>> this is al jazeera. these are the top stories. former police officer derek chauvin has been convicted on all three charges. the case that triggered protest in the united states and around the world. for almost nine and a half minutes, he knelt on the neck of george floyd in the city of minneapolis. it took about 10 hours for the jury to convict him on all three charges. derek chauvin is due to be sentenced in two months and faces up to 40 years in prison. >> we the jury in the above intended matter is to count one, second -- unintended second

degree murder welcoming a felony find the defendant guilty of this verct agreed to on this 20th day of april, 2021, signed jury for person, juror number 19. second caption, verdict count two, we the jury in the above entitled matter as to count two, third-degree murder perpetrating and imminently dangerous act find a defendant guilty, this verdict agreed to this 20th day of april, 20 21, at 1:45 p.m., signed by jury or person, juror number 19. same caption, verdict count three, we jury in the above entitled matter as to count three, secondary manslaughter, culpable negligence creating unreasonable risk, find the defendant guilty. >> george floyd's family have spoken with president biden and thank him for his support. -- thanked him for his support.

>> feeling better now. nothing is going to make it all better, but at least now there's some justice. >> earlier, biden said he was praying for the right verdict. >> we have to listen. "i can't breathe." "i can't breathe." those are george floyd's last words. we cannot let those words die with him. we have to keep hearing them. we must not turn away. we cannot turn away. >> a car bomb targeting security forces has exploded in afghanistan's capital, kabul. the interior ministry says it was a suicide attack. you are up-to-date with all the headlines. we got more news coming up right after "inside story." ♪

>> european football in crisis. some of its biggest clubs have announced a league of their own. and's and governing bodies say they have betrayed the sport, but what is really behind this move? this is "inside story." hello and welcome to the program. they are some of the biggest names in sport. names like real madrid and manchester united have drawn millions of followers. they are now among 12 elite

teams who have announced a breakaway competition of their own called european super league. many fans reacted in anger while some voiced their support, but the sport's governing body say they will do everything in their power to stop the project while those behind the new super league insist the change is necessary. >> some of the continent's richest clubs threatened to split european football in two, the governing body hit back hard, saying it will expel the clubs' players from future world championships and world cups. >> i cannot stress more strongly at this point the footballing world stand united against the disgraceful self-serving proposal we have seen in the last 24 hours from a select few clubs in europe that are fueled purely by greed above all else. >> on sunday night, 12 of the

continents -- continent's richest clubs unveiled plans to form a super league, rivaling the champions league. in italy, six clubs from england's premier league also want to join. manchester united, liverpool, chelsea among them. the team managers have dodging questions. >> let's be honest. i trust this club, and my job is very clear, so i'm maybe not the right person to ask. >> i'm just a manager, and i'm prepared to go to my players under any circumstances. >> the plans even prompted this intervention from the british prime minister. >> we are going to look at everything we can do with the football authorities to make sure that this does not go ahead in the way it is currently being proposed. >> so far, no teams from france and germany, including the

current champions, bayern munich, plan to join the league, but three more clubs are expected to sign up, all set to pocket more than $400 million when they do in a project ended by u.s. banking giant j.p. morgan. quite seriously, the midst of a pandemic, and economic crisis, football clubs furloughing players, and these lot are having zoom calls about breaking away. a joke. >> the super league clubs want to start as soon as possible. many fans have joined in condemning the move. competing clubs face being booted out of their domestic leagues. several television broadcasters are also refusing to abandon national leaks to join the new project, but if it does go ahead, football's single sporting pyramid from the lowest

grassroots teams all the way to the top may never be the same again. >> those behind the super league say they want to kick off as soon as practicable. the competition will have 20 teams. the 15 founding members are guaranteed a place every year. other clubs will compete for the remaining five spots. each team will earn 400 million dollars just for joining the league, nearly three times more than what the champions league and or gets every year. organizers data format guarantees regular matches between the top teams. this potentially means more fans in the stadiums, more television viewers, and more money for the clubs. revenues have taken a hit during the pandemic. it is predicted the world's top 20 football clubs lost more than $1 billion from broadcasting and ticket sales. let's bring in our guests in london. an arsenal fan and board member of the arsenal supporters trust

and a senior lecturer in sports management, and a strategic advisor focusing on sports technology. a warm welcome to you all. this idea of a super league, while maybe not the exact same thing, but the idea has been discussed for years. was it the pandemic that pushed it across the line? and why now? >> yeah, i think -- thanks for having me -- this has been around since the 1990's around the time of the breaking of the champions league. i think the major collapse have accumulated in the last year, and the her reason which is important is the availability of

capitalist fans and states who have the idea to invest heavily in sport. not only in football. now they want to finance this super league, and i think that is what has put it over the line. >> the plan has been described as a spit in the face of football lovers and said the clubs and players should be banned from competitions as soon as possible. what happens next? what kind of impact will this have on the rest of the season? >> if this becomes a protracted affair, we could be thinking of this is a reality, but there will be some legal wrangling's about if they can play in these tournaments, but as long as this is nipped in the bud, we have the euro, which we know were postponed from last year, so i

