Yeah a plastic club like City over United. United and Liverpool from PL. It's a big choice between Arsenal and Chelsea for the 3rd spot if 3 clubs are to be selected from PL. City which is not a legitimate club will be always below these 4 if super league is supposed to be formed.
What does a European Super League look like?
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People focus on City and PSG because we know what they are doing.
I'm not sure how Saracens are relevant? They got caught for blatantly breaching the salary cap and giving backhanders that were immediately obvious to anyone taking the briefest of glimpses under the hood.
City's owners can run a legitimate looking payroll through the club books, but top up payments and benefits through their state infrastructure back home or via the tax havens they have invested so heavily in around the world. There is no reasonable way to expect to regulate that.
It's the reason state owned clubs are a bigger problem than mere billionaire owned clubs.
The Saracens are relevant because they show that you don't need to be an oil club to fraud for years. And I don't think that you have a point because because tax havens and shell companies are a very common thing in business, it has nothing to do with state owned clubs and it's easy for everyone with billions, it's a part of the economy that is poorly regulated in general.
Now my point is that even if you could regulate it, how do you make it useful? If you reduce it below the current highest wage bills, you are taking money out of footballers and if you put it above the current highest wage bills it's useless.
The top three leagues already automatically get four teams in the Champions League. That's more than a happy middle ground. Spain, England, Italy and Germany dominate the competition and we get these big match-ups all the time. If anything, it's getting stale as it is.
I can see it in the future where the Champions League is actually a league and then there’s a knockout tournament every 2 years in the Summer called the Super League or something stupid.
Juventus, Barcelona, Real are pushing for a breakaway league, for parity with PL clubs. But the PL clubs are unlikely to pack up and leave, at the very least they want the best of both worlds, maximising the revenues they receive domestically and in Europe.
The other issue is when matches will be played. Weekends are more lucrative than weeknights, and the PL isn't going to shift matches just to suit the big clubs.
The other issue is when matches will be played. Weekends are more lucrative than weeknights, and the PL isn't going to shift matches just to suit the big clubs.
I think people are forgetting that in this Super League, everyone will be plastic.
You won't get a place on merit and past achievements. You'll have to buy into the league, which would attract new owners to a lot of big clubs.
So in effect, you have this super league full of plastics and then the national leagues back to how they were pre-Prem. That's what everyone wants. We just take issue in the fact that we'd be bundled off with the platics.
Saracens were caught. I'm not claiming for a second that there won't be clubs attempting to commit fraud - just that it's much easier for state run clubs to hide their wrongdoing.
Tax havens and shell companies are common, but it's difficult for the Glazers or Abramovic to take money out of their legitimate businesses elsewhere, and funnel it towards people in their football clubs. Their other businesses are still accountable for those funds and there will be trails left in accounts somewhere. They also lack the financial power and infrastructure to commit this fraud on such a large scale.
Oil rich, autocratic states have no such accountability and clearly have the financial power and infrastructure to do whatever they like. There will never be a way to regulate any system that includes state owned clubs.
In theory they have the same accountability, the difference is that the UEFA doesn't have the tools to sanction these clubs. Saracens got sanctioned because the decision was in the hands of the shareholders which are the other clubs. The difference in Football is that, the other football clubs mainly the rich members of the ECA are perfectly happy with the likes of City and PSG, to the point where Al Khelaifi represent them at the UEFA.
What does an ESL look like? The clubs who join such a monstrosity are banned from participating in their original domestic leagues and are left to die a slow, horrible death, while the rest of European Football moves forward with reforms that genuinely reduce the effect of money on the game, and give well run clubs a real chance to challenge at the top. Prudent spending and excellent youth development are rewarded. Wasteful spending is taxed.
I don't see that theory. Owners who come from any modern, Western democracy will be accountable to a tax or financial authority in their own country. Who are City or PSG's owners accountable to back home?
Your point on Saracens being sanctioned at the hands of the other clubs is exactly where I think the historical big clubs of Europe will want to look at. They will look at this and see there is no way UEFA will ever be able to regulate the game under these conditions and take matters into their own hands. They'll see letting things continue as they are, especially with the Saudis coming to play, as being turkeys voting for Christmas
Your second paragraph doesn't match with what is happening at the ECA, that's the part that I really don't get, first a large amount of big clubs and in particular Juventus, Milan and Inter have benefitted from the same type of financing for decades, so the hypocrisy would be amazing. But more importantly PSG's executives are for example totally integrated in that group of clubs, they are not outsiders.
https://www.ecaeurope.com/about-eca/structure/executive-board/
https://www.uefa.com/insideuefa/about-uefa/executive-committee/
It would look like the NBA/NFL.
