European breakaway league (33 Viewers)

[Torquay Sky Blue]

How’s this landing with Madrid, juve, Milan fans etc? Same as English supporters?

Juve might be ok with it . They are the whores of world football. I watched them play in a bar in Venice. The place was rammed with plastics. I shouted next train to Turin at the end of the game and nearly got thumped

 

---

[andrew.roberts]

How’s this landing with Madrid, juve, Milan fans etc? Same as English supporters?

It's quite an unusual situation in Spain which has its roots in history and mainly territorial because Catalunya has always seen itself independent to Spain as it was for a period back in the seventeenth century .This situation was compounded by the 1936-1939 civil war.
If you were to ask a member of the general public which team they support regardless of in which region of Spain they live the most likely reply would be either Real Madrid or Barcelona, in fact a common question is "Who do you support, Madrid or Barca ?".
For the true football fan it's a little different but having said that most would say that they also support one of the big two along with their local team. My personal opinion is that the idea of a Super League
would be far less contentious here than it is in England.

Sent from my moto g(9) plus using Tapatalk

 

[Deleted member 9744]

Difficult to punish the clubs because fans of those clubs don’t deserve to see their clubs destroyed by the actions of greedy owners


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So what's the option?

 

[shmmeee]

They were talking to people in the far East yesterday on the news and they loved the idea, but of course they don't go to matches anyway. That's who it's going to appeal to the most. Those in far flung places who only ever watch games on TV anyway.

But what about the game there? If it’s popular their leagues should benefit and ultimately their national team.

 

[dadgad]

As Bielsa said: the corporate creep has happened in every walk of life why should football be any different.
The fascist right in the U.K. dominate the newspapers and all media outlets. They also own the offshore betting franchises which makes billions from the Asian markets. This is the cancer that now dominates European football. And now we have a Tory PM defending the integrity of a working class game. The irony.

 

[Skybluefaz]

If football can use this as a moment to reset, the situation might bring some positives.

 

[SkyBlueSoul]

Eric Cantona: "[It's been so boring] Because the fans are not there. The fans singing, jumping, supporting their teams. So the fans are the most important thing in football, they have to be respected"

Also Eric Cantona:

 

[chiefdave]

Perez - Real Madrid president speaking at the moment. Absolutely incredible. Can’t believe some of the things he is coming out with.

This is just a rambling nonsense. TV deals are going down because of two things IMO, over-saturation of the market and expansion of tournaments like the Champions League (to please the very same clubs now saying they are leaving) resulting in more meaningless games. The solution isn't to throw more meaningless games onto the market!

Its not rocket science, if big clubs are losing money stop spending so much! That would actually benefit the whole football pyramid. How much better would it be for us if clubs who had been in the PL weren't spending such ridiculous amounts and didn't have millions in parachute payments? And the other clubs in the Championship weren't happily losing tens of millions a season in the hope of reaching the promised land?

Also how do you complain about clubs losing money while owners are extracting eye watering amounts?

As for saying that players won't be banned from national teams and that teams can't be thrown out of domestic competitions how will that work exactly? The England team is the responsibly of the FA and the competitions the responsibly of FIFA & UEFA. If certain players are suspended they can't play. Even if they aren't suspended the FA can just instruct the manager not to select players from certain teams.

Similarly with the domestic leagues. There are rules that govern who can play in them. Or is he suggesting a free for all and Sepalla can just announce we're now a Premier League club and nobody can do anything about it?

If he thinks he can fall back on EU law he needs someone to tell him the English clubs are based in a country that's no longer in the EU.

"If no Super League football will die by 2024" this is the most bonkers statement of all. Even if every club in the Premier League and EFL went bust tomorrow phoenix clubs would emerge and a new league would be formed.

 

[dadgad]

Football has been losing its soul ever since Thatcher. The aspirational have been co-opted into becoming Tories despite this being a socialist country. People should wake up to some harsh political realities - it may already be too late.

 

[Deleted member 5849]

Football has been losing its soul ever since Thatcher. The aspirational have been co-opted into becoming Tories despite this being a socialist country. People should wake up to some harsh political realities - it may already be too late.

/decides now is the time to go for a walk

 

[dadgad]

Ostrich

 

[AOM]

/decides now is the time to go for a walk

 

[Grendel]

Football has been losing its soul ever since Thatcher. The aspirational have been co-opted into becoming Tories despite this being a socialist country. People should wake up to some harsh political realities - it may already be too late.

You don’t own a pub in Bath do you?

 

[Ccfcisparks]

Football has been losing its soul ever since Thatcher. The aspirational have been co-opted into becoming Tories despite this being a socialist country. People should wake up to some harsh political realities - it may already be too late.

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

These clubs pay their players millions of pounds a year and then complain they are not making any money and expect the fans to pay more so they can players more.

 

[Alex1987]

Not going to read through so apologies if already mentioned, but did anyone see the Grimsby shirt amnesty? Great Idea!

 

[dadgad]

Well, brain boxes; health care, education and football, all victims of vulture capitalism.