think timing is key. if we let this drag on, then it just gets more serious. as you said they want to start asa -- asap. i think that is an important factor, but speaking of timing as well, the president was unveiling the new champions format to expand the tournament and also kind of give into this idea of a super league. as we see in basketball and the euro league, it is a different format. the champions league will change. football is changing. we all agreed with this, but i feel like this is a calculation in the public mood with this was revealed. football these days with the lack of fans who can voice their discontent with the pandemic

softness, i feel like they thought this was the right time to go in, and it is backfiring. there's development every minute, but it looks like it is backfiring. >> just talking about this announcement backfiring as far as the timing. i was looking at your twitter feed before the show, and i saw many posts about how as a fan, you were so disappointed in this announcement and the possible formation of a super league. let me ask you -- why has this triggered such a strong response among fans? >> because it totally takes away the sporting merit. nobody wants a closed shop, and that is essentially what this will do. it will mean the same teams playing each other every single year. that's not what i football fan wants. i football fan once variety, promotion, relegation, the excitement. by having the european super league, the domestic leagues will be weekend.

unless you win it, finishing second for finishing 15th means nothing. what is the incentive of actually playing? and if you are a west ham fan, who have had a great season this year, and you are told even though you finished fourth, you will not be in this top level of european football, what's the point? i think it will result in a lot of missed games, and it is absolutely wrong. >> britain has said they will do everything in their power to stop this super league from happening. they said all options are on the table and they will even discuss ways of potentially penalizing the six english clubs that have signed up. can the government of britain actually accomplish this? can they actually prevent the

super league from happening? >> it is difficult. we should remember that we are in britain which is very liberal and very business-orienked. it is really ironic that it is a conservative problem and they have the perfectionist measure to go against the development of business when they want to take their money away after brexit. now the question -- can they do it? more likely, they can. it is a government, and they can always regulate. they will always have recourse to the different authorities. there is perhaps one aspect that needs to be looked at, which is we should not forget that

especially the international olympic committee and fifa do not like governments intervening into a sport. they really, really don't like it. on the other hand, what fifa really does not like is governments intervening when they go against if i -- fifa. if the government intervenes in their favor, i think they will be far less worried about it. it will take a major intervention. it will take an intervention that i think we probably have not seen in the united kingdom, and it will take an intervention that will contradict policy, but they can do it. >> fifa had warned in january that any breakaway league would not be recognized by them and any players taking part could be banned from playing in the world cup. do you think that will happen? >> yesterday, i was just waiting for the players to speak.

i feel really bad for them. they are in a position where they cannot really predict their future. as i said, there's tournaments around the corner. it's going to take a lot of legal ramifications to see if fifa can actually enforce this and also where. it is something where anything can happen. the british government said yesterday or the day before that even if they cannot do anything about it, they will step in. we have heard from royalty, we have heard from footballers coming up today and last night, so it will be interesting to see how things develop, but in the end, if fifa sees the government

getting in the way of their decision-making, they will act. >> do you think we could see some kind of compromise struck in the interest of both fans and clubs, and if so, what do you think that compromise might look like? >> i don't know. that's what people are saying -- is this sort of a massive negotiation tactic? is it clubs really taking it that far as a big threat so then uefa do compromise? we don't know. there is so much going on. there is a meeting with the football supporters association this morning with boris johnson. there's lots going on. is there a compromise? maybe. i think that is what ants would want because the european super league is taken football too far one way, and uefa and fifa are

not squeaky clean. by no means are fence suddenly thinking they are, but you have a tournament governed by its founders and clubs doesn't sound right, so the clubs definitely need more influence, so we will look to see what happens. >> how much does all of this have to do with essentially making more drama for television? you're talking about big clubs with big stars playing each other, more often leading to a bigger audience, potential bigger revenue stream from broadcasting rights, right? >> yes. wider commercial rights, it can be tv rights, but it is about making more money out of affectional football.

i once heard the spanish chairman league say our rivals nowadays are netflix and amazon prime. professional football sees itself as being part of the entertainment industry, for right or wrong. i'm not going to say this is what they should be, but this is where they look at themselves. rather than watching tv news for "game of thrones," people watching the champions league. it is an increase in ordinances. i'm not so sure it is about reconnecting with the youth with football. it may be they think they are

losing younger generations. that is what they may want to do, but certainly, this is certainly about trying to increase those revenues and also increase the share of those revenues. >> so many people who have expressed anger at the announcement of the super league have said in one way or another that this is essentially a case of big business ruining football. do you see that as happening, and is this essentially a case of rich clubs getting richer by sharing in the wealth of what would be a very insular league while everyone outside of it is struggling to stay financially viable? >> precisely. i think gary said with passion and poignancy last night -- someone like me, i grew up watching arsenal but only because i could not watch belgrade. over the years, as the world became more connected, i could watch them, and five years ago,