Clubs fly across Europe to play each other, there would still be great attendance but no/very few away fans present, and it would be built around the most efficient way to market it. Any new clubs would need to be voted in by the others.
I don't want it to happen but football in its current format is losing its appeal as it gets further and further away from the game itself.
Clubs fly across Europe to play each other, there would still be great attendance but no/very few away fans present, and it would be built around the most efficient way to market it. Any new clubs would need to be voted in by the others.
I don't want it to happen but football in its current format is losing its appeal as it gets further and further away from the game itself.
I like the idea more and more.
In the leaked papers it seemed that the big historical clubs had a guaranteed place and after all, there were not many more games than the current C.L.
At least in the case of Madrid - and many others - it is the only alternative: Increase income in order to compete. Neither the great fortunes will disappear, nor will a parallel competition be created without them.
It would be necessary to define well what would be the lower divisions, perhaps more attractive than the current Europa League.
In the leaked papers it seemed that the big historical clubs had a guaranteed place and after all, there were not many more games than the current C.L.
At least in the case of Madrid - and many others - it is the only alternative: Increase income in order to compete. Neither the great fortunes will disappear, nor will a parallel competition be created without them.
It would be necessary to define well what would be the lower divisions, perhaps more attractive than the current Europa League.
Yeah it's a headfeck. We're well past the tipping point now and I don't see how or where improvements are going to come from.
I feel that clubs like United, Liverpool and Bayern need to take the lead here and demand reform. As you've said, the likes of Juve, Milan and Inter (or indeed Barca, Madrid, City or PSG) aren't going to push for regulations that are going to look more closely at how they finance their clubs, but if everyone just sits back and does nothing things will just get worse and worse, until football at the top level is an annual Champions League semi final lineup between Saudi, Iran, Qatar and UAE.
What do you mean by further and further away from the game itself?
I think the better response to the City debacle is for United to withdraw from the TV rights deal and demand the right to negotiate their own deal. If its been decided that clubs can do whatever they want then clubs like ours need to leverage their bigger fanbases and popularity in order to negotiate a TV deal that reflects their actual worth to the League.
The business of football.
As the business of football changed? The scale maybe but the business itself hasn't really changed since the 80s at the exception that there are less sugar daddied top clubs because these clubs have marketed that success and capitalized on it. For me the main "problem" is a consequence of a good thing, the Bosman ruling has allowed players to move with more freedom and clubs with money or the ability to create money, basically clubs from big cities in wealthy countries, have a monopoly on talented players which unfortunately means that we are now stuck with the same group of 10-15 teams in the Top 5 leagues who are the only ones really able to win things because they have all the money and top players.
The business of football has become unrecognisable from what it was even 15 years ago. It used to be successful local businessmen with an interest in football buying clubs they (usually) had an affinity with. The likes of Jack Walker came into it because they wanted to see their boyhood clubs win something.
What has changed is the emergence of money on a different scale, often with government backing, and always with the intention of washing an image. They don't do what's best for the club or the game, they do what's best for achieving their own goals, and fans see the damage it's causing through inflated prices across the board. The business is becoming totally detached from the game as usually these buyers have no more interest in a club than simply picking their name out of a hat.
I see, I wouldn't call that the business of football. It's more an image thing because none of us can tell how much someone care about football or a particular club, also what you are describing isn't that common, so I wouldn't say that the business of football has changed based on a dozenl of cases. I also disagree with the idea that new owners don't do what's best for their clubs or that they don't care, at least it's not something different to the past.
This is an inevitable next step if nation states are allowed to bankroll clubs, with impunity.
United, Liverpool, Arsenal etc cannot afford to deprive themselves of hundreds of millions of pounds of broadcast revenues.
I'd like to ask you to clarify this because I couldn't disagree more and wonder what your reasoning for this statement is.
It doesn't need to be common. All it takes is a handful to inflate everything, and everybody else has to find ways to keep up. For the clubs, that means taking increasing risks to fund transfer and wage budgets, for fans that means finding 50 quid for a ticket that cost less than 5 in 1990.
You are making links that aren't there. The main reason behind the increase in wages and transfer fees is due to the increase in marketing and TV deals revenues, it has nothing to do with new owners that aren't from the neighborhood. And it has nothing to do with ticket prices either.
