West Ham Online

"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"

yesteryear*

"That's a pint in yesterday, not today's rip off prices."

I like the idea similar to the Germans were fans have representation on the board or some kind of golden vote on certain issues. A wage cap would be great but i'm not sure if would ever be agreed. I would force clubs to invest a certain % of their turnover into youth development and local infrastructure. Alongside that you need to find a way of stopping the big clubs hoovering all the best young players into their systems. Smaller clubs spend time/money developing players only to see them gone for peanuts to Chelsea or Man City.

"Yep, I can remember when it was the same cost as a pint."

"Mike. On is Nana Plaza in Bangkok, The other one is Orchard Road Singapore"

"Chill Back then, one hours work on at a low paid job would pay your way into the stadium. Now it’s at least a day or two’s wages."

"Maybe as a compromise, a percentage players earnings could be put into an untouchable trust fund that they can only draw on/borrow against when they give up - and stay given up - the game, professionally. I don't think it's the big wages that is fucking things up, I think it's the cash flow. There's just not enough dollars coming through the till to sustain clubs day-to-day operations, even though they may appear viable."

"Lily Hammer 6:03 Yep, but to be honest I couldn't give a toss if layers were earning a billion a week so long as ticket prices were equivalent to what they were in TC's day. The money men pricing out the average working Joe fucked me off the most."

"Mike o the only place expat brits could enjoy their two favorite hobbies, soccer and loose women, at the same time"

"There will never be a wage cap, even if there were it would be easy to by pass Oh and Swindon, you reckon that Mbappe should earn £30k a week? - Righto"

"Mid 80s, Tony Cottee was on £500 a week. Five times what a 16 year old labourer was on. Nowadays, a 20+ goals a season striker would be getting 200 times as much as that. The 16 year old labourer is getting how much now? 2 or 3 times as much as back then, perhaps. Football has been fucked for some time."

"Mid 80s, Tony Cottee was on £500 a week. Five times what a 16 year old labourer was on. Nowadays, a 20+ goals a season striker would be getting 200 times as much as that. The 16 year old labourer is getting how much now? 2 or 3 times as much as back then, perhaps. Football has been fucked for some time."

ParadiseLost 5:56 Wed Apr 21 Four floors of whores? I heard about that place....

"angryprumphs 5:49 Wed Apr 21 Another big player is the media. They convince club owners that what the fans want is big-bucks signings and the believe them. Sullivan was the same for a while (Andy Carroll, etc). The owners don't seem to (want to lower themselves to) actually ask the fans. I can't recall anyone (apart from the obviously fuckwits) on here demanding big-name/big-bucks signings, only signings that would actually improve the squad/team (Much like Moyes has been doing since his second coming). Another reason to break the club/media love-fest."

"Swindon, you think the big clubs are going to go for a flat wage cap. No, it’ll need to be adjusted for income so they still have the biggest pot. If they need more salary cap get the local airline to announce a multi million pound sponsorship deal with the training ground canteen. They will support any reductions that hurt them least."

"Mike O, if this super league had done their scheduling homework they would have known that games needed to finish in Singapore before the best of the crop had already found ex pat buddies for the night in Orchard Towers."

There definitely needs to be a wage cap put in. Although I think the players would obviously fight that. For a start I don’t think any player should be earning more than 250k a week. I don’t think anyone under 21 should be earning more than 30k a week.

Branded and who are the teams who’ve been paying stupid wages? Exactly the ones who are now saying that football has to change. They bought success with high wages and transfer fees and now we have to sort their problems out. Its like the Liverpool supporter posting on the Daily Mail last night that they had been ‘forced into joining the other teams’. More black armbands at Anfield I guess. Perhaps they could have a march so we could share in their grief?

"dealcanvey 4:59 Wed Apr 21 I think the players get away with murder, it is their agents that carry a massive part of the blame. There is a point when 'getting what you can' becomes being a massive greedy twat and most big players crossed that line some time ago."

"I had a look at some of the news websites from some of the SE Asian countries where I worked in the past. This certainly wasn't headline news in any of them, which somewhat surprised me if this was where a lot of their product target audience was supposed to reside."

"I don’t think they bargained for how Boris would react, by saying he’d take every measure possible to prevent it happening, he blew it all out of the water All that stuff about fans is laughable I guess the possibility of a windfall tax was ultimately too much to gamble against"

Players have been earning too much for years. Everyone who has taken anything more than a normal wage has participated. Some have gained more than others but if you've earned from football in the last 25 years and its been more than an average wage you have gained.

"More than one fiddle being played here, I think."

Players have been earning too much for years. The debt of some clubs shows it is not sustainable. I dont blame them for earning what they can. Despite all the money these big clubs bring in the likes of Barcelona are still over 1 billion in debt. Joining a ESL would not change that. It will just mean they can borrow even more money from the banks as they continue to try and compete and pay over the odds for players and their contracts. When prem TV money doubled few years ago many assumed things would get better. Instead a majority of clubs (us included) just started paying more and more for average players. 45 million for Haller etc.

Fair enough Bruuuno but surely they must be surrounded by people who knew this would be a lead balloon. And why just give in? Why not at least call for a crisis meeting to see if they could squeeze something out? Why wasn’t there even a press conference? Why release the news on a Sunday night? Remember that new Champions league format for post 2024 that was released on the back of the Super League announcement? The big 6 would have known about those plans and their imminent announcement. What a coincidence they got in front of that... on a Sunday night...