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"

Surprised there has been no PL statement yet unless the meeting is still going on

A legal question i know but would it be within the powers of UEFA to.impose an embargo on signing players from anywhere in Europe covered by UEFA rules?

"Pep is on media duty this afternoon but i'm sure he'll just sit on the fence like Zidane did. Nothing from the Berk Bros yet - Burnley, Everton and Brighton have all condemned the move. Wolves & Southampton have just taken the piss instead."

Steady 3:20 Tue Apr 20 Definitely a motivating force for Levy. Paying for the ground without impacting performance on the pitch. He is probably hoping to get a few seasons money to pay off the ground then breakaway claiming he has seen the light and regrets the move and now feels the need for fans etc.... while never having to pay anything back. Would not put anything out of bounds for Dr Evil.

fella on SSN made the point that this decision is down to one person at each club - there may well be people within the club who arent happy and will pass those feelings onto the press............... but i dont see the likes of Abramovic or Lewis etc etc changing their kind because of some grief on twitter.

"ATHammer 2:15 Tue Apr 20 Spot on. Merseyside Reds, Islington Raiders, the Tottenham Pretenders, West London Blues, Manchester Red Devils, Manchester Citizens .... it makes you shudder just thinking about it. As mentioned, fans need to boycott these teams. My hope is it leads to more fan ownership structures and the 6 clubs themselves reform like AFC Wimbledon. I would be happy to see money put the way of these new structures by the rest of the clubs and govt to quickly bring them up to standard, site them in the City as close to the current grounds etc... Make the ""big 6"" ( the rich 6 from 4 or 5 years back with Arsenal and Tottenham the great pretenders as they want a way to pay for their grounds ) make them all an irrelevance and they can play over in China or wherever."

"Nice suggestion from a comment on the BBC website. When a game involving one of these teams is next televised, perhaps they could pipe in the sound of loud booing as the crowd noise?"

"Stepney is spot on, ban ESL games from being played in the UK. Levy must be behind a lot of this, of those 12 clubs, Spurs as of June 2020 were the most on debt. They’re also pretty likely to miss out on a top 4 spot and rumblings that Kane wants out if they didn’t qualify for the Champions League. That horrible snidey club deserve to suffer most from this, here’s to another 60 years of them not winning the title."

"""doesn’t really speak for 100% commitment to me"" No, but the signing of 23 year contracts do."

"If these clubs are expelled from their respective domestic leagues, they will have to reset ""Year zero"" to 2021, just as the Premier League decided that top class football in England only started in 1992. Be interesting to see who owns the media rights to PL games and if it's the PL, can they prevent their use by another organisation."

There must be some rumblings at these clubs.... why would Man City and Chelsea who have spent basically billions building a club and trying to get community on side allow Perez to do their PR for them!! They are getting slaughtered at the moment and silence... doesn’t really speak for 100% commitment to me

Apparently the EFL PR campaign is being run by the same fucking idiot who used to manage Terresa May's PR - Katie Perrior. No idea how that idiot managed to get a gig like this after that shit show.

Apparently the EFL PR campaign is being run by the same fucking idiot who used to manage Terresa May's PR - Katie Perrior. No idea how that idiot managed to get a gig like this after that shit show.

"Chigwell just wondering about that, if the games being shown abroad during the pandemic are still being well received in places like China, Malaysia etc with no fans present, will the ESL owners care if we aren't there?"

"It's worth noting that it's not just PSG, Bayern and Dortmund From Italy there is Roma, Lazio and Napoli From Spain there is Seville, Zaragoza and the Basques All of France, Benelux and Eastern Europe There are quite a few meaningful sides there, more than enough for an attractive competition"

"Only the fans have the power to stop this idea in its tracks. The players are committed contractually to play for their clubs, and let's face it many will be persuaded by the extra money. The breakaway clubs and their players would probably be able to challenge in the courts any attempt by UEFA and FIFA to stop them playing each other, as restraint of trade. The FA would find the same thing if it banned such a player from England duty. However, a concerted boycott by fans of all clubs of any match (both Super League and EPL) involving one of the six clubs would deprive the matches of any atmosphere, which is essential in the long term to a televised match - artificial crowd noise will simply not be acceptable to purchasers of TV rights."

"Anyways, in my view the whole thing is extortion. And if you agree or compromise when people are extorting you they will only do it again and again. The fact we have a champions league instead of the cup isn't because of UEFA, its because the same big clubs wanted a super league and forced UEFA to make one basically. And its still not enough for them! No one asked Barca to buy Cohtnho for over 100m! Or Demeble for 100 either ?? Or for Madrid to pay Bale 600 bags a week or whatever. They spunk their money and then want to ruin our competition because they are broke. Fuck them. let them go."

stepney hammer 2:49 Tue Apr 20 Could always recategorise the big 6 as pirate radio stations. Rafts of legislation already exists to prevent funding and servicing that type of entity from/in the UK..

This Leadership Team they have... it isn't very diverse now is it? (over to you BLM)

"Could this be an instance where player power becomes a useful thing? How many of the Premier League's top players are likely to want to have this competition as their main playing outlet (especially if they are disqualified from the English leagues)? It could be like China etc. - the money may be there but it is so far removed from the game they love, it just ends up being all the misfits and has-beens looking for a big mercenary pay day. It could just become a separate breakaway competition with its own worldwide audience while we just adjust and go back to normal."

Goose that was announced yesterday all money taken by these clubs from gov would be sought back straight away

"If it’s Man City or chelsea I would assume the other May pull out anyway. You would then have PSG, Bayern, Dortmund, Man City and Chelsea not in it. You would also have 16 premier league teams to Chuck them out..."

hopefully Boris will ask Spurs for the money back that the government lent them.

Chuck them out the league in line with rule 9 or whatever it is and ban ESL games from being played in the UK. Thus rendering all their stadiums worthless and depriving them of any ticketing or match day revenue. Also any sponsorship such as naming rights or corporate money linked to their stadiums will be wiped off. Spurs for instance will have shelled out a billion for something that has barely been used and that they wouldn't be able to use going forward. I suspect they'd all be back relatively quickly.

bird on sky now moaning because womens football only got a single sentence on the ESL announcement. no-one gives a fuck about womens football.