participating in a closed breakaway league would provoke a catastrophic democratic revolt among their voting membership.
Furthermore, German football culture prioritizes affordable matchday ticket pricing, fan advisory representation, and domestic competitive integrity. As Slater pointed out, the German leadership possessed superior political instincts, recognizing that joining the breakaway would be viewed domestically as an unforgivable betrayal of supporters. Their institutional framework functioned exactly as intended: as a democratic circuit breaker against unrestrained commercial speculation.
In contrast, Paris Saint-Germain's decision was governed by geopolitical and commercial alignment. PSG’s president, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, occupied a unique position at the intersection of global sport, media, and state diplomacy:
| Entity / Stakeholder | Primary Interest & Institutional Conflict | Strategic Decision Driver |
|---|---|---|
| Paris Saint-Germain (Club) | Maximizing global prestige, squad valuation, and European trophy contention. | High incentive to join elite breakaway, but constrained by broader state-level allegiances. |
| BeIN Media Group | Holding multi-billion-dollar broadcast rights for the UEFA Champions League across MENA and Asia. | Joining ESL would instantly destroy the value of BeIN's existing UEFA broadcast portfolio. |
| Qatari State / 2022 FIFA World Cup | Maintaining geopolitical harmony with FIFA and UEFA ahead of the November 2022 World Cup. | Avoided alienating UEFA and FIFA leadership during the critical runway to host the tournament. |
| European Club Association (ECA) | Positioning Al-Khelaifi as a loyal defender of European sports governance against rebel clubs. | Al-Khelaifi replaced Andrea Agnelli as ECA Chairman, consolidating immense political leverage. |
Al-Khelaifi’s refusal to betray UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin provided the European governing body with a key continental ally. It ensured that the ESL could not claim complete coverage of the French broadcast market or access the star power of Kylian Mbappé and Neymar Jr., who were then under contract at PSG. The non-participation of Bayern, Dortmund, and PSG severed the ESL’s claim to absolute European exclusivity before the first ball was kicked.
3.3 The De Facto Super League: Premier League Hegemony and Continental Stagnation
One of the most compelling insights generated during the podcast conversation was Dan Kilpatrick's assessment of the modern football landscape: in rejecting the European Super League, the sport did not prevent hyper-inequality—it merely localized it within the English Premier League.
The exponential growth of the Premier League's international broadcast rights has created a financial chasm between English clubs and their continental counterparts. Middle-tier English clubs—such as West Ham United, Aston Villa, and Newcastle United—regularly generate higher annual revenues and post larger net transfer spends than historic European powerhouses like AC Milan, Inter Milan, Benfica, or Ajax. Premier League teams routinely raid continental leagues for elite managers, scouting directors, and prime player talent, reducing Europe’s traditional domestic leagues to functional developmental hubs.
As Matt Slater observed, this disparity was the primary catalyst for Andrea Agnelli, Florentino Pérez, and Joan Laporta’s obsession with the ESL. The leadership of Juventus, Real Madrid, and FC Barcelona recognized that without a structural intervention, the Premier League would establish an unassailable monopoly over global viewing attention and commercial capital. Their push for the Super League was a desperate defensive maneuver designed to neutralize England’s media revenue dominance.
Had the ESL succeeded, it would have fundamentally inverted this dynamic. By guaranteeing $400 million annually to its twelve founders, it would have severed the English Big Six from their reliance on domestic Premier League distributions, rendering the English top flight subordinate to the midweek cartel. In the actual timeline, however, the collapse of the ESL accelerated the Premier League’s hegemony, leaving La Liga, Serie A, and Ligue 1 trapped in a perpetual cycle of financial catch-up.
3.4 Governance, Legality, and the ECJ Watershed: Anti-Competitive Monopolies vs. Open Competition
The narrative of the European Super League is inextricably bound to international sports law. Following the initial retreat of the English clubs, the core promoters—led by Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Juventus, and the sports management agency A22 Sports Management—refused to abandon the concept. Instead, they mounted a landmark legal challenge against UEFA and FIFA in the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
The resulting ECJ ruling delivered a nuanced legal precedent that redefined the limits of sports governance under European Union competition law. The court established two vital legal principles:
- UEFA's Unlawful Monopoly: The ECJ ruled that UEFA and FIFA had abused their dominant market position by subjecting any prospective rival competition to arbitrary, pre-emptive authorization rules. The threat to ban clubs and players from international competitions (such as the FIFA World Cup and UEFA European Championship) without clear, transparent, and non-discriminatory criteria was declared illegal under EU antitrust laws.
