European Super League

Do you want the ESL to happen?


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NoLogo

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Not sure if it had been posted here before, but Leipzig also want nothing to do with it as they posted 20 hours ago.
Basically all of Germany's biggest 3 clubs don't want it and have officially declined.

Considering that RB Leipzig has no fans to speak of they would have probably survived joining this league. Bayern fans as far as I could gather are mostly opposed to this competition and Dortmund would absolutely drown in a shit storm of their fans if they joined. But non the less good to see that even Leipzig, despite all the external money injection still feels that needing to qualify by actually playing well and successful is a part of the game that should never be touched.
 

Lyricist

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All seven Leipzig fans around the globe rejoice at you calling them one of the three biggest clubs in Germany.
Fine, I changed it. :lol:
I didn't mean biggest club the way it read. I mean the 3 clubs that would be most likely to be a competitive factor within the ESL.
 

Sphaero

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Bayern are not innocent here. They have been driving this thing for decades. If the ESL becomes reality, Bayern will be on board.
No, they have been driving this option (same as the option to market themselves completely apart from the DFB/DFL) as a bargaining chip to get better deals for themselves. The prospect of joining the ESL especially in its planned form would be an empty threat, though. This will never go through with their members (and this decision would need their vote otherwise they would be hell to pay at the next annual member conference with every elected person losing their seats). They rightfully put too much stock on the integrity of the Bundesliga and their standing as Record Champion.
 

Raven

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Because they are consumer. Seriously this notion that you deserve to be pleased because you are proper supporter is incredibly naive. If large amount of people want something, that is what the corporation will do.

I don't like the idea because I have seen NBA implementation and it sucks. But the model CL wants to implement is absolutely horrible. Don't want bloated games in Europe. I am fine with league having teams of different levels of quality. That's why we have a long season. But in Europe cup competition, I want to see more competitive football. The only problem with this model is that it doesn't allow the founding members to get relegated. That if they find a way to rectify that and stop State and oligarchs from buying clubs , then I am for this. UEFA and Fifa are corrupt to the core and they need to be removed from this.
What the hell are you on about? You say the only problem with this is that the founding members can't be relegated yet that's exactly everyone else's problem. It's a massive fecking problem and shouldn't be waved away like you're doing.
 

RooneyLegend

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Completely and utterly disagree.

The Glazers don't give a shit about us winning the CL.
If they didn't, wouldn't they sit and line their pockets with profit and never spend on the team? We certainly haven't been terrible due to a lack of investment. Weve been terrible cause of poor decisions.
 

ti vu

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They're not a proper fan of football then if they can't even watch a full fecking match.

Why on earth are they trying to target fans like that?
Money.

@carvajal posted video tweet of Agnelli explaining the research that they use to justify this SL.

He mentioned points regarding: young fan just want to be part of big events, follow players not clubs, supporting more than one club, not interest in football...

My interpretation is that all these points is not exclusive. Which means someone who may not be interested in football, would still pay to be part of the big events with others. To attend more events, they would support more than a club, or follow players.
 

Ixion

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The narrative that they're saving football pisses me off. How does telling everyone the only thing that matters and people care about is the big teams playing each other save Rochdale from eventually going the same way as Bury. How does cutting the head off English football save Scunthorpe or Colchester or all the National League teams barely getting by. Pieces of shit and their greed.
 

Sarni

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This is true. I think there’s a genuine concern out there about how this “content” is “consumed” and without radical change the whole house of cards will fall down.

Can’t help wondering if we’re all just old men yelling at clouds and the consumers that matter to the money men are fully on board with this. They’ll have researched the hell out of the proposal, that’s for sure.
I'd be curious to see revenue stream of major clubs. I would suspect local fanbase will not bring in more than 10% of revenue, disregarding gate revenue which can and will be brought by worldwide fans if some of the games move to new arenas (and they will, inevitably). Younger generation will be even more skewed towards global fanbase rather than local fanbase. Those clubs definitely have a lot more to gain by moving their operations to other places. I suspect that once this gets going properly, about 50% of games will actually be played at home arenas with the other 50% put in places like China, Japan, Korea, Australia and US.
 

Sarni

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Re: Deutschland. I had a random thought last night that perhaps their own past - east-west division specifically - has led to them taking a different approach on this? Totally speculative of course and I haven't fleshed out the idea
German clubs are owned by fans, they can't enter this without their consent - I mean they probably can but fans involvement in decision making has been too strong historically to give up on that in pursuit of SL. I would still expect them to eventually join this.
 

Keefy18

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Hardly surprising in a pandemic, when people with Sky are already paying a fortune for their TV subscriptions.

Plenty of people in the UK and around the world watch the PL because overall it's a good product, not just because of United, City, Chelsea or the other 3. Will it be diminished without these six clubs? - yes, obviously. Does that "kill" the league as a viable concern as was suggested in the post I replied to? In my opinion, no. There are clubs outside the top six well resourced enough to still go out and buy quality players and as such, the product will continue to be viable. Rich owners will still come along and invest in what is a marketable product.

