Football Super league rumours yet again !!

[ted fenton]

"Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur all agree to plan. Five English clubs are among 11 European teams who have signed up to a breakaway Super League in an extraordinary development on the eve of Uefa's announcement of a new Champions League format. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/18/sports/soccer/super-league-united-liverpool-juventus-madrid.html"

[threesixty]

"If you were Bayern, PSG, Napoli etc wouldn’t this be seen as an opportunity to make your bigger? I think the remaining domestic leagues could become more competitive and interesting. Maybe if the PL can convince Man City and Chelsea to stand down (clubs that really don’t need the money) I think the SL will be kind of fucked really. The PL is kind of weird as it has 3 clubs with endless money. Keep 2 of them and the pl is still a good competition. I would be working overtime to just nab Man City and Chelsea back and say fuck off to JP Morgan and co. It’s not like those 2 clubs need money is it? It’s only because they think their brands depend on them playing against the top clubs."

[Side of Ham]

"As always BRAND protection is the key to this, the top six are decided by which brands can be best marketed to a worldwide audience at the time of creation of this 'protected' league."

[Mike Oxsaw]

", 12:10 Mon Apr 19 ...or spurs moving to Tel Aviv/Jerusalem."

[BRANDED]

"So. Here's one way it could play out. The ESL is created. The money backs this. The Premier league and The EFLs are basically starved of money. The clubs will either go bust or have to down size. This makes the ""product"" like the current third division footy. Some of the clubs that survive just become feeder clubs. However, the ESL will put their B teams up for inclusion in the old leagues once the fallout has happened. These B teams are infinitely better than the A teams of the non ESL clubs so these rich clubs dominate all the competitions anyway. ;)"

[,]

"So far no French club has been named as part of this breakaway. That doe not matter though because although the FFF have condemned the proposals there is nothing in the future to stop one of the English six, like Arsenal, moving it’s franchise elsewhere. The owners of these clubs will own a place in their league regardless and so they can play from where they like."

[Mike Oxsaw]

"If none of these 15 founding clubs can be relegated - ever - what's to prevent them from minimising their costs by not buying any more players and eventually playing their stiffs/tea-ladies in these ""big"" games?"

[Sven Roeder]

fraser Didnt want to steal anyones research As twoleftfeet pointed out we have gained 6 pts (Spurs 4 Arsenal 1 Man City 1) & checked myself that Leicester have 16. We now have a game in hand as well with only Chelsea on our original fixtures Which is the best day for the open top bus parade?

[Russ of the BML]

"Full Claret Jacket 11:46 Mon Apr 19 Good post. And you see the American influence here. Franchises in a format with no promotion or relegation. It's so outside of what traditional football is about. As others have said, a small part of me wants this to happen so that it generates a new chapter for football in its traditional form. Let these cunts fuck off. I really couldn't give a flying fuck if I watch any of these clubs again. The CL bores the tits off my until the 1-4 finals anyway."

[Takashi Miike]

"""They will all be remaining in the premier league with even more financial resources than they already have.......no one will be able to compete its a joke"" they won't if they're getting a guaranteed extra £300m a season that's not available to the remaining fourteen clubs, it can't be allowed to happen"

[,]

"This is yet another stage in the evolution of football and one that has been well signalled for some time. Once the so called big clubs became owned, with the exception of RM and Barca, by foreigners it was obvious what would transpire. The real aim is not so much to set up their own independent league as much as to come to any sort of arrangement that guarantees the position and status of these clubs ( a situation where there is no relegation in other words ). We have known for some time that to club owners stadium fans count for nothing because they are minor financial contributors. The reality that it’s not fans growing away from clubs rather it’s the other way around might now finally hit home to us. We can speculate what this super league will be like with clubs playing “home” matches all over the world to satisfy their global fan bases, games that are rigged ( insofar as two top teams field reserve sides ) to save their stars legs, games being played 24/7 etc. Football dystopia. And you know what, don’t be surprised if the mug fans at the bottom of the food chain lap it up."

[,]

"This is yet another stage in the evolution of football and one that has been well signalled for some time. Once the so called big clubs became owned, with the exception of RM and Barca, by foreigners it was obvious what would transpire. The real aim is not so much to set up their own independent league as much as to come to any sort of arrangement that guarantees the position and status of these clubs ( a situation where there is no relegation in other words ). We have known for some time that to club owners stadium fans count for nothing because they are minor financial contributors. The reality that it’s not fans growing away from clubs rather it’s the other way around might now finally hit home to us. We can speculate what this super league will be like with clubs playing “home” matches all over the world to satisfy their global fan bases, games that are rigged ( insofar as two top teams field reserve sides ) to save their stars legs, games being played 24/7 etc. Football dystopia. And you know what, don’t be surprised if the mug fans at the bottom of the food chain lap it up."

[Hammer and Pickle]

Wonder which media distributors they are going to get in bed with. YouTube? Netflix?

[Full Claret Jacket]

Ludo21 There are plenty on hear who are begging for rich greedy foreign owners to take over the club. I'm no fan of the owners for sure but this is precisely what happens when football clubs become a finance vehicle rather than a valuable community asset that brings people together.

[Mike Oxsaw]

"ludo21 10:55 Mon Apr 19 Asians in general just want to see ""their team"" roll over the opposition more often than get rolled over. Then they are happy as ""their team"" is successful in everybody else's eyes. That can only happen in a structure with a significant spread of talent, such as in the EPL, and the 1st Division that preceded it. In this new structure, EVERY team will be a ""Big club"" and the Asians will no longer be offered a huge part of what attracts them to the (PL) game."

