European Super League

Do you want the ESL to happen?


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amolbhatia50k

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Perez isn't giving up! :lol:

I seriously don't know what else they can do to make this a reality.
Well you shouldn't have made it an exclusive club you utter moron. Shameless pricks. People can take new ideas being introduced but not ones that favour a select few.
 

Mr. Ant

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Maybe the Italians and spanards will create a mini in-season league for themselves to be played parallel to their domestic league. Maybe invite the 3 portugese giants as well.
To be fair I would have no problem if they went and played a friendly tournament in Dubai during the winter break to earn some money. But this super league needs to go away and never return.
 

el3mel

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Tbf by pretty much all accounts ourselves, Liverpool and Real were the ringleaders of this shit-show so I have no issue with us taking particular flack.

From other clubs, that is. Not from the dipshit clubs who jumped off the cliff with us.

Pinning it on Arsenal seems particularly unfair given I would assume they were just delighted to be invited along by the big kids.
Don't forget Juve. Agnelli was also a leading figure in this shit show.
 

el3mel

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These last 2 days were quite fun though, I can't complain. Finally an interesting thing to discuss and follow news about rather than the usual shit of United being good or not and Ole in/out.
 

tenpoless

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These last 2 days were quite fun though, I can't complain. Finally an interesting thing to discuss and follow news about rather than the usual shit of United being good or not and Ole in/out.
What's really funny is this was the reason why Ed got the sack. Didn't see that one coming.
 

amolbhatia50k

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Klopp said as much as he could, henderson and the liverpool players after a presumably coordinated meeting released simultaneous identical posts against the ESL. We at that point had not yet formally withdrawn from this abomination. Henderson also called a captains meeting for the PL captains.

Now is not the time for tribalism and points scoring between fans pal, now is the time to unite whatever fanbase you are from against these billionaire owners attempting to centralise the wealth power and influence of this game. They attempted to take from us what the great people of our respective institutions built. Please just forget rivalry for the foreseeable future and help unite against these unrelenting parasites and their insatiable greed.
Absolutely. Nothing to do with rivalry tbh. I empathize with players and managers just being pawns in all of this but I don't want to put anyone on a padestal. Like Pique coming out with that statement once everyone is already uniting and everything is crashing is welcome but nothing special. Same with others from United and Liverpool too. I'm wary to giving them too much credit when the wave had already begun. Maybe I'm being too cynical and need to praise courage to say something as opposed to silence (which is an option).

If anything, the biggest short term winners here are the fans and how instead of accepting their stronger position, they got together and opposed this nonsense.

Having said that, as a United fan, I think our job is not over. We have to change the system at our club and English football. That we have leaders who can and want to do this is disturbing.
 

Fridge chutney

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The most disappointing thing about the timing of the ESL announcement and the league's immediate demise was that it overshadowed today's Essex derby between Colchester United and Southend United.

Colchester prevailed 2-0
 

Liver_bird

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Absolutely. Nothing to do with rivalry tbh. I empathize with players and managers just being pawns in all of this but I don't want to put anyone on a padestal. Like Pique coming out with that statement once everyone is already uniting and everything is crashing is welcome but nothing special. Same with others from United and Liverpool too. I'm wary to giving them too much credit when the wave had already begun. Maybe I'm being too cynical and need to praise courage to say something as opposed to silence (which is an option).

If anything, the biggest short term winners here are the fans and how instead of accepting their stronger position, they got together and opposed this nonsense.

Having said that, as a United fan, I think our job is not over. We have to change the system at our club and English football. That we have leaders who can and want to do this is disturbing.
Completely agreed mate, I’m probably jumping the gun by praising the likes of Neville and Carra. I’m just looking at it from a one problem at a time perspective and stopping this was at forefront of that. Make no mistake uefa are culpable as are sky. For now we’re fortunate that they’re on our side but we have to keep pushing for some sort of proper reform. That’s why I’m backing the players and managers, they earn a fortune from this game but unlike some of these owners they have earned it. We the fans are ultimately the ones they’re trying to step on the necks of. Continuing to unite until proper changes are enacted is paramount. As a fan of Liverpool it’s great for me that you keep Woodward but as a fan of the game I love that he’s gone. Driving out these owners is the next step.