they were playing in the year oblique, and i had to make a choice. the past five years, we have been playing in the europa league and champions league. to watch this, i know that we are probably going to win it. we did when the european cup in 1991, unlike man city and arsenal who are the founding members of the super league, but many football enthusiasts around the world -- i'm speaking as a fan now -- we support our hometown club and maybe one of the international clubs, so what this will do is create such a distance between these top clubs like real madrid, barcelona, man city united, and the smaller clubs. they are going to be left in the dark. what about all the other clubs

in europe? uefa, they are no angels, but they are expanding the tournament. they are even creating another tournament for teams that anish fourth or fifth or sixth in their respective leagues. the product we have, the champions league, is a revered product. people love it. kids dream of playing in the champions league. despite the melodrama, i think it is warranted. football is really a global language. i worked for the world cup committee, and usually, the big stories off the pitch had to do with the world cup taking place in november, for example, under a lot of scrutiny, but at the end of the day, this scheduling conflict will see players play in tip top condition, so there is a silver lining here. i just simply do not find any silver lining if you are a football fan.

>> when you boil all this down, does it essentially come down to the question of who owns football? doesn't all of this and the discussion around it highlight the growing disconnect between the business of sport, the community of sport fans, especially when you're talking about kids kicking around a ball and aspiring to be like their football heroes? >> absolutely. i think we have seen in the last few days who does really own football. we don't call them owners, they are investors. they are there to essentially make money. we have met them once or twice in 10 years. we don't really hear from them. this week, all of the owners have gone into hiding after renouncing the deal. it is because they are ashamed of it. if they were not ashamed, they would be out there explaining to us why they are not. who owns football? it is sad, but what we've seen in the last year with the pandemic is football is just

soulless without fans. tv companies have been trying to pump in fake noise, which is also ridiculous, to replace us. it will take more than noise to replace us. essentially, the biggest stakeholder is fans, and i think the product is far weaker, but we have seen that these owners, they will make decisions. they will be in other countries, they will hide, and they are trying to get away with it, and hopefully, we will not let them. >> what are some of the other challenges the super league would face? also, could all of this just far apart, and is there a way back? >> there are a number of challenges, i would say. one at the moment is the social political challenge. i don't think the organizers anticipated the backlash.

knowing the owners, they were ready to fight backlash. but perhaps they miscalculated, so the social political challenge is one. the other aspect is going to be economic. the founders for the moment -- for the moment, of course we actually have to wait -- they are having problems inviting others. they wanted to have more members , and it seems for the moment they are going either to invite clubs they did not want to invite or to try something different, so that will be another challenge. unlike, -- finally, we need to mention the legal challenge. under european law, there is the

possibility someone goes to the european court and denounces this because they are basically heading a cartel, and there are arguments in favor of that. there are arguments also against that, but i think there will be a need for judgment. perhaps the situation will change, so certainly, we have the social political challenge. we have the economic, we have the legal challenge, and actually, failing to convince clubs -- i was thinking actually this morning, the one that may actually get things again back. >> if this actually comes to fruition, if the super league actually is accomplished, do you expect fans will ultimately follow -- i mean, will it

eventually get support from fans? >> personally, i don't. we talked earlier about the younger generation. i worked very closely with the biggest football social media page. they have over 50 million or 60 million followers on all their platforms, and their audience demographic is quite young. most of the comments i've been reading the past 24 hours have indicated that most people are against it. of course, football is open to the masses, so it might be difficult to say what happens down the line if it does exist, so i feel like it might be met with some scrutiny, but in the end, i just don't think the model can succeed because it is very americanized. you have the same teams playing against each other while the majority of teams will play against each other every season.

who wants to see, for example, real and manchester every year? it takes away from the game. there is also a lack of competition, which could really hurt football. part of the joy of watching football is having a big club, or, you know, like a relegation battle. teams can tank. they can say we are going to rebuild and the drafts don't work out. this lack of competition could really hurt the game, and if the game is hurt, i feel the audience will flow away. >> we have run out of time, so we will have to leave the conversation there. thank you so much to all of our guests. and thank you, too, for watching. you can see this and all of our previous programs again any time by visiting our website,

i'lljust era -- aljazeera.com. for me and the whole team here, goodbye for now. ♪

man: i remember years back talking to my dad and saying, "at some point in my career, i'd love to do a deli." and i remember him looking at me in a surprised way like, "really? why? you've spent all this time in fine dining and traveled the world and trained yourself. why the ... do you want to do a deli? [bell dings] i think i was ultimately drawn to the deli because spending so much time in delis as a kid, it was sort of attached to my soul a little bit. it's so part and parcel of my culture and my owing up and the jewish story across america, but my jewish