Debating the pros/cons of the "European Super League"

The Corinthian

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The Corinthian

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Playing top European clubs every year will be boring and eventually it'll lose it's charm.
I agree with this - there's something special about drawing a Real Madrid, or a Juventus, or even a fellow PL team etc in a European knock out tie. That will disappear with the ESL.

Some of our greatest nights in Europe have been playing these calibre of clubs in the CL knock out rounds.
 

Wilbursaurus

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Pro: Nothing
Cons: I'll be walking away from my club I've supported since I was little. Over 25 years thrown away.
 

predator

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The infrastructure around the stadium requires an overhaul for about £800m, that includes moving train tracks, forcing homeowners out of their homes, and quite a bit of cityplanning, before the stadium can be extended.

There's been cost estimates done on this before and the location of Old Trafford simply isn't able to defend the cost.

The only alternative is a new stadium.
Yeah I've read about it in the past. It's mad though that it would cost that much to mirror the SAF stand.

I personally would prefer OT to stay. Its a beautiful and unique stadium despite it being dated compared to modern ones.
 

FlawlessThaw

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One pro I suppose is that at least Murdoch isn't getting a piece of the action, it's probably why the outrage is so vociferous in the media right now.
 

Bastian

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Pro: This could lead to a much needed shakeup, in a dramatically different manner than the Glazer's and co planned out.
Con: It could not.
 

Someone

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Pros:
  • More money for clubs
  • More big games
  • More domestic clubs will have a chance to play in Europe if the CL keeps going
Cons:
  • The gap between those clubs and the rest will be bigger than ever
  • The domestic leagues for those participating will mean less. Think of this season, what would United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs be doing if they aren't in the race by Christmas. There would be nothing to play for. And if you aren't doing well in the SL either, the entire season will be meaningless at a very early stage for a lot of clubs. What's the motivation.
This will hurt the premier league more than any other domestic league in Europe. Games outside the six clubs will be much more interesting.
 

Crashoutcassius

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So how it worked just fine for decades before the CL.
Was the first division less competitive? My arse it was.
Well it is a combo of there being another home and away league running concurrently to the premier League, as well as there being no incentive to finish higher than 17th in premiership ... Do you not see how running a bigger league alongside the premiership could cause premiership to lose importance ?
 

ROFLUTION

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A big con:
Surely with time one of the 5 extra spaces would be open to some new Saudi Arabia sportswashing club, and why not have a club in the competition that resides in Doha, or wherever? How about a big chinese club?

It'll create some new clubs without history, and could be a World-club competition with time.
 

Stacks

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Pros

- OT may likely be extended

- Seeing the best players against each other every week will not get boring for me, for a long time

- the city of Manchester will benefit from the extra tourism and glamour that comes with having 2 teams in the super league and having European giants visit our city 4 or 5 times a month.

- the super league has the opportunity to learn from the mistakes that UEFA, FIFA and the FA have made.

- Platini and Blatter won't know what's hit them.

Cons

- champions league anthem gone along with all the goosebumps of seeing us lineup against a big European powerhouse with the whole show.

- What is the point of it unless you actually have a chance of winning it? What happens if you finish second/runner up? More money?

- clubs lower down the ranks will just feel like their ceilings are limited because they don't have the stature of the super league clubs. This will be devastating for lower league football and for kids dreaming of making it onto the biggest stage when they are older.

- transfer fees will be extortionate in correspondence with inflation as a result of this huge influx of money.

- if we have the same money as Porto, spurs or juventus or any of the clubs then 9/10 players would prefer to live in those places than Manchester. I don't see how we can have the edge in the market. Especially if salary caps come in. Sad but true. Because history and prestige has gone out the window hasn't it?

- given how insensitive the manner of this announcement has been, you can bet your ass these founding fathers just do not give a toss about the fans and for them it's simply a money making scheme.
We are basically levelling the financial power across a select few clubs because teams like Arsenal, Milan have fallen off so now they need a cheat code. They will all now be able to compete with us financially so we may lose our buying power to a degree.
 

jontheblue

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A big con:
Surely with time one of the 5 extra spaces would be open to some new Saudi Arabia sportswashing club, and why not have a club in the competition that resides in Doha, or wherever? How about a big chinese club?

