Apple TV+ has set a new sports documentary about last year’s attempt to set up a new European super-league that spontaneously combusted before it got off the ground.
“Super League: The War for Football” will drop on the streamer on Jan. 13. The fours-part series “documents the high stakes battle that is set off when plans for a breakaway league emerge and the past, present, and future of European football collide, leaving the game’s most powerful leaders to defend, or upend, the traditions of the sport,” according to the logline.
The doc will include access to league presidents, club owners and the individuals who came up with the idea to create a European Super League.
The story starts last April, when it was revealed that 12 of the world’s most powerful soccer clubs – including Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus – were planning to form a new midweek competition called the European Super League (ESL) which meant they would no longer participate in long-established continental tournaments including the Champions and Europa Leagues.
Fans, from soccer industry figures to celebrities such as James Corden, reacted furiously to the news, believing that the move was fuelled by the clubs’ desire to grab a bigger piece of the pie in terms of broadcasting rights – and money. “They bought into a sport that so many of us live for at 3 p.m. on a Saturday and they took it, and they are going to crush it without ever thinking about the damage that’s being done,” Corden said of the plan.
Inevitably, it all came crashing down.
All Rise Films’ Jeff Zimbalist (“The Two Escobars”) directed and exec produced the series with Libby Geist (“The Last Dance”) producing and Connor Schell of Words + Pictures’ executive producing.