And another, obvious point, is that City were Southampton until someone pumped a load of cash in. Now there are people in China walking around in City shirts.

The idea that people will simply stop watching the PL if these clubs leave is, in my view a nonsense. There are millions of fans out there who don't support those clubs, and millions of others who just love to watch football. The quality of the league will remain high enough to attract those fans.
Of course there'd be eyes on it, but absolutely nowhere near as many and the quality would drop off a cliff.

The competition loses its history and prestige with no Liverpool, United or Arsenal in there.

They make up nearly half the league titles won in the leagues history, it simply wouldn't have the same glamour to a large section of football fans.
 

Cassidy

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That what you think. There is no guaranteed. There is stopping from adding more privileged teams as the SL expand.

By Privileged teams, I meant those would get future guaranteed entry, same access to money, if even they're not the original founders. It's for the ESL interest, to eventually admit the like of Bayern for example to boost its reputation, and Bayern deserve the privilege since they're strong team capable of boosting the competition if they join.
Its is what is written in the documentation currently
 

arthurka

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Neville can do one for me, having been complacent to the Glazers my god it´s been difficult to watch this lot ranting about the clubs they have been waxing lyrical about for years.
It was all fun and games when these clubs brought in millions and players to go with it, I mean City at one point looked like the main subway hub in Manchester with people coming and going like there was no tomorrow.

That was all good because it made the league more attractive players bought for 50m+ was last weeks news and all was well. The FA, the lawmakers and the broadcasters are even more to blame than these owners in my book because the agenda for the Glazers for example was always clear it was to make money and turn that club into a money making machine, but this lot turned a blind eye towards this and never opened up any scenario where these clubs would want more share off the pie due to their size and fan base all over the world.

This should have been dealt with years ago, these owners have already taken the game from the fans. Coming out now with a gasp of surprise how and why this lot would do something like this is pathetic really. There should have been a law implemented when the clubs were being sold left right and center to involve the fans and to give them a voting right in every major decision because otherwise the owners could do what they wanted with these institutions, clubs going under left right and center like Leeds, Portsmouth didn´t that ring any bells that maybe the system in place didn´t hold any water at all. The fact is clubs aren´t like any other company and what these American owners don´t get is that the franchise model in America won´t work for European fans.

Gary at least kind of admitted his guilt but for me it´s all to easy and way too late this scenario shouldn´t have been a surprise to anyone at all..
 

Zlatan 7

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Exactly. This must be stopped for the good of the game. If it means booting out United out of the league then so be it. I love United don’t get me wrong, but I love football first and foremost. I loved playing it, watching it. Highest highs and the lowest of lows — it’s all part of the package. Take one thing away and it becomes a sterile mess.
That’s how I feel, love United, have done for thirty odd years, loved going to watch them , loved those nights where it was honestly a magic feeling of euphoria... but I like football more.

I’d be happy to see the selfish six kicked out even if it meant less money and star player in the league, to keep that competitiveness in sport, that feeling of missing out, or just getting over the line or finally making it, that’s what it’s all about. Not just fecking glory games for the sake of it against some other rich club.

I’m disgusted so called fans want to see this happen. My favourite United chant has always been we’ll keep the red flag flying high and always believed the words to it, never have they been so in doubt.
 

Siorac

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I'm amazed at the lack of PR or spin from the 12 shitter clubs.
Anything they can say will only make the backlash worse. Fans and journalists are all on edge, ready to take apart anything they could bring up to justify this shite.
 

led_scholes

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Perez and Agneli are right; people are losing interest. But that is because Perez, Agnelli etc, have tried so hard to make football a boring oligopoly for the last decades. I grew up watching Lazio and Roma winning the Serie A. I knew since i was a boy about the legendary Napoli with the GOAT in their team. Parma was a big force back then. In the year I was born, Sampdoria have just won the league and few years before it was Verona's time on the sky. In Spain I remember Deportivo and Valencia winning and challenging for the title. In Germany it wasn't just Bayern. Let's be honest, if United was winning all the time we would be bored too.

Yes, football has many problems, but seeing people like Woodward, Perez and Co. portraying themselves as the white knights of football with rays of light is just laughable. Go away, you arrogant liars. You are the problem of football, not the Villas, the Burnleys, the Eibars and the Cagliaris.
 

Zlaatan

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How about not giving 300000 € in wages? They are living in different galaxy.

I’m almost wanting this to be football meltdown by epic proportions and that football ”start” over again.
What would change if players could earn say a maximum of €30k/week? It's not like the owners and clubs would then be consent with the income they have and say no to anyone who waves a huge bag of money in their faces.
 

Sarni

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Part of me feels that if they actually scrapped Arsenal and Tottenham from the whole thing (they haven't really done anything to be there), left 10 'founding clubs' as permanent members and added 14 clubs based on merit on top of this (invited based on their league position), way more people would be on board with this.
 

