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

Judge Red

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A petty short term pro is that UEFA are about to show City what a real agenda looks like when they play PSG. Neymar will be winning penalties by diving in his own half.
 

NK86

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A petty short term pro is that UEFA are about to show City what a real agenda looks like when they play PSG. Neymar will be winning penalties by diving in his own half.
This made me chuckle. I would fly all the way to Paris, just to see this :lol:
 

NK86

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At the stage, the UEFA and FIFA are so corrupt, that having this breakaway league might actually help reduce their power drastically. There can always be modifications done to this competition in years to come but this outrage will further strengthen the absolute corrupt who are already doing their best to feck up football.
 

meamth

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Why football is dead for some people because of Super League??

A full fledged league to determine who is the best in Europe; season long league standing is interesting as feck.

We can settle once and for all who is the best in Europe.
 

Galactic

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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.
Of course they are not exactly the same, but my point is that they are both controversial at the time when they were proposed.
 

Flying high

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Why football is dead for some people because of Super League??

A full fledged league to determine who is the best in Europe; season long league standing is interesting as feck.

We can settle once and for all who is the best in Europe.
It's not the super league as such that't the problem. The CL isn't far away from that as it is.

The issue is the lack of relegation and extra money for certain clubs.
 

Scholesgoals

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Why football is dead for some people because of Super League??

A full fledged league to determine who is the best in Europe; season long league standing is interesting as feck.

We can settle once and for all who is the best in Europe.
Are you a troll?

This isn't what football is. Do you expect people to go to games in Europe every week? United vs AC Milan for the battle for 5th place in a league with no promotion or relegation. Whats the point. 300m a year for losing every game. What's the point?
 

devilish

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Cons

The local fans will get screwed. Most can't follow United home and away
The EPL will lose some of its charm
The European super league format is a bit crap
The Glazers will become richer

Pros

More money for United. The debt might be finally cleared
No more pressure on Ole to make top 4
Its a big Feck you to the FA whose restrictive rules indirectly lead to the Munich crash and had never been a friend to United.
Its a big Feck you to most local clubs most of who are ABU and had grown rich by leeching on the popularity of the big guns.
Its a big feck off to the corrupt UEFA/FIFA
It will destroy or at least severely hit the 'buy a small club and turn it into the next Shitty/Chelsea' model
Fans abroad might have the opportunity to watch United playing life from the comfort of their country
Less games playing 'football' against Stoke more games against Real Madrid.
Top Serie A clubs will finally see some money coming their way. Seeing former greats like Milan turn into what they are now is pretty disgusting really.

The cons outweights the pros though
 

Acheron

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In theory it sounds like a very attractive competition but it loses it's appeal if those teams aren't competing in their national league as well, and the format requires some tinkering. As it stands is something very Americanized designed in a way to maximize profits but the competitiveness is compromised so I'd rather they make it just a league without the playoff-like tournament they intend to.
 

lex talionis

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I am not aware of any serious pros, al least not from a true fan’s perspective.
 

Stacks

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Yeah playing Liverpool every season has lost it’s charm, same for the derby or games vs. Chelsea.

What the feck are you on about? Big games are always exciting.
I think he means the unpredictable and randomness or drawing one of the other big Europeans giants in a champions league group or knock out tie. As you don't play them often it has an allure and teams don't really know how to set up tactically against each other where as EPL sides know each other inside out and you get quite a few bore draws. Playing them so frequently will just become another habitual event. The premier league teams also share a history and rivalry which makes them firey as well as home bragging rights. None of that will be apparent by playing Barcelona 2-4 times EVERY season
 

Stacks

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In theory it sounds like a very attractive competition but it loses it's appeal if those teams aren't competing in their national league as well, and the format requires some tinkering. As it stands is something very Americanized designed in a way to maximize profits but the competitiveness is compromised so I'd rather they make it just a league without the playoff-like tournament they intend to.
It is am imitation of the NBA league which finishes with a play off and some teams guaranteed participation
 

El Zoido

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Pro’s are that you get guaranteed box office games every week, featuring all the best players.