[Razzle]

"Owners are only custodians of the club(s). They have a responsibility to who owns the clubs belong to which a large part of that is the local community and the supporters. Local rivalries that embody the true spirit of the game - that would be more or less lost. What we have seen is there is that move to bigger or develop stadium capacities as the demand to watch the game has grown, but that has only succeeded in diluting the matchday experience with all the football tourists and corporate sell out. The people that care about the club - the die hard supporter and lover of the game understand what the nuance of it is all about win lose or draw, pride and honour to be part of your club raising your voice to drive the team on and equally so when they are not playing well. The adulation of a great result making for a good weekend and likewise the opposite at a bad loss. Clubs today are businesses that are only interested in driving revenue the core of the club is being pushed to the periphery as loyalty is tested. The irony is that you need to drive higher revenue as the football bubble increases to grow to buy players and wages that are just extraordinary and in part that all comes with wanting success at a football and commercial level. There weas the breakaway from the old first division with the advent of the Premier league. The league no longer run by the FA saw revenues rise dramatically with TV money creating the gulf between divisions where teams started buying in success to the detriment of the national team which fell into second place, when teams started to field players from all over the world and the UK players become more marginalised and skyrocketing salaries and transfer fees and the scourge of the agent as this is now big business and corruption follows with bungs and investigation after investigation that soured the game and increased player power, where the mercenary was born. No longer cared for the badge only the money. Whilst the PL started to overtake Serie A and the flirtation of la Liga the PL and clubs reached global audiences especially in the far east and the selling of merchandise grew the revenues for the clubs exploiting the markets with the ""new"" supporter adorning the shirt with the name of their favourite idol printed on the back. Following on from the global rise of the game the structures of the European cup and UEFA cup formats changed from knockouts to leagues and knockouts expanding the competitions with the number of games racking up in the domestic season if the club was successful could have serious implications to the players and then we started to see squad rotation and devaluing of our domestic cups notably the FA cup because of the financial rewards in the European competitions and specifically qualifying for the champions league. This became more important than winning the cup FA cup as this only gets you into now the bloated Europa league. I dont think that UEFA had any consideration for clubs, player safety when massively expanding these competitions and the impact that had on domestic football - it was just another money-spinner. Now we have the Super League all i can say is that this is just evolution of the sport again driven by money to the select. I have no doubt at some point it will happen as the support for teams gets more diluted and the traditional fanbase is lost forever and that is the saddest thing whne the new breed sit there eating their popcorn and say i cant beleive they used to sing and chant at games, fight and get drunk......souless and empty of the spirit that made the game."

[Takashi Miike]

"it shouldn't surprise me but of the fans I've heard calling up radio shows, the most in favour of it have been those no good scouse cunts"

[fraser]

"Sven - I was quoting Steady, hence the speech marks, and yes clearly poorly"

[dealcanvey]

fraser 11:42 Mon Apr 19 Article I read said this would be shared first season so 300 million each. All sounds great if you solely care about money. But if you end up being kicked out of your domestic league and now in a super league earning the same amount of money as the clubs around you what changes? Sounds fucking boring to me. If the domestic leagues and UEFA stick to their guns this will be put to bed.

[Pub Bigot]

"Rossal, I think you're right. There are two courses of action here: 1) Supporters of all clubs unite to fight the ESL or the closed shop changes to the Champions League. I suspect this will fail because fans in the ground buying tickets and merchandise are small fry compared to television rights and global audiences. As someone once said during the start of the raging battle between us and GSB, they don't see supporters as anything more than a backdrop, and that is true now more than ever. 2) Let them have their corporate sport and while we form a Phoenix league. We've had it with clubs reforming in the face of mismanagement and liquidation and franchising, so why not create our own league systems with our own Pheonix fan-owned clubs? AFC West Ham, cheap tickets, fan ownership, 3pm Saturday kick-offs. Sounds good to me."

[Mr Kenzo]

I would rather watch a Skip Rust

[Sven Roeder]

"As fraser mentioned earlier wiping out the results of the Big 5 (plus Spurs) this season would mean that we are 9 points clear of Leicester at the top of the table with 5 matches left to play. Leicester were scheduled to play Man U, Spurs & Chelsea so we have a game in hand as well. 4 points in 5 games to win the title"

[stewie griffin]

"Mr Kenzo 11:36 Mon Apr 19 Re: Football Super league rumours yet again !! Football was always the working mans game, its disgusting we have got to the stage with the ESL in the background. No wonder so many fans have jacked it in. Can I interest you in a spot of county cricket to fill the void, Kenzo?"

[Mike Oxsaw]

"And just to emphasise again what somebody mentioned earlier: the English contingent to this league is complete - there will be no more English clubs let in (there will, of course be that possibility carrot left dangling there to get as many of the other owners to buy in as possible, but they will simply be pulling their own pants down). No Celtic? Do they have no European history? Porto? Benfica?"

[ludo21]

"This could be the best thing, from a fans perspective to happen to football. Get rid of the money grabbing, foreign, owners and get back to the traditional roots. No one, including most of their current fans, will give a toss about Spurs v AC Milan playing in LA in five years time. Good riddance to them."

[Full Claret Jacket]

"These clubs are banking on the money generated by overseas TV deals. Asia is a huge market for this with many millions following these teams and with little prospect of actually seeing a game in person. This is the market they are after, not your skint local fan who may/may not even be allowed to enter the stadium. It's 100% about them and having more money than other clubs so that they never fear losing revenue streams again - however poor their results or team and so they have more buying power than other clubs. It's Elitist in every way and is only open to you if you have money and a brand. Brand is everything to them. Behind that brand though is history, community and fan attachment which is being ripped up and run over. I can't see it will happen and if it does then football will collapse. It's surely just a play to push UEFA to give these 'giant' teams automatic entry to Champions league every year and the lions share of any earnings from it instead of spreading it to other teams who might get stronger and better for it."