It'll create some new clubs without history, and could be a World-club competition with time.

One assumes they haven't ruled out the idea of including some of the existing biggest clubs outside Europe, for instance Boca, River, or one of the Brazilian clubs. Whether they would want to enhance the fortunes of a club outside Europe and thus make it harder to use the current disparity in riches to get their best players is another matter.
 

Lennon7

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The only, only reason I can see something like this being in any way justified is that the big clubs rely heavily on revenue from Europe due to astronomical wages and signing expectations. But even then, awfully run clubs like ours have been absent from the champions league more in the last 8 years than ever, and we’re still generating massive, record breaking turnover figures.

That’s it though, besides that it’s a disgusting concept that is clearly born out of the business mindset in football now. The horrible cnuts that run our clubs need to be run out of town and we need to fecking start again. I’d happily support a lesser United team than what we’re becoming/have already become.
 

Lennon7

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don't forget Juve, Milan, Inter. absolute embarrassment.
Juve? You mean the ones who were penalised and relegated a decade and a half or so ago?

To be honest, I understand Gary’s frustration in that these clubs are historically all about the fans - but that died a long time ago. Something like this has been inevitable. It’s just even more disgraceful how they’ve gone about it, in secret, mid season and ahead of the euros. I hope they do a U turn but if they do expect a similar abhorrent project to pop up in the next 5 years anyway.

Football is dead.
 

Stacks

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Juve? You mean the ones who were penalised and relegated a decade and a half or so ago?

To be honest, I understand Gary’s frustration in that these clubs are historically all about the fans - but that died a long time ago. Something like this has been inevitable. It’s just even more disgraceful how they’ve gone about it, in secret, mid season and ahead of the euros. I hope they do a U turn but if they do expect a similar abhorrent project to pop up in the next 5 years anyway.

Football is dead.
Its more so that the financial gap between the super 12-20 is going to be even more extreme than the rest of teams in their nation and its simply not fair. Why should Leicester or Everton have to have a ceiling placed above them while underperforming Spurs and Arsenal get all this guaranteed money as one of the "founding fathers?"
 

Crashoutcassius

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A big con:
Surely with time one of the 5 extra spaces would be open to some new Saudi Arabia sportswashing club, and why not have a club in the competition that resides in Doha, or wherever? How about a big chinese club?

It'll create some new clubs without history, and could be a World-club competition with time.
That's surely the plan. 3bn buys you a spot
 

stepic

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Pros

More big games between the best teams in the world, no more shite cl group games, no more waiting for the knock out games before the tournament gets remotely interesting

Cons

The promotion/relegation issue is the main problem. Just doesn’t seem fair that a founding club could finish bottom but be spared relegation, whereas a team who got promoted into the SL gets relegated just because they’re not a founding member.
 

Bird Nerd

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I think that this idea was fleshed out with zero thought, or care, of the impact on the history of clubs and fans and 100% care about ownership and lining pockets. I do not care for it one bit and see no way that that I will give a care about the super league.
 

Red Stone

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The key differences being:

A) There was no European competition at the time, so the European Cup was filling a void in European football and further expanding a game that was rapidly gaining popularity. The World Cup had already been a thing for over two decades, and football bigwigs had been toying with the idea of similar competitions for clubs since the '30s as well, so it was only a matter of time until it happened regardless of opposition from national FAs.

and, most importantly...

B) Qualification for the European Cup came through winning a national league or by being reigning champions. There was no guaranteed entry for anyone. The Super League is basically mega clubs trying to guarantee themselves stacks upon stacks of TV rights money every year without having to work for it by meeting the entry criteria for the top competitions.
 

Paul_Scholes18

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Pro I can finally stop watching United and get more time to other things.
Con The sport is dead and it feels like someone killed a part in me.
 

Van Piorsing

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I hear a lot on the internet United's income will be beyond imagination now, but there's absolutely nothing on addressing Glazer's debt flooding this football club.