Why? Why most clubs being sugar daddied has been acceptable for the entirety of football history and is still normal in almost all levels of Football and all sports but you think that going to a system that is essentially based on the size of your city and initial fanbase is moving forwards? Can you make a list of the clubs that you believe should be in that league?
Sure.
Every club in Europe except for PSG, Newcastle and City and others if there are new giant state-owned sportswashing clubs. All new take-overs of clubs would be re-judged and democratically voted for/against on a yearly basis.
Would that work? I know we can't go back and re-do history, but ruling out the biggest sinners would be a start. And I'm not proposing a league where only AC Milan, United, Real Madrid, historic clubs gets to play each other. The league could even / equal out the prize-money for all clubs or whatever, like in England, as long as the current big problems are adressed.
Edit: If an idle smaller sugardaddy club like Sheffield United suddenly spends gigantic sums untrue to their size, then a democratic vote whether to kick out, ban for some years, or fine could be brung up. It seems more fair than the current situation to me.
What is the big problem that you are talking about and how does your proposition fixes it?
I wouldn’t watch the super league but I’d find stuff elsewhere to watch
There are many factors. I personally think current model is a house of cards. The pandemic has highlighted that very few clubs could have survived the lockdown without football being rushed back.
The Athletic article on EPL finance
The inequality gap has become so large that it cannot be bridged with anything but billionaires and shady deals.
Competing markets would force a super league across Europe to continue profitability.
We've already seen questions whether top teams in Europe will be able to keep up financially if the EPL continues its growth. At some point, they'll form their own merger leagues. Most of them should already have happened (BeNe).
Economic crisis is imminent, with Spain expected to be hit the hardest. Barcalona and Real Madrid, two of the most marketable teams in the world are not going to fall behind to other European clubs, if they can help it.
Nielsen’s survey -- which spans 18 global markets -- further reveals that football (or soccer, as it is known in the US) is conclusively the world’s most popular sport with 43 percent of people claiming to be ‘interested’ or ‘very interested’ in the sport. (Basketball claimed second at 36 percent.)
Bloomberg says, “The report shows soccer in an extraordinary position: It’s dominant in global sport and has room to grow in major markets. While 19 countries show a majority of the population expressing interest in soccer, the U.S. and China -- the world’s two largest economies -- are not among them.” In other words, these markets are both untapped and ripe for growth.
Nielsen Sports global managing director Glenn Lovett adds, “Football’s extraordinary reach into countries and cultures around the world make it unequaled among sports, in terms of value to media and sponsors.”
And the evidence -- many young people showing interest -- suggests it’s just a matter of time before the U.S. and China are also swept up in the same level of football fanaticism. In the case of the former, a Gallup poll showed it trailed only American football among the sought-after 18-34 demographic
Bloomberg says, “The report shows soccer in an extraordinary position: It’s dominant in global sport and has room to grow in major markets. While 19 countries show a majority of the population expressing interest in soccer, the U.S. and China -- the world’s two largest economies -- are not among them.” In other words, these markets are both untapped and ripe for growth.
Nielsen Sports global managing director Glenn Lovett adds, “Football’s extraordinary reach into countries and cultures around the world make it unequaled among sports, in terms of value to media and sponsors.”
And the evidence -- many young people showing interest -- suggests it’s just a matter of time before the U.S. and China are also swept up in the same level of football fanaticism. In the case of the former, a Gallup poll showed it trailed only American football among the sought-after 18-34 demographic
As highlighted by bloated broadcast deals, viewership has changed significantly since '92. Going forward, I think this next decade - television will lose it's battle against streaming platforms, as modern fans prefer a more casual viewing experience. Once that happens, the target audience would much prefer four 25min halves compared to the current two 45mins.
The most compelling point for me, is that Football is no longer a sport. It's an entertainment business. Entertainment is dictated to by it's viewership/profitability. A Super League would be without question, be the most profitable option for the teams/franchises involved.
I hope it doesn't happen. But I enjoy football now and I'm sure I'll enjoy it if it changes. But I expect at some point in my lifetime, it's going to change.
Quote me in 20 years
NO
It is both. These things don't exist in a vacuum.
TV deals do push up the price of football but the oil clubs distort things even further. You can see below that average spend roughly follows the TV rights deals, with two notable exceptions.
1. The period 2004-2007. Abramovich arrived in June 2003.
2. 2008-2010. City arrived in 2008.
This chart is for the totals, movements at the top end of the transfer market are even further distorted.
The point about ticket prices is that all these things above add up to price out and alienate average matchgoing fans. That you cannot argue.
