Milan chief Ivan Gazidis claims Super League is good for football

Milan chief executive Ivan Gazidis has claimed that the Super League will be good for football.

The Rossoneri were revealed as one the founding members of the breakaway competition on Sunday, alongside Serie A rivals Juventus and Inter. It is planned that they will be joined by the Premier League's big six and La Liga's big three, as well as eight other top sides. Three of these will be founding members while the rest will need to qualify - though the specifics of this are not clear.

Since the plans were announced they have been heavily criticised by nearly everyone, and Man City and Chelsea have set plans in motion to pull out. Despite this, Gazidis is remaining blindly optimistic.

"We're confident that this new competition will capture the imagination of billions of football fans all over the world and will be a new, exciting chapter for the game," the former Arsenal chief executive wrote in a letter to Milan's sponsors.

"The Super League will provide value and support to the whole football pyramid with greater financial resources."

There has been talk that those clubs breaking away may face sanctions, including being removed from their domestic divisions. However, Gazidis was quick to insist that Serie A would always be his side's primary focus.

"It will remain the most important weekend competition in Italy and Milan is proud to remain," he wrote.

Gazidis is not the only executive of the Super League clubs in PR mode. Real Madrid president Florentino Perez - by all accounts one of the principal architects of the project - defended the plans on Spanish television on Monday night.