Florentino Pérez is not used to losing, at least not without a government bailout to soften his fall. The billionaire Real Madrid chairman had been a driving force behind the botched European Super League initiative, working with Spanish fund Key Capital Partners to negotiate £4.3 billion in financing from JPMorgan Chase and initially securing the participation of fourteen other elite clubs from Spain, England, and Italy.

“Football must evolve like everything in life,” claimed Pérez in a rare interview earlier this year — justifying the unprecedented power grab by pointing to declining television audiences as well as mounting club debts, which in the case of both Real Madrid and Barcelona top €900 million.

“This is a pyramid because if we big clubs have more money, it will flow to everyone,” Pérez continued, deploying his well-worn neoliberal talking points on trickle-down economics. Yet he had not counted on the scale of the fan revolt across Europe, which forced the “big six” Premier League clubs to announce their withdrawal from the proposed Super League on Tuesday evening. By Wednesday lunchtime all the clubs except Real and Barcelona had pulled out, with Pérez’s long-held dream of a Super League in tatters.