Cons: it destroys the game as we know it.

Yeah, I’ll pass.
 

stepic

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Do you expect people to go to games in Europe every week?
of course they will.

I think he means the unpredictable and randomness or drawing one of the other big Europeans giants in a champions league group or knock out tie. As you don't play them often it has an allure and teams don't really know how to set up tactically against each other where as EPL sides know each other inside out and you get quite a few bore draws. Playing them so frequently will just become another habitual event. The premier league teams also share a history and rivalry which makes them firey as well as home bragging rights. None of that will be apparent by playing Barcelona 2-4 times EVERY season
you get bore draws in the PL because small teams sit back and defend against the best teams, because that's their only chance of getting anything out of the game.

i find it a little bizarre that people seem to think playing the best clubs in the world more often is somehow a bad thing. i understand the other issues - relegation, etc - but surely seeing more big games every year is one of the pros to this. in the NBA playoffs, you get an enhanced level of performance because you're playing the better teams and because you play the same team over 7 games, that familiarity in fact enhances the tactics to beat each other. there's a good chance playing the big teams more often will also lead to this.
 

Hughes35

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The only pro i can see is that in order to stop it, Uefa / Fifa may have to suggest a way to make the clubs more profitable.

Currently the obvious way for them to do this is by TV rights in their countries, giving the average person access to watch more games. A football netflix for example or giving Man Utd the rights to show their own games on MUTV.

The actual ESL idea is utter rubbish and I would stop supporting Utd (If it goes ahead as currently proposed).
 

Siorac

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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.
I'd love that, yeah, but not sure how it's possible to enforce at this point. Germany started from a different point: private investment was completely outlawed until 1998 and this was the compromise.

I'm pessimistic, either way.
 

manc exile

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Why football is dead for some people because of Super League??

A full fledged league to determine who is the best in Europe; season long league standing is interesting as feck.

We can settle once and for all who is the best in Europe.

yes but doing it the way being proposed kills the national leagues.

which will eventually kill the super league
 

teteus

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Keep this in mind: the ONLY reason why so many of the big clubs want a Super League is having much, much money, and NOW. The likes of Agnelli don't care about competitivity, don't care about the health and popularity of the sport in the long term, don't care about winning, don't care even if any of their clubs finish in last place! All they want is the money they will get now from having the wealthiest and most popular teams playing against each other in every week. It's 100% business and short term maximization of monetary gain. Their mentality is like being a president of company and rob it to the point that it will face bankruptcy after you're gone, but you don't care because you're gone.

Simply participating in the Super League will give any clubs in it over 300 millions, even winning the Champions League doesn't give you that much money. And with SO much money, anyone who participates will be able to strengthen their squads even more and make the financial gap even bigger than it already is!

So, the Super League is repugnant because of the fixed spots that many clubs will have.

Also, the Super League can't be as sucessful as the NBA and NFL because football is structured at its core in a drastically different way to american sports. The american sports have many mechanisms that keep the unequality between teams of growing as big as it is becoming in football, specially after Bosman happened.
 

peridigm

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Players all want to play against the biggest clubs, while playing for the biggest clubs. These clubs probably think they'll be able to suck up all the top talent by offering huge wages and guaranteed top competition for more than a few group games and knock out rounds. Could this thought process be an attempt to push out agents? If all clubs have loads of money, it will ultimately be up to which club the player wants to move to. Think about it this way. You have a player like Haaland who wants to play for a top club. Dortmund are willing to sell for 150m or some ridiculous fee. There is maybe 1or 2 clubs that can pony up this amount at the moment plus meet his wage demands. What if there were 15 or 20 clubs willing to pay that amount. He would go for a lot more than 150m. Where would he go? What if the all possible destinations offered the same wage of 500m/wk? Haaland won't be staying in Dortmund, that's for sure. If the possibility of playing against the top players at the top clubs suddenly disappears next season, players will start to jump ship to the ESL. Hopefully players see this and go in the opposite direction. It will be interesting to see what happens with player contracts and renewals in the coming months. We could see a mass exodus of players with nowhere to go but down. Phil Jones must be smacking his lips right now.
 

