European Super League
- Thread starter esmufc07
- Start date
Free wine and cheese from their cheese room
If it was just a point, it would be negotiated behind the curtains. This is too public now. I think the decision is taken.
Whilst this is ridiculous, it's hardly as if this isn't already an issue? The ESL is just making it more centralised. You got teams in the EPL getting relegated who probably get a higher payout than some teams winning their leagues.
That's very possible, but I wonder how much of an effect the history and prestige of the Champion's League and the World Cup/Euro will weigh on the players' mind if it really comes down to UEFA/FIFA banning all players in the ESL clubs from those competitions.
They will now qualify for a meaningless version of Champions League with most big teams not in it and got the qualification because the big clubs didn't care or play seriously for it. Nothing to celebrate or consider as an achievement like what Leicester or WHU would have considered if they manage it this season. CL will become a pointless competition, the "elites" have dominated the important one without earning it.
Tell me the reason why Arsenal or Spurs got permanent spot in ESL and not Leicester who have been far better team than both these last 2 years? You know why right? Because Arsenal is just a fecking bigger brand name than Leicester will ever be, so who gives a shit if Leicester is actually the better team finishing 3rd-5th while Arsenal is languishing around 8th-10th? These are trivial.
As much of an effect it has on players deciding to play for clubs like PSG and City... not too much imo, unfortunately. Money talks at the end of the day. The best players are going to want to best pay and the best platform to showcase their ability and build their brand etc.
I'm quite impartial on the whole thing, I see benefits to both sides and haven't yet made up my mind until more concrete information re. how it will be undertaken comes out, but that aspect is one I'm worried about. Simply put, it's going to be even harder for 'smaller' clubs to keep hold of their best players, whilst also widening the gap between the elite and said clubs.
Didn't PL plot the idea of having a PL match /FA Cup outside of England ? This moral high stand from them about integrity is BS. They just want a cut of the money.
I don't think a proper outlet for negotiations actually exist which is why this is happening. UEFA took a firm stand to expand and the big clubs have made their stance visibly clear. If suspensions of big clubs ( which can't happen) or the Euros occur, then it would really be a stalemate and could mean the shutdown of football until this issue is resolved. It's the pandemic, fans aren't in the stadiums, not dates for next season have been set by either the ESL, the leagues or the champions league. It's public, but that's how the negotiations in basketball and American football are.
I think UEFA overplayed their hand here. The media are all lapping up against the clubs who actually have genuine grievances against UEFA, and the threats to players and clubs being made will only highlight how important big players and big clubs are to the sport. If a standstill was ever going to happen, it would be now.
That's not a good comparison, because playing for PSG and City will actually really enhance your chance to participate in the competitions I'm mentioning, or maybe only for PSG now that City is part of the ESL.
They should make this a biannual summer tournament instead.
It's more so to illustrate that I don't think the prestige and history of competitions or clubs really matter enough to players to over compensate for the supposed benefits the ESL will bring. The CL is iconic and what not now, but how long will that last when both the calibre of teams competing and the intrigue/sponsorships in the competition take a nose dive?
This piece of news is just so sad for me personally. I definitely would not watch the ESL. I don't even know if I would continue following Utd. I probably would still follow them in the EPL (provided that Utd still competes in it), but even then it would not be the same.
was thinking the same thing. Trophy phobic Spurs part of the elite 12 clubs. Incredible.You know, the thing that kept me going after SAF was the hope that someday we will come back to the top. And when we finally have a good team that looks like turning a corner, our owners come up with this stunt...
There is no use blaming the Glazers because Martin Edwards would have done the same thing. He didn’t hesitate to make a large profit when he sold his majority stake in the club. It never fails to surprise me how much a made up commodity like money has shaped human beings for much of our existence.
It saddens me that we will not compete in the UCL anymore. We lost one of our greatest teams ever trying to win this competition. All those blood, sweat and tears are for nought now.
A sad day for football.
There is no use blaming the Glazers because Martin Edwards would have done the same thing. He didn’t hesitate to make a large profit when he sold his majority stake in the club. It never fails to surprise me how much a made up commodity like money has shaped human beings for much of our existence.
It saddens me that we will not compete in the UCL anymore. We lost one of our greatest teams ever trying to win this competition. All those blood, sweat and tears are for nought now.
A sad day for football.
Feels like the UN Security Council. How has that been working out?
Football is in a very weird and surreal time at the moment. VAR, constant rule changes, no fans has also been surreal (but of course, necessary). I am not going to react to this news. I will look on powerlessly, reluctantly accepting whatever happens.
The crazy thing is we're going to find out soon.
