Literally at the same moment that Thomas Tuchel is speaking to the media and claiming he doesn’t know what his players think about the stunning Super League news, UEFA have made their move.
The association knows it must crush this breakaway before it’s too late, and they’ve played their trump card. Alexander Ceferin, the president of the organisation, has said that they will “take all sanctions that [they] can”.
Their biggest threat is banning players from the World Cup and Euros, and that’s the line that Ceferin is taking. It all relies on players fighting back against their own clubs because they feel affected by that threat.
It’s hard to judge what their reaction will be – they don’t want to bite the hand that feeds, but they will surely be hurt that the club has done this to their careers unilaterally.
Just when we thought things were heading back towards normal, the rollercoaster has plunged us back into madness. This is going to get seriously messy – this is just the start.