- Rejection of Closed Leagues: Simultaneously, the court affirmed that sporting competitions in Europe must align with the fundamental tenets of the European Sports Model—specifically meritocratic qualification, open access, and solidarity distributions to grassroots levels.
This legal outcome forced A22 Sports Management to overhaul their proposals. The revised iteration—rebranded as the "Unify League"—abandoned the permanent founder model in favor of a multi-tiered, open system comprising 64 men’s clubs across Star, Gold, and Blue leagues, featuring promotion and relegation. To appeal to global consumers, promoter Bernd Reichart proposed streaming all matches for free via a direct-to-consumer digital platform named Unify.
"The guys behind the European Super League didn't really disband. They've continued to kick out ideas. The most recent iteration was this thing called the 'Unify League' where they thought they could give it away for free."
— Matt Slater, Senior Sports News Reporter
Despite this legal victory and structural rebranding, the Unify League has struggled to recruit European clubs, who remain wary of supporter backlash and institutional sanctions from their domestic leagues. Nevertheless, the ECJ ruling permanently stripped UEFA of its unchecked regulatory power, ensuring that rival event organizers can legally design and propose alternative European tournaments.
3.5 Cultural Schism: Traditional European Localism vs. Global & North American Market Preferences
The podcast debate exposed a profound cultural fault line dividing traditional European matchday supporters from global digital consumers. In Western Europe, football clubs function as sacred community institutions embedded within local working-class history, regional identity, and matchday rituals. The prospect of abolishing promotion and relegation was viewed by domestic fans not as a business optimization, but as an existential desecration of sporting integrity.
However, Matt Slater offered a primary counter-perspective by examining global reader engagement and international market data. Outside the traditional European heartlands—particularly across North America, East Asia, and the Middle East—consumer attitudes toward the Super League were far less hostile, and in many instances, overtly enthusiastic.
"It is worth looking in the comments. What we think is absolutely normal and natural is not necessarily what many North American or younger readers think. A lot of our listeners don't mind this idea; they think it sounds great."
— Matt Slater, Senior Sports News Reporter
For younger, digitally native audiences and international fans accustomed to the franchise structures of the NBA or NFL, the European pyramid model can appear needlessly convoluted. Global demographics frequently follow individual superstar players—such as Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, or Erling Haaland—rather than geographical clubs. To these markets, a weekly schedule featuring Real Madrid vs. Manchester City, FC Barcelona vs. Liverpool, and Juventus vs. Chelsea represents maximum entertainment value, eliminating the low-profile domestic fixtures that dominate traditional league calendars.
This demographic divide presents a strategic dilemma for sports executives. Domestic matchday fans generate atmosphere, heritage, and local brand authenticity. Global digital consumers, however, drive the international broadcast rights, video game licensing, and sponsorship revenues that fund elite squad construction. The ESL was explicitly engineered to monetize the global digital consumer, even if it meant alienating traditional local supporters.
3.6 Counterfactual Realities: Phoenix Clubs, Player Dilemmas, and Domestic Rupture
In exploring the counterfactual timeline where the ESL launched in August 2021, Dan Kilpatrick painted a vivid picture of the domestic devastation that would have followed in England. Had the Premier League carried out its threat to expel the Big Six, the English football pyramid would have fractured instantly.
Kilpatrick posited that the intense supporter fury in England would have triggered a grassroots schism, leading to the rapid creation of supporter-owned "phoenix clubs" modeled after AFC Wimbledon or FC United of Manchester:
"I think we probably would have seen six Phoenix clubs spring up like AFC Tottenham or AFC Liverpool because there was so much fury. These six clubs would have been pariahs, public enemies for the rest of the game in this country."
— Dan Kilpatrick, Football Writer
These breakaway clubs would have drawn thousands of season-ticket holders away from the corporate ESL franchises, creating a parallel supporter culture built on community ownership and traditional values. Meanwhile, the original Big Six would have faced permanent domestic exile, operating as detached, traveling entertainment circuses catering primarily to tourist crowds and international broadcast feeds.