This is the most blatant cashgrab I've seen in a while, maybe ever in sports. I for one do not want the american model with no relegation, and just having the same teams play each other time after time. Sure, you want to face the best teams, but facing them every week will get boring in the end. You need games against the "lesser" teams that don't make it easy for you by defending with 10 men to make the highs of the der klassiker, el classico, CL knockout stages etc be entertaining. At least it does for me.
What’s irritating me now is Arsenal and Arteta getting rewarded for their fecking shambles of a league campaign.
Basically this league will allow Arsenal to spend 75 mill on Pepe and stink up the Prem but still be allowed to take in a giant pot of money from this super league.
The other thing is, if this is purely postering how exactly are the likes of Arsenal and Spurs going to be catered for should Uefa cave and give greater CL revenue money around.
Seeing as how neither of those two clubs will be in next season and possibly for the season after.
You deserve more respect on this forum:
Basically this league will allow Arsenal to spend 75 mill on Pepe and stink up the Prem but still be allowed to take in a giant pot of money from this super league.
The other thing is, if this is purely postering how exactly are the likes of Arsenal and Spurs going to be catered for should Uefa cave and give greater CL revenue money around.
Seeing as how neither of those two clubs will be in next season and possibly for the season after.
You deserve more respect on this forum:
If this plan does actually happen, I could see soccer becoming a more global game with a super 12's in each continent. Then the winner and maybe runners up of each super 12's of each continent would maybe play out an annual Global Champions League mini league over a couple of months.
You could see the likes of Inter Miami and LA Galaxy from the USA, and the likes of Boca Juniors and Flamengo from South America, and the best 2 teams of Australia/Asia etc playing in a mini global Champions league against the 2 best of Europe each season whether Barcelona and Man Utd or whatever.
Seeing Utd guaranteed to play home and away to Barca, Madrid, Juventus etc each season is not the worst idea at all it must be said. The Champions League has gone a little stale in recent seasons and I'm not sure Real Madrid would dominate a Super 12's as much as they dominate the Champions League.
The weird thing is, why is there no Bayern, Dortmund or PSG in this supposed European super 12's? Seems like this new league could be a way of the rest of Europe stopping the likes of sugar-daddy clubs like PSG and City vastly outspending everyone each season.
So many unanswered questions right now. But football is forever evolving, The Champions League was a major upgrade on the European Cup that came before it. So I guess we'll need more answers before we know if this is a plan that will work well or not.
You could see the likes of Inter Miami and LA Galaxy from the USA, and the likes of Boca Juniors and Flamengo from South America, and the best 2 teams of Australia/Asia etc playing in a mini global Champions league against the 2 best of Europe each season whether Barcelona and Man Utd or whatever.
Seeing Utd guaranteed to play home and away to Barca, Madrid, Juventus etc each season is not the worst idea at all it must be said. The Champions League has gone a little stale in recent seasons and I'm not sure Real Madrid would dominate a Super 12's as much as they dominate the Champions League.
The weird thing is, why is there no Bayern, Dortmund or PSG in this supposed European super 12's? Seems like this new league could be a way of the rest of Europe stopping the likes of sugar-daddy clubs like PSG and City vastly outspending everyone each season.
So many unanswered questions right now. But football is forever evolving, The Champions League was a major upgrade on the European Cup that came before it. So I guess we'll need more answers before we know if this is a plan that will work well or not.
Last edited:
Is this even happening? Everyone is crying about the end of football while some are saying it's just a negotiating tactic. It's not official right?
That's why the Super League is a shit idea. It's not based on footballing merit but power and money. Spurs and Arsenal have no business being considered super clubs right now just like we didn't when we finished 6th.
Anyhoo I will still watch it if this goes through but it seems to go against the spirit of natural justice and sportsmanship. Also, a part of me thinks this isn't actually happening but rather is a threat to uefa
Funny cause its true. But for that matter you can lump Arsenal in there.
Cheese room maybe
That's the thing though. Those players and clubs became famous over time because of their success. Twenty years ago Chelsea were not a big club, same as Spurs. Leeds used to be a big club until their downfall.
This super league will essentially create a franchise teams like in the US. There won't be a room for a new successful club like Leicester who are slowly getting to a pretty decent level.
Owners of those founders clubs won't give a damn if their players are no longer up to it because of age or form. Until now they had to rebuilt squads because of the champions league money. In the super league why would they invest money in a new squad if they could just rebuilt slowly for cheap while being last all the time and pocketing those huge earnings themselves? It's a recipe for disaster.
And I personally find it disrespecting when they talk of European super league while only clubs from 3 or 4 countries will play in it. In the age before tv money there were successful european clubs who are nowadays just happy if they manage to qualify for the group stages of the CL. It's a disgrace in my opinion.