So many cons, I can't even fathom how is that even a debate. Try win this league in which Fiorentino Perez is main chairman, is there something more biased towards cynical elitism than this ?
 

11101

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Pros:
More big games
Maybe we will finally have an online stream
The existing football structure needs taking apart one way or another
UEFA and FIFA execs will have to buy their own Ferraris now
PSG not in it


Cons:
City are in it
Everybody who is not part of the new league will suffer


Undecided:
Will it cost more for the average fan or not? Impossible to say, it's not like the current lot have ever done anything that wasn't purposely set up to screw every last cent out of the game.
 

Crashoutcassius

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Pros

More big games between the best teams in the world, no more shite cl group games, no more waiting for the knock out games before the tournament gets remotely interesting

Cons

The promotion/relegation issue is the main problem. Just doesn’t seem fair that a founding club could finish bottom but be spared relegation, whereas a team who got promoted into the SL gets relegated just because they’re not a founding member.
The structure is one giant group stage of 18 games followed by the same knockout structure as the CL, all this does is add a heap more group games with much less variety of who competed
 

Reapersoul20

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It might result in such widespread condemnation that it will fuel real change and a fairer structure (assuming the ESL is completely disbanded and all of the pricks who birthed the idea are lined up and shot).
 

stepic

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The structure is one giant group stage of 18 games followed by the same knockout structure as the CL, all this does is add a heap more group games with much less variety of who competed
if you think playing group games against the likes of FC Midtjylland and FK Krasnodar is better than weekly games against the best teams in Europe because of 'variety' then fair enough. but i'm guessing most people don't particualrly care about playing the minows of Europe. or they certainly didn't until now.
 

talking robot

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Here's the thing though: the only way to avoid that all-out civil war is if UEFA basically caves in and grants the biggest clubs the closed shop format they've been working towards for years now. What deeper reforms would possibly satisfy these clubs that came up with this idea?
For example if the UK, Spanish and Italian governments were to step in and impose a German style 50+1 ownership structure to the clubs. Unbridled capitalism is taking football to the brink because the clubs' owners are responding to shareholder interests instead of fan interests. I'm not a lawyer though, so don't know if that (or something similar in spirit) is technically/legally possible, and what relevant body could force the issue. For UEFA to have any teeth, it will need government help at some level I think.
 

Cultured left ankle

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Is this Brexit all over again?

Yes change is badly needed in football. Anyone thinking that this greed inspired protectionism plan will solve these issues is being wildly optomistic.

At best, it's the club's way of forcing uefa to act. But even that is a long shot and highly unlikely to be their motivation.

I had the same thought. there's an argument of we'll 'take back control' of football from uefa or whatever, but we're not, are we? several billionaires are looking to make an extra buck (I've seen similar arguments about brexit as well).

If only people could be as unified in the brexit debate as here...
 

UnrelatedPsuedo

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I don't think that will happen that regularly, just because the odd game would bring in money, but you have to remember all these clubs have massive stadiums which bring in a massive revenue, plus i would negate home and away value. So i suspect it wouldnt happen that often.


The tournament at the end of the season maybe is played at global locations I suppose.
You’re mad. It will obviously become a travelling circus.
 

ThinkTank@Cafe

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Pros:

1. Progress often first come in form of pure evil

Cons:

1. my personal: death of Champions League. I love CL, it’s anthem, atmosphere, even the domestic race for the right to play in it (just realized how thrilling it was)

2. agree with all above
 

UnrelatedPsuedo

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Pros

More big games between the best teams in the world, no more shite cl group games, no more waiting for the knock out games before the tournament gets remotely interesting

Cons

The promotion/relegation issue is the main problem. Just doesn’t seem fair that a founding club could finish bottom but be spared relegation, whereas a team who got promoted into the SL gets relegated just because they’re not a founding member.
To address your Pro, we could just remove seedings from CL group draws. Having a few groups of death is way more fun. Plus you see some decent smaller sides playing meaningful and competitive group games, rather than get spanked out of sight in all 6 games.

Or.... if these teams really want to play each other more often, divide the 12 into 3 CL Groups every single year. Two qualify. Every single game would matter.

Both better solutions than nuking football.