They could just do it like on the Football Manager edited database leagues.
Have 20 teams in 20 tiers.
Top flights of England, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Holland, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, and the highest rated of all the other top flights all decided on their tiers through qualification.
Then the remaining spots filled by the remaining highest rated leagues to fill all 400 clubs.
Clubs promoted to the next tier through winners, runners up and play off winners. 3 clubs relegated.
All the remaining clubs throughout Europe to have a massive European tournament and the winners of the tournament, runners up, and winner of 3rd vs 4th will get promoted to tier 20.
Have 20 teams in 20 tiers.
Top flights of England, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Holland, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, and the highest rated of all the other top flights all decided on their tiers through qualification.
Then the remaining spots filled by the remaining highest rated leagues to fill all 400 clubs.
Clubs promoted to the next tier through winners, runners up and play off winners. 3 clubs relegated.
All the remaining clubs throughout Europe to have a massive European tournament and the winners of the tournament, runners up, and winner of 3rd vs 4th will get promoted to tier 20.
The chart doesn't support your point, it's a year by year chart, Chelsea spent the most the two summers prior to the 07/08 when the overall spendings were normal. 07/08 is the year where the new TV deal started and was worth 700m more than the previous one, that's the link. After that you can see that between 07-13 things are stable because the 07 deal was worth 1.706bn and the one from 2010 was worth 1.782bn, the next big increase in spendings in 2013 is linked the new TV deal that starts in 2013 and is worth 3.018bn, then you see an other increase when the new TV deal enter into effect in 2016, that deal was worth 5.136bn.It is both. These things don't exist in a vacuum.
TV deals do push up the price of football but the oil clubs distort things even further. You can see below that average spend roughly follows the TV rights deals, with two notable exceptions.
1. The period 2004-2007. Abramovich arrived in June 2003.
2. 2008-2010. City arrived in 2008.
This chart is for the totals, movements at the top end of the transfer market are even further distorted.
The point about ticket prices is that all these things above add up to price out and alienate average matchgoing fans. That you cannot argue.
Your chart is the perfect demonstration of my point, the market is distorted with every new TV deal increase, it's stable when the TV deals are similar even during the 2007-2013 period where City build the bulk of their team and were spending like mad men.
I don't see this happening. A breakout league would get a lot of opposition from UEFA and FIFA, fans would revolt, and it would be very complicated to determine how teams would subsequently interact with their national leagues. Would they still play in national cup competitions, etc.? I mean, it can all be resolved with a big push from the clubs that would want to make this happen, but I think the cost in terms of pubic opinion and their relationships with UEFA, FIFA, and national FAs would be too great for them to consider it.
I would rather expect another remake of the CL, along the lines of what they do in international (ice) hockey, and now also in the UEFA Nations League. Clubs would be classified in tiers and get to participate in the CL and EL based on their tier. Promotion and relegation between the CL and EL tiers would depend on performance in those tournaments (and maybe some qualifiers in late summer). New entries would first get into the EL based on league form (like Leipzig, Leicester or Sheffield) and then be able to get into the CL from there.
Something like this would secure revenue for the mammoth clubs who hate the annual risk of missing out on the CL, or don't care to play minions or fly to Kazakhstan, and would not disrupt current dynamics of national and European football.
I would rather expect another remake of the CL, along the lines of what they do in international (ice) hockey, and now also in the UEFA Nations League. Clubs would be classified in tiers and get to participate in the CL and EL based on their tier. Promotion and relegation between the CL and EL tiers would depend on performance in those tournaments (and maybe some qualifiers in late summer). New entries would first get into the EL based on league form (like Leipzig, Leicester or Sheffield) and then be able to get into the CL from there.
Something like this would secure revenue for the mammoth clubs who hate the annual risk of missing out on the CL, or don't care to play minions or fly to Kazakhstan, and would not disrupt current dynamics of national and European football.
Chelsea definitely. They are self-sustained.
City and PSG, no idea. I don't see why the big clubs (who might break because impossible to compete with state-backed clubs) would want to have them there.
I'm not saying its not, but the only times it diverges is when the two oil clubs appeared.
The whole point is to move away from plastic shit like City and PSG. No way Real/Barca or Bayern would accept otherwise.
That PSG and City are using financial doping and leaving everyone else unable to compete for transfers and positions in the league, they would otherwise justly have deserved. Is this hard to understand?
No the only time it diverges is when a new TV deal is in place, it's obvious and I provided the figures for each increases. If you can't admit that, there is nothing much I can say.