Daniel Levy
Why are Serie A clubs a shoe in as if it’s 1997? Second rate league who’s top teams are built on the discards of top European clubs. Half of their soon to be champions starting 11 doesn’t get into Leicesters.
At this point, there is only an announcement of an agreement between the clubs forming. You can sort of equate this to when the U.K. voted for Brexit a while back. There's still so much more to happen before this actually gets established, and there's no guarantee that it will get established, by the way. To further support this notion, Juventus themselves even alluded to this in their official statement:
There are some exceptions (Wolfsberg, Hoffenheim, and Leverkusen), but generally they must be owned 50% + 1 by supporters/the club. RB Leipzig is also hated because it uses some loopholes to get around the rules (only have 17 members and all are employees or associated with Red Bull).
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...become-the-most-hated-club-in-german-football
Based on this article, there's no way Dortmund would ever join the Super League. With Bayern having 290,000 members, I can't see them approving this either, if they would be involved in the process.
That's incredibly naive, of course it's greed.
Any reason other than greed, and the idea of an European Super-League, which could potentially have a lot of other merits, would have materialized in a different way: Namely by not having fixed spots and having solely sportive merit at the basis of the initial choice of members. Also by not including 6 clubs from a single country, a few of them only there because they are filthy rich or have the potential for generating wealth.
I agree. However, its on UEFA to find a compromise. If these clubs feel UEFA as a governing body are profiteering and they have a right to question it. The teams that feature the most in these competitions felt the need to collude and break away as strong faction. If they feel that UEFA have unfairly managed affairs, they would be justified in breaking away.
They essentially told UEFA that the benefits of participating in their competition were not enough to justify how much UEFA makes from simply featuring them. Its up to UEFA to come up with a compromise that favors all parties involved and not move forward the champions league expansion. If it means increasing revenues based on viewership or adjusting their economic model for these competitions, so be it.
The need to break away may not have been greed....UEFA have been horrible in their dealing with the bigger clubs over the past decade. The creation of the super league with its terms is greed.
United or Liverpool need to step back from this. One of the two really need to rethink, step back and the other will follow. The whole “ who is the most successful club in the land” will stop dead flat. If this greedy league starts and one of us wins it I wouldn’t fecking care. Var was bad enough and we kind of got used to that disaster. This is different. You can gloat all you want if you win it.
I bet people said the same thing (greed, killing the game etc) when the same club owners proposed the PL some 30 years ago.
In fact they did. I am old enough to remember it.
If Pochettino wasn’t there manager, do you honestly believe they would be considered for this? You may laugh at it, but it is the truth. Pochettino transformed a mid table club like Tottenham, to be considered to be part of the big boys. With Pochettino gone and Kane about to leave, spurs will go back to mediocrity (as is already starting since Pochettino left)
One of the appealing reasons i follow the EPL is the top 4 race. Cheering for the underdogs Lecister and WHU etc to make it to the CL, now thats gone too, what are we left with? Those upsets will become impossible as with the ESL top teams will have an increasing demand for bigger squads which is gonna hurt the Lecister, WHU and wolves the most as their top players will be preyed upon by the top 6 even more than today with that absurd amount of money they will recieve upon joining the ESL and then every season will make it impossible for any other team to even have a chance of creating an upset.
A very sad day for football indeed.
A very sad day for football indeed.
Is it too late for this to be cancelled?
The Glazers and FSG have been driving forces behind this whole process so they aren't going to budge unless it fails miserably and they have no choice. If that's the case, hopefully the Glazers decide to sell up. American "investor" owners don't care at all about the sporting aspect of owning a football team. They just want their asset to increase in value and guarantee financial returns.
UEFA has been horrible in their dealing with the "bigger clubs"? Specifically? As in more terrible with them than with every other club?
Greed from UEFA is in the form of corruption from the people in charge of it, because otherwise UEFA is not a corporation designed for profit, it's an associative body to govern football. People in charge of those 6 British clubs, for example, are in it for straight profit and/or influence. These are significantly different types of greed, because one is a flaw of the system, which can ultimately be corrected, the other is just inherent to it, i.e., people who own the power in those clubs aren't really in it because they love football as a sport.
As an associative body, UEFA rules, and it's competitions line of evolution in the last decades, is incredibly biased towards maintaining status quo. But they still have to maintain a resemblance of being an associative body with same rules for all, etc. This completely breaks away from it in that core principle of 15 clubs who have their presence guaranteed.
And if we're honest, this is the only way to maximize profit in a straight-profit corporate world. Just don't fool yourself. These clubs aren't breaking away from UEFA to create a fairer and more functional sportive competition. If they were, they would have organized this in a completely different way, with completely different principles.