Simultaneously, top players would have faced agonizing career choices. Had FIFA and UEFA enforced their planned bans prohibiting ESL players from participating in international tournaments, elite players would have been forced to choose between maximum club compensation and international prestige. Kilpatrick highlighted the hypothetical dilemma for England captain Harry Kane (then at Tottenham Hotspur): remaining with his boyhood club to earn astronomical ESL salaries, or transferring to an un-sanctioned club (such as Bayern Munich or an expelled domestic team) to preserve his eligibility to captain England at the FIFA World Cup and UEFA European Championship.
4. Speaker Perspectives & Analytical Contrast
The dialogue between Emma Payton, Matt Slater, and Dan Kilpatrick presented a rich spectrum of analytical viewpoints, balancing institutional sports business analysis with ground-level supporter perspective. The following matrix illustrates the core analytical stances and thematic focal points of each contributor:
| Speaker | Primary Analytical Lens | Core Arguments & Diagnostic Focus | Tone & Strategic Stance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Emma Payton Host & Facilitator |
Macro-level counterfactual framing & historical narrative continuity. | Focuses on sliding-doors milestones; draws structural parallels between the 2021 ESL plot and FIFA’s modern attempts to commercialize international tournaments. | Inquisitive, objective, structured; keeps focus on long-term industry consequences. |
| Matt Slater Senior Sports News Reporter |
Institutional economics, legal jurisprudence, corporate governance, & global media markets. | Analyzes JP Morgan's balance sheet underwriting, cartel cost-containment mechanisms, ECJ antitrust rulings, Qatari geopolitical strategy, and the global consumer opinion split. | Pragmatic, forensic, unsentimental; emphasizes financial realities over romantic sporting sentiment. |
| Dan Kilpatrick Senior Football Writer |
Supporter identity, matchday culture, domestic league integrity, & spectator fatigue. | Highlights the threat of supporter-owned phoenix clubs, the loss of sporting jeopardy in expanded tournament formats, and the lived reality of covering club turmoil on the ground. | Critical, fan-centric, grounded in domestic matchday realism; skeptical of artificial elite fixtures. |
The primary area of friction between the panelists emerged in their evaluation of global entertainment vs. local sporting tradition. While Kilpatrick emphasized that repetitive elite fixtures would quickly become tedious and soul-less for traditional supporters, Slater countered by pointing out that corporate decision-makers are increasingly focused on international growth markets where the ESL model is viewed not as a threat, but as an upgrade over routine domestic games.
Furthermore, both panelists agreed on a central paradox: while the European Super League failed as a distinct corporate launch, its architects successfully coerced UEFA into adopting its core economic principles. As Slater succinctly observed:
"The European Super League has always been used as an idea by the big clubs to bully and scare UEFA into giving them what they want: more guaranteed games and more money."
— Matt Slater, Senior Sports News Reporter
5. Strategic & Industry Implications
The legacy of the European Super League project is fully visible across the modern sports business ecosystem. Rather than ending the push for elite revenue consolidation, the 2021 crisis accelerated a wave of structural redesigns across European football and international sport.
The most immediate byproduct of the ESL crisis is UEFA’s revamped Champions League format, introduced for the 2024–25 season. Replacing the traditional four-team group stage with a 36-team single league phase (the "Swiss Model"), the expanded tournament guarantees each club eight matches against eight different opponents. This expansion directly addresses the big clubs' demand for increased guaranteed inventory and higher matchday revenues.
However, as Dan Kilpatrick argued during the podcast, this compromise has severely damaged the viewing experience by stripping the competition of meaningful stakes during the initial phase:
"I'm already really bored of the new Champions League. The lack of jeopardy in the league phase is so dull, and even the jeopardy that is supposed to be there doesn't really excite me because it's too complicated."
— Dan Kilpatrick, Football Writer
The inflation of match inventory has created a bloated calendar where top-tier clubs can suffer multiple defeats in the league phase without facing elimination. The resulting absence of immediate jeopardy diminishes dramatic tension, inducing viewer fatigue while placing severe physical strains on elite players—a dynamic that has triggered formal legal complaints against FIFA and UEFA by FIFPRO (the global players' union) and domestic league associations.
Beyond UEFA competitions, the ESL blueprint has catalyzed capital disruption across global sports properties:
- FIFA Club World Cup Expansion: FIFA's launch of a 32-team quadrennial Club World Cup represents a direct attempt by football's global governing body to capture a larger share of club-level broadcast and sponsorship revenue, mirroring the commercial goals of the ESL.