El Zoido

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Of course there are pro’s, it would be the most elite club sporting competition ever. It’ll be spectacular, frankly.

The con is that it pisses all over our football structure and everything fair competition should stand for. It should never be a closed league.

Let’s be real, the league itself will be absolutely mint, absolutely no doubt about it imo. But it’s not worth destroying our game over, if the proposals go through it’d be a dark day in football history.
 

RedRover

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Why football is dead for some people because of Super League??

A full fledged league to determine who is the best in Europe; season long league standing is interesting as feck.

We can settle once and for all who is the best in Europe.
And do it all again the next year. With the same teams. And no relegation so most of the games after halfway will be dead-rubbers. Apart from a handful of games at the end, it'll be worse than the CL is now.
 

meamth

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And do it all again the next year. With the same teams. And no relegation so most of the games after halfway will be dead-rubbers. Apart from a handful of games at the end, it'll be worse than the CL is now.
With high profile transfers, bringing the best of the best players to Italian league, Premier league and Spanish league. It'll be big.
 

Random Task

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Pros:
The founding clubs will be divided up an obscene sum of money. The buying of players, their contracts, infrastructure, investment plans and merchandising will receive a hefty boost.
Erm, that's about it.

Cons:
The cost of players will skyrocket beyond belief, along with the players' contracts.
Those outside the founding twelve will no longer be able to compete financially - they struggled before but not to this extent - essentially becoming marginalized.
The "twelve" will be outcasted by the other clubs if this move goes ahead, possibly resulting in any future deals between them becoming non-existent. The divide between the clubs will cause genuine hate.
Big derbies such as United vs Liverpool or Barca vs Real will quickly lose flavour due to the monotony of playing one another too often.
The twelve clubs involved will become franchises with the huge financial boon they get from joining the league.
Some clubs may be forced to relocate - hello Miami United.
Domestic football may no longer be an option for the twelve.
Ditto international football.
The breakaway will cause a huge divide between fans.

Probably more cons but that's the best I can do. I'm shocked Ed Woodward and the Glazers are in favour of such a proposal, but at least they'll get rich.
 

Dansk

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To play the devil's advocate - I'm not at all in favor of the ESL, mind you - there are certainly some subjective pros. There's a lot of people who aren't deeply invested in the football pyramid and prefer to simply watch the big games. I have plenty of mates like that. To them, 90% of football is this boring thing that happens in-between the big matches: the cup finals, the European knockout stages, the Clasicos, the Manchester derbies, etc. If you haven't loved football since you were a kid, you're unlikely to care very much about Crystal Palace vs. Wolverhampton at noon on a Saturday, or Bayern smashing FC Köln 5-0 to go twelve points clear of the 2nd-placed team in the league.

Casual fans want big games that matter, with star players on both sides. To be honest, there's really not a lot of that in today's football. The game is full of dry spells. To many, this is what keeps them from becoming dedicated football fans. You wouldn't become obsessed with a video game that can be played only twice a month for an hour and a half. I once read that football fandom works a lot like religion: if you grew up with it, you can be fanatic about it for the rest of your life. If you didn't have a dad or childhood friends who were serious about football, you're not likely to fall in love with the game because 90% of the sport consists of these frankly uninspiring matches between two mid-table teams with nothing to play for, or utterly one-sided thrashings by a big club against a small one without a single noteworthy player.

The ESL would change that and could potentially push many casual fans to become more invested in football. Of course, there's always the risk that this robs the "big games" of what's special, because it might not remain interesting when there's ten such games every week; but it's also possible that viewers wouldn't become jaded and would continue to be excited about watching the best players in the world competing on a regular basis. People didn't fall out of love with movies when Netflix came around.

It would be a huge blow to the spirit of the game and the history of the domestic leagues, but that won't worry casual fans. It could simply become a historic paradigm shift where the sport's current form becomes football's previous chapter while the next one is the dawn of new generations of fans to whom the ESL is every bit as culturally significant as the domestic format was to those who grew up with that.