We’re just in an unfortunate position where it’s no win no matter who we have as allies i.e boris and sky. UEFA and Fifa and other broadcasters are by no means the paragons of virtue they’ll no doubt be seen as off the back of this.

At the end of the day it’s our clubs and it’s ethos who have been raked over the coals and will bear the brunt of this whilst these owners hide. Taking the fight to that is going to be a difficult battle to win. So it’s important we all celebrate wins like today like you said and recognise we still have battles to fight that are seemingly insurmountable.
 

Majima

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Klopp said as much as he could, henderson and the liverpool players after a presumably coordinated meeting released simultaneous identical posts against the ESL. We at that point had not yet formally withdrawn from this abomination. Henderson also called a captains meeting for the PL captains.

Now is not the time for tribalism and points scoring between fans pal, now is the time to unite whatever fanbase you are from against these billionaire owners attempting to centralise the wealth power and influence of this game. They attempted to take from us what the great people of our respective institutions built. Please just forget rivalry for the foreseeable future and help unite against these unrelenting parasites and their insatiable greed.
Absolutely. All the players, managers, and fans in this country stand all as one from now on. Any club rivalries are put on hold altogether as far as I'm concerned. For as long as they're still here, they're not going to stop attacking. We need to oust these abominations out of our country, once and for all.
 

Striker10

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I'm surprised they all pulled out, wouldn't it have been easier if they had said they will rethink or change the rules of relegation and promotion into the super league? I'm glad it's over but surprised how quickly they abandoned their plan.
don't be surprised. They only cared about their profit. Therefore, there is no way they would allow fair competition. They want the money and that's the priority. These are not football people. They're opportunistic globalist money men who didn't care about losing supporters, us 'legacy fans'.... as they happy to sell it to a new breed of idiot.
 

Liver_bird

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Absolutely. All the players, managers, and fans in this country stand all as one from now on. For as long as they're still here, they're not going to stop attacking. We need to oust these abominations out of our country, once and for all.
Bang on pal
 

sglowrider

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Ultimately there will be some major shift in powers. UEFA, Premier League PLC, Sky Sports are antiquated structures that are starting to outlive their utility.

In other industries, cutting out the 'middleman' or more cost-efficient delivery platforms are the way to go. Companies like Uber, Amazon, Deliveroos whether in taxis, ride-sharing or food delivery to Netflix are all leveraging and offing the ability to lower costs to the end-users. They all kick out the satellite/cable broadcasters or the company that holds all the control of the cars/drivers and access to customers etc. Disney taking back control of the distribution of its own content with their own channel, Disney+

Change will be inevitable. This will be the first attempt at content producers trying to wrestle back control of offering their content direct to fans/customers.

So my guess will be MUTV Live will be the Glazer's next foray into this new changing landscape. I for one don't have an issue paying money direct to MUTV (I already do) than to the likes of Sky, Comcast etc.
 

Jaqen H'ghar

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The most disappointing thing about the timing of the ESL announcement and the league's immediate demise was that it overshadowed today's Essex derby between Colchester United and Southend United.

Colchester prevailed 2-0
Rest assured that the Essex derby was always in the minds, hearts and was closely followed by all fans, real and plastics. There's nothing in the world that could overshadow the Essex derby.
 

Devil may care

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This cry that the European system is broken boils down to the rich wanting an even bigger cut, that's the only reason it doesn't work for them, the ESL idea is for them to bathe in gold and then throw scraps down to the pleb clubs off their table.
 

Pow

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These last 2 days were quite fun though, I can't complain. Finally an interesting thing to discuss and follow news about rather than the usual shit of United being good or not and Ole in/out.
Nice to know we can actually all put tribalism aside and come together as fans as football. Even I had a smile on my face reading the news on agnelli and Woodward the clowns left their uefa jobs and now have no job. Great to see.
 