- Private Equity Penetration: Sovereign wealth funds and American private equity firms (such as CVC Capital Partners and Sixth Street) have acquired structural stakes in La Liga, Ligue 1, and individual top-flight clubs, monetizing stadium operations and international media rights.
- Cross-Sport Disruption: The cartel mechanics pioneered in the ESL have found parallels in golf (LIV Golf's disruption of the PGA Tour) and European basketball (the continued growth of the private EuroLeague), proving that private capital will consistently target legacy sports monopolies lacking structural protection.
6. Looking Ahead: Unresolved Questions & Next Milestones
As European football navigates an era defined by fiscal disparity, legal challenges, and shifting media consumption habits, the structural conflict between traditional governance models and private capital remains unresolved. The podcast discussion highlights several key metrics and regulatory milestones that will dictate the future landscape of global sport:
- The Limits of Broadcast Valuation: With domestic television rights in Europe approaching saturation points, rightsholders are testing the limits of international streaming platforms (such as Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and DAZN). Whether the market can absorb the financial demands of expanding UEFA and FIFA tournaments remains a central economic variable.
- Regulatory Oversight and the UK Independent Football Regulator: In response to the ESL crisis, the British government introduced the Football Governance Bill, establishing an Independent Football Regulator (IFR) tasked with enforcing financial sustainability, preventing breakaway attempts, and granting supporters veto power over club heritage decisions. The operational effectiveness of this regulator will serve as a global test case for state intervention in professional sports leagues.
- Player Labor Mobilization: As fixture congestion accelerates due to expanded European and international formats, player unions are increasingly willing to explore industrial action, including potential strikes. The intersection of player welfare, squad rotation depth, and legal labor caps will dictate the viability of future calendar expansions.
- The Future of A22 and the Unify Platform: While A22 Sports Management continues to advocate for an open, free-to-stream European competition, their success hinges on securing commitments from major clubs currently bound by ECA agreements. Should traditional European powerhouses experience prolonged financial distress under Premier League dominance, the temptation to revisit alternative tournament structures will re-emerge.
In summary, the 2021 European Super League was not an isolated historical aberration, but an aggressive opening salvo in an ongoing battle over the capital, governance, and soul of global football. As The Athletic FC Podcast masterfully demonstrated, examining what might have been provides the exact diagnostic toolkit required to understand what is to come.
💬 Key Quotes & Speaker Breakdown
Champions League format
"I'm already really bored of the new Champions League. The lack of jeopardy in the league phase is so dull, and even the jeopardy that is supposed to be there doesn't really excite me because it's too complicated."
European Super League regulations
"Within the ESL agreement, there was a rule that they weren't going to poach from each other. That sounds a lot like proper cartel-type behavior—trying to depress wages and transfer fees."
European Super League finances
"The speculation was they were all thinking in terms of 400 million dollars a year, which was about three times what a run to the final of the Champions League was worth at that time."
European Super League future
"The guys behind the European Super League didn't really disband. They've continued to kick out ideas. The most recent iteration was this thing called the 'Unify League' where they thought they could give it away for free."
European Super League history
"The idea was 15 founding members. The 12 that did sign up were our big six—Liverpool, Arsenal, Man United, Chelsea, Man City, and Tottenham—as well as the big three from Spain and three from Serie A."
European Super League strategy
"The European Super League has always been used as an idea by the big clubs to bully and scare UEFA into giving them what they want: more guaranteed games and more money."
European Super League fan reaction
"I think we probably would have seen six Phoenix clubs spring up like AFC Tottenham or AFC Liverpool because there was so much fury. These six clubs would have been pariahs, public enemies for the rest of the game in this country."
Global football perception
"It is worth looking in the comments. What we think is absolutely normal and natural is not necessarily what many North American or younger readers think. A lot of our listeners don't mind this idea; they think it sounds great."
European Super League opposition
"Bayern and Borussia Dortmund were smarter than our big six and just knew this would go down like a bucket of sick back home, so they didn't bother."
European Super League fallout
"I remember the slightly strange spectacle of Ryan Mason previewing Tottenham's League Cup Final in 2021 and just all the questions being about the European Super League. He couldn't answer any of them."