The soul and history of domestic football is important to those of us who have spent our whole lives with it. For someone who's currently eight years old and just forming a bond with the sport, the ESL could be as big to them as the English league is to those who have followed that since they were children. And then in fifty years, when the hypothetically succesful ESL is a storied competition, people will regard that as the heart and soul of football. It's really all a matter of perspective and subjectivity.
 
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teteus

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Keep this in mind: the ONLY reason why so many of the big clubs want a Super League is having much, much money, and NOW. The likes of Agnelli don't care about competitivity, don't care about the health and popularity of the sport in the long term, don't care about winning, don't care even if any of their clubs finish in last place! All they want is the money they will get now from having the wealthiest and most popular teams playing against each other in every week. It's 100% business and short term maximization of monetary gain. Their mentality is like being a president of company and rob it to the point that it will face bankruptcy after you're gone, but you don't care because you're gone.

Simply participating in the Super League will give any clubs in it over 300 millions, even winning the Champions League doesn't give you that much money. And with SO much money, anyone who participates will be able to strengthen their squads even more and make the financial gap even bigger than it already is!

So, the Super League is repugnant because of the fixed spots that many clubs will have.

Also, the Super League can't be as sucessful as the NBA and NFL because football is structured at its core in a drastically different way to american sports. The american sports have many mechanisms that keep the unequality between teams of growing as big as it is becoming in football, specially after Bosman happened.
All the UCL Champions if the Super League founders had their UCL titles taken away.

 

UnrelatedPsuedo

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i don't agree, even the American franchises only play the odd game abroad.
Not comparable in my opinion. Only 42% of the country has a passport. They’re insular and protectionist.

If the Stupid League gets green lit, games being played further afield would be normalised quickly. Especially the knock out stages.
 

Andersonson

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This is seen as a disaster while Qatar WC is okey as long as we print some shirts with human rights.

I dont like Super league, but FIFA and UEFA had this shit coming.

Feck 'em
 

L1nk

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Pro's
  1. The clubs participating, and their owners, will make hefty amounts of money (This is a pro for them, not us)
  2. You get to see more matches against the top teams in the world on a more regular basis

Con's
  1. The clubs participating and their owners will make hefty amounts of money and and this will become vastly more expensive for any fan wanting to watch, most likely
  2. You get to see more matches against top teams in the world on a more regular basis, every week, every season, eventually this will get boring as hell and lose its charm quickly, the fact it happens so rarely makes the events themselves extremely appealing.
  3. Virtually no threat to any of the clubs in the ESL, no relegation for them etc, once there is basically a winner of the ESL before the ESL season ends then what, nobody in it is fighting for a spot for a chance at a competition, nobody fighting against relegation, nobody fighting for a trophy, it's pointless.
  4. Zero motivation to do anything in the league, who cares about qualifying for anything or winning anything in the league when you are a part of the ESL making all that money, it will begin to render the league pointless eventually
  5. This will be a big blow for any footballing institution below the big teams, whether this is smaller teams, grassroots football, women's football in it's current state, the finances lost by these will be tremendous
  6. This is being bankrolled by Joel Glazer, Ed Woodward and the banking firm JP Morgan, this is pure American Capatalist greed infecting our football club and the game, there is absolutely no intention from these or the owners of the other clubs to better the sport despite what they may say
There are more i cannot think of right now i'm sure, the main issue for me is you cannot trust these clowns, whatever they say to try and sweeten anything is poison, they'll talk up the ESL but i wouldn't trust a god damn word they say, Ed Woodward was on the phone to UEFA last week saying everything was good even though he'd already signed this, they're all snakes at the top of this club, it really makes me fall out of love with this game.

UEFA and FIFA are corrupt, they need a kick up the ass for sure, and maybe this will be the thing that does that, but come on...
 

Infra-red

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I would say the biggest winners are:

Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juve, AC Milan, Inter: Big clubs playing in dying leagues leagues that would never be able to match the Premier League for attractiveness to sponsors/broadcasters. With a single stroke of a pen, they will now have parity with the big Premier League clubs in terms of revenue (while the Premier League itself will be severely diminished).