Teja

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A slow fade into obscurity? We are something like the 4th richest club in the world and remain one of the biggest clubs in the world. The PL recently got one of the biggest ever TV deals.
We remain attractive for now, but we're talking 10-15 years into the future here. If you look at football as an entertainment product and clubs as competing amongst each other for fans, City went from basically 0 --> 80m fans world wide in the past 6-7 years. PSG playing in a useless league grew to 40m supporters. I can't find clear data here but I'm pretty sure (atleast anecdotally speaking) that we've underperformed the overall top football clubs in terms of fan growth, so the threat of slowly losing fans and losing money as a result is very real. You can scoff at this vision of football but that's how clubs make money these days.

I think more than the PL money, the CL money is what matters for all english clubs. We're at a point where one expensive mistake can result in a death spiral e.g., we buy Haaland -> he flops -> we don't get CL -> Have to pay Haaland so we can't sign more players -> No CL etc. That's our hopes down the drain for 3-4 years at the very least. Oil clubs just don't have the same issues. Make a mistake? Big deal, throw some money at the problem and it'll go away.

The deck is stacked against us and sure through some good management we might still be fine but it's also entirely possible we end up w 30yrs of nothing like Pool have or in the 9th place in the table like Arsenal are right now and to me the latter scenario looks more likely. If not now, in 5-10 years after Newcastle are taken over by the Saudis.

Everyone recognises that UEFA and FIFA are terrible corrupt organisations. Everyone recognises how bad oil clubs are. But most people recognise that the ESL was one of the most ridiculous "solutions" which if anything, would have made things far far worse.
IMO The ESL was mostly about clubs recognizing that they can't prevent big money in football and trying to preserve their place, or atleast excluding the nouveau riche, from the elite circle. As a side effect they've excluded inspirational success stories like Leicester / WHU which is a terrible thing. I think if they had control of the narrative a bit and also had some open discussions instead of doing it all behind closed doors like a bunch of super villains, they'd have had more success.

Apart from the lack of promotion / relegation I don't think the ESL wasn't a bad idea. A European cup competition with the best European teams playing in it? I think everyone (fans, clubs, sponsors, broadcasters) would've been happy with that. The current CL + EL format is an abomination.
 

Arruda

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So Real Madrid will play in the ESL alone, win five in a row, and then the rest will slowly join and play catch up for eternity with them on the historical record.
 

RedRonaldo

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The whole thing is just a joke and total disgrace. If the founding clubs are so scared of public/fans/UEFA/FIFA rejection, why would they decide to make such a bold move without consulting the public/fans beforehand? It’s not likes it’s a small decision which affects no one you know, sure they would know they would piss off everyone?
 

Daysleeper

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Interesting that Juve haven't given Agnelli has resigned.
I did find that very odd. I mean there’s pretty much 0% of super League happening and now most of the teams are scrambling to put out a PR statement (Barca included) so not sure what the hold up with Juve is.
 

Daysleeper

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The whole thing is just a joke and total disgrace. If the founding clubs are so scared of public/fans/UEFA/FIFA rejection, why would they decide to make such a bold move without consulting the public/fans beforehand? It’s not likes it’s a small decision which affects no one you know, sure they would know they would piss off everyone?
I think they underestimated the backlash. They figured there would be some grumbling but then people would “get over it” they completely misjudged the fans reaction because this league is setup to get more of the Asian/foreign markets as oppose to the loyal fan market.
 

Real Name

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Klopp said as much as he could, henderson and the liverpool players after a presumably coordinated meeting released simultaneous identical posts against the ESL. We at that point had not yet formally withdrawn from this abomination. Henderson also called a captains meeting for the PL captains.

Now is not the time for tribalism and points scoring between fans pal, now is the time to unite whatever fanbase you are from against these billionaire owners attempting to centralise the wealth power and influence of this game. They attempted to take from us what the great people of our respective institutions built. Please just forget rivalry for the foreseeable future and help unite against these unrelenting parasites and their insatiable greed.
Hear hear!!
 