GhastlyHun

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What a noble stance from a club created to advertise an energy drink.
Who also bastardized the 50+1 principle by only letting a handful of Red Bull dudes become voting members. If anything, this statement is proof they weren't asked to join.
 

NoLogo

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I'm amazed at the lack of PR or spin from the 12 shitter clubs.
Oh the typical marketing states will come "By this change we react to the changes in the market and demands of football fans worldwide. In order to harness the worldwide appeal of our clubs we seek to form a competition that gives the fans worldwide the matches they really crave and can't get enough of. In order to underline our commitment to fan bases around the world we also plan on holding several games in Asia and the US to give those fans to the opportunity to watch their idols compete live on the pitch and at the highest competitive level. Imagine having a CL like final every game and you know what watching the ESL feels like."
 

Oldyella

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If they didn't, wouldn't they sit and line their pockets with profit and never spend on the team? We certainly haven't been terrible due to a lack of investment. Weve been terrible cause of poor decisions.
They need the CL money, but not the CL winners pot. We have generally invested more when finishing outside the top 4 than in. That won't matter anymore. They will try and spend big year one, imagine most of the initial entrants will, and then spending will slowly dry up.
 

That_Bloke

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I'd be interested to see which group of fans are in favour of the Super League. It seems the English fans are almost unanimously against it, but are fans in Europe or further abroad more favourable of the idea?
No worries mate, they're totally alright with you pulling the ladder up forever, getting even richer so you can pillage their players even more than before and playing in at the highest level in Europe every single year, no matter how shit you are, while telling the rest of the world to feck off and die.
 

NoLogo

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Completely and utterly disagree.

The Glazers don't give a shit about us winning the CL.
Of course not. The purpose of the ESL is to not actually having to do well competitively to earn a load of money. Imagine the dream of the Glazers, not having to spend 100M of "their" $$$ on new players to qualify for the honeypot CL. They can have a shite team and still earn loads of money, how awesome is that?
 

Djemba-Djemba

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They need the CL money, but not the CL winners pot. We have generally invested more when finishing outside the top 4 than in. That won't matter anymore. They will try and spend big year one, imagine most of the initial entrants will, and then spending will slowly dry up.
Exactly this
 

littlepeasoup

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Give peas a chance.
Spurs being in this is still an absolute joke to me. It's like letting a really annoying, unpopular kid join your group because his parents have got a nice house and a cheese room.
 

pratyush_utd

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What the hell are you on about? You say the only problem with this is that the founding members can't be relegated yet that's exactly everyone else's problem. It's a massive fecking problem and shouldn't be waved away like you're doing.
That's what i wrote didnt i? Not sure what is so wrong that you are going off. My response was for suggestion that only proper fan view should be taken into consideration. Maybe see what the conversation was on about before jumping to conclusion?

I want UEFA and FA to get fecked because of how they handled the situation of PSG and Man City. One club suddenly buys 400m worth of players in one summer using Oil money and they make that guy part of UEFA decision making body. FA was fine with Russian Oligarchs and Monarchies to buy football club and apparently every other club should welcome competition against bottomless pit of money. But as much as I want to see FA and UEFA ( and FIFA who apparently wants a similar league for Africa) to get fecked, I don't want this ESL.
 

Shipperley

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Can we not just stop this WITHOUT kicking the clubs out of the league and European competition? Everyone is being so hysterical about it.
The way this appears to be heading I don't think the 14 in the PL (or UEFA) can, no, it's the only leverage they have. The six English clubs involved in this super league probably owe the rest of football hundreds of millions in staged payments on transfer deals relating to appearances in these competitions. If they're kicked out for breaching the rules then suddenly all of the clubs owed money have serious recourse for litigation and claiming these transfer payments under breach of contract at a time when the 6's income will be badly impacted while the ESL is being set up. The UK broadcasters will want to sue somebody...whoever they initially go after, the lawsuits will ultimately end up at the feet of these six PL clubs. Likewise, if you ban players from tournaments that puts them at direct odds with their clubs. Are Nike going to pay Harry Kane all of his sponsorship deal if he's not at the Euros etc? In that scenario you then have Harry Kane and his agent at odds with Tottenham's board and pushing for compensation from them potentially. Suddenly the £300m gift payment isn't so attractive. If the 14 in the PL and UEFA ceed ground at this point and allow them to remain in the competitions then their leverage is severely diminished and the six will find a way to go at their convenience, we've already seen that they have no regard for the other clubs involved. I hope any Utd fan that's against this backs the PL14 in kicking them out and not take it personally.
 

Ixion

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Spurs being in this is still an absolute joke to me. It's like letting a really annoying, unpopular kid join your group because his parents have got a nice house and a cheese room.
If it turned out they were in this purely so the other PL sides don't have 15 teams/75% of votes it wouldn't surprise me.