Spurs, Arsenal: Neither of these clubs are a relevant force in European football, either because they have fallen on hard times, or because they never really achieved anything significant in the game to begin with. They will now be dining at the top table for at least the next 20 years. Levy's dream at Spurs has finally been realised and Glaston will surely be along any moment now to begin gloating.


The biggest losers:

United, Liverpool. Both clubs have given up the advantages they enjoyed relative to Arsenal/Spurs and, thanks to their involvement in the Premier League, the other big European clubs. They have tarnished their reputations as working class clubs, soured their relationship with their own fans and done a great deal to damage football in the country in which they have historically been the greatest champions. With little incentive to compete in a closed shop league with equitable distribution of TV/commercial rights, expect the American owners of both clubs to tighten the purse strings in terms of transfers/wages and cream off the profits for themselves.

Other losers: The fans, domestic football and the continued viability of many clubs.
 

RedRover

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With high profile transfers, bringing the best of the best players to Italian league, Premier league and Spanish league. It'll be big.
How's that any different to what we have now? Real and Barca will have the pick of the best players, because that's the best place to live. Foreign players won't be coming to Manchester or Liverpool if they can live there.

It's no different from what we have in the CL, other than it's more predictable. Playing the same teams, every year and loads more games, loads of which will count for nothing after the first few rounds.
 

UnrelatedPsuedo

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This is seen as a disaster while Qatar WC is okey as long as we print some shirts with human rights.

I dont like Super league, but FIFA and UEFA had this shit coming.

Feck 'em
“My girlfriend has Herpes so I may as well Fcuk her friend who has ghonnorea”

Strange take dude.
 

Revan

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Of course there are pro’s, it would be the most elite club sporting competition ever. It’ll be spectacular, frankly.

The con is that it pisses all over our football structure and everything fair competition should stand for. It should never be a closed league.

Let’s be real, the league itself will be absolutely mint, absolutely no doubt about it imo. But it’s not worth destroying our game over, if the proposals go through it’d be a dark day in football history.
It won't destroy the game, it will just change it a bit. But in the grand scheme of things, it will not change anything.

Yes, some clubs who might have qualified in a fairer system, won't get qualified there. But more than 99% of the European clubs (I would go as far as saying more than 99.9%) do not have a hope in hell to ever qualify for UCL anyway. Yeah, Leicester might be there once instead of now twice, but most of the clubs are not even in the league system.

I agree with you that the league is going to be spectacular. I would have preferred a relegation system, with two groups of European League 1 where the relegated teams go (and the relegated teams from European League 1 are replaced by teams who do well in national competitions).

But, it is not the end of football as we know it. For most clubs, nothing will change. For some like West Ham, the only thing that will change is the illusion of qualifying for UCL, but that was an illusion all along. And for some like United, the threat of not being able to qualify for UCL will be gone.
 

littlepeasoup

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It won't destroy the game, it will just change it a bit. But in the grand scheme of things, it will not change anything.

Yes, some clubs who might have qualified in a fairer system, won't get qualified there. But more than 99% of the European clubs (I would go as far as saying more than 99.9%) do not have a hope in hell to ever qualify for UCL anyway. Yeah, Leicester might be there once instead of now twice, but most of the clubs are not even in the league system.

I agree with you that the league is going to be spectacular. I would have preferred a relegation system, with two groups of European League 1 where the relegated teams go (and the relegated teams from European League 1 are replaced by teams who do well in national competitions).

But, it is not the end of football as we know it. For most clubs, nothing will change. For some like West Ham, the only thing that will change is the illusion of qualifying for UCL, but that was an illusion all along. And for some like United, the threat of not being able to qualify for UCL will be gone.
Is it though? Without the threat of relegation, or consequences for playing badly, there are going to be so many dead rubber games where it literally doesn't matter if either team playing wins loses or draws - glorified exhibition games for the excitement of no one.

Competition without competition is pointless and f*cking boring.