Ole's screen

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I think they underestimated the backlash. They figured there would be some grumbling but then people would “get over it” they completely misjudged the fans reaction because this league is setup to get more of the Asian/foreign markets as oppose to the loyal fan market.
Honestly who even in the Asia market was for this sham of an idea? Were they just chasing the people who watch highlights on youtube?
 

roonster09

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What was the reaction for ESL in Spain and Italy?

In England almost everyone was against it, with media losing their shit, same with fans. I saw few positive articles from Spanish media (posted by Sport witness), wonder what the fans thought about all this?

The clown Barca fan (Rafael Hernandez or whatever shit it is) was fully for ESL, going by his twitter.
 

royalewithcheese2006

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don't be surprised. They only cared about their profit. Therefore, there is no way they would allow fair competition. They want the money and that's the priority. These are not football people. They're opportunistic globalist money men who didn't care about losing supporters, us 'legacy fans'.... as they happy to sell it to a new breed of idiot.
A lot of those new breed of idiot exist on this forum too. 'Football isn't a working man's game anymore, so the ESL is fine', 'Gary used to be paid by the glazers, so he has no right to speak (plus other false equivalences)' and most importantly that they'd 'want to see United vs Real every week'. Absolute joke how someone can back this.
Wonder where those folks are at right now. Defending the ESL in one of the Italian or Spanish clubs' forums?
 

Ludens the Red

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So..

Barca get 220m for Neymar, waste 280m on Coutinho and Dembele, then raise a loan to sign a player whose position is already occupied by the best player in the world for 120m. Madrid rebuilds its stadium for almost 800m then wastes 140m on a player with one year left on his contract. Juve signs a 33 year old for 100m and probably pays him around 50m per season. T Luckily there's Perez to identify the root of all these problems: The CL simply isn't profitable enoug!
:lol:
 

Daysleeper

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Honestly who even in the Asia market was for this sham of an idea? Were they just chasing the people who watch highlights on youtube?
That’s exactly it. It’s more for casual who only want to watch the biggest matchups. It’s the same thing when clasico sometimes would start at 12 noon local time to accommodate the Asian market as oppose to giving it a prime time evening start. They want as many Super matchups as possible as oppose to big teams vs little teams.
 

royalewithcheese2006

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Honestly who even in the Asia market was for this sham of an idea? Were they just chasing the people who watch highlights on youtube?
I'm from India and another poster from here mentioned in one of the earlier threads. there are some of us who stay up till 3AM to watch United play Bristol in the carabao cup. And then there are others who only stay up when there's a Ronaldo vs Messi or a hyped up UCL game or the later stages of the UCL because there are big names involved.
I guess you can sell the idea of the ESL to the latter group.I would say the target audience is not small but I doubt it's sustainable. Too many big games like this regularly would have made this competition a glorified pre season tournament and everyone would have lost interest.
 
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Chicharo

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None of the 6 actually deserve any praise. Infact it's even more embarrassing for City, Chelsea and United to pull out so early. It make them look even more incompetent. Why bother with this in the first place? Whose idea was it?
Isn't it obvious? It was Glazers' idea that was supposed to be carried out by Woodward. All behind Ole's and players' backs. Once it was all over they simple thought that everyone would have to accept it since the clubs had already agreed on everything, and that, as Daysleeper said, people will get over it. Same goes for other clubs.
But they obviously didn't count on the consequences, threats by UEFA and even English government, the fact that the fans would be so angry that they would, say, block the street as Chelsea's fans did, that players would be pissed off and all other things that in the end made them surrender.
 

Lee565

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Having listened to sky sports news announce it, it made me feel sick, not because the super league has been abandoned but because they are acting like they are the gate keepers of good morality when the reality is they are just a bunch of greedy hypocrites that are slightly lesser of two evils and should do one themselves.