 

[SBAndy]

This is just a rambling nonsense. TV deals are going down because of two things IMO, over-saturation of the market and expansion of tournaments like the Champions League (to please the very same clubs now saying they are leaving) resulting in more meaningless games. The solution isn't to throw more meaningless games onto the market!

Its not rocket science, if big clubs are losing money stop spending so much! That would actually benefit the whole football pyramid. How much better would it be for us if clubs who had been in the PL weren't spending such ridiculous amounts and didn't have millions in parachute payments? And the other clubs in the Championship weren't happily losing tens of millions a season in the hope of reaching the promised land?

Also how do you complain about clubs losing money while owners are extracting eye watering amounts?

As for saying that players won't be banned from national teams and that teams can't be thrown out of domestic competitions how will that work exactly? The England team is the responsibly of the FA and the competitions the responsibly of FIFA & UEFA. If certain players are suspended they can't play. Even if they aren't suspended the FA can just instruct the manager not to select players from certain teams.

Similarly with the domestic leagues. There are rules that govern who can play in them. Or is he suggesting a free for all and Sepalla can just announce we're now a Premier League club and nobody can do anything about it?

If he thinks he can fall back on EU law he needs someone to tell him the English clubs are based in a country that's no longer in the EU.

"If no Super League football will die by 2024" this is the most bonkers statement of all. Even if every club in the Premier League and EFL went bust tomorrow phoenix clubs would emerge and a new league would be formed.

I very much see this as the death throes of the professional game as we know it, and the outpouring from all parties about the disgrace of capitalism having essentially infiltrated football. It’s been in plain sight and because of the tribalist nature, everyone who benefited was happy to welcome it/them with open arms.

I do actually see the future of the game being clubs registering as Community Interest Companies to make them accountable to their communities and drive the “profit above everything else” mentality from the game. At the end of the day, the current structure means that the incumbents at the various superclubs have an obligation to the shareholders to increase profitability wherever possible. Fuck the rest.

 

[Seamus1]

If throwing them out of the Premier League is not legally possible, I hope the PL grows a pair and has the teams’ midweek league games played the day before or the day straight after one of these ESL games...the weekend games for these 6 teams should also be 3pm Saturday.

 

[chiefdave]

Think the issue is that it’s looking at the worldwide market. It’s a fuck you to their own countries but how many fans in Korea, India, China etc etc. What they probably haven’t counted on is the massive reaction from their fans which could affect sales, merchandise etc. Still cannot see it happening perosnally

This keeps being said but what does it actually mean on a practical level. Its not like the Premier League, Serie A, Champions League etc aren't sold to those countries. What is going to make the rights to an ESL so much more valuable? Not to mention the plan seems to be not to add more fans, or should that be customers, to the existing numbers. They seem happy to push 'legacy' fans aside so even to tread water you've got to bring in a decent number of new fans.

Have people forgotten about time differences? Just looking at those 3 countries you mention an 8pm kick off would be 4am, 0:30am and 3am respectively. I'm not convinced that people are going to be clamouring to watch a meaningless game at those hours? In the US it will be in the working day, are people going to take days off to watch?

I'm a huge ice hockey fan, the biggest two leagues in the world are the NHL (North America) and KHL (Russia). I probably see about 10 live NHL games a season and 0 KHL. The NHL games are generally starting after midnight and the KHL games are while I'm at work. Maybe I'm wrong and there's a huge untapped market who are ready and waiting to change their entire lifestyle so they can watch a game.

Or is the suggestion they move to a direct to consumer model? Lots of sports and brands have tried that and they are starting to move away from it as it hasn't been commercially advantageous.

The NHL have just signed a deal with ESPN (Disney) to ditch their own DTC service and have it become a part of theirs. WWE spent a small fortune building up their own service, WWE Network, and are now winding it down. Their content is moving to Peacock (NBC) in the US and Sportsnet (Rodgers) in Canada. When the announcement was made their CBO said "At the end of the day, we’re not a technology company and shouldn’t try to be, we are a content company at our core, and we want to do what we do best." The BCCI is widely rumoured to be doing similar with the IPL and Indian international cricket in a deal with STAR (Disney). NFL rumoured to be in talks with Amazon, the list goes on.

 

[Deleted member 5849]

and because of the tribalist nature, everyone who benefited was happy to welcome it/them with open arms.

Including us when we were complicit in forming the Premier League...

 

[Terry Gibson's perm]

The Spanish clubs are broke because they pay too higher wages transfer fees and probably worst of all agents fees and it is the same for most of this merry band of scumbag clubs.

 

[shmmeee]

Well, brain boxes; health care, education and football, all victims of vulture capitalism.

Youre going to get shit but you’re right, and you know you are because the inevitable “they’re businesses” will get rolled out as to why we can’t have nice things.

Price of everything, value of nothing.

 

[dadgad]

Including us when we were complicit in forming the Premier League...

....that was propaganda: people seduced by a simplistic narrative, a game commodified by an elite. The same applies to popular music, film industry, the academisation of schools, the NHS, etc.

 

[Terry Gibson's perm]

If throwing them out of the Premier League is not legally possible, I hope the PL grows a pair and has the teams’ midweek league games played the day before or the day straight after one of these ESL games...the weekend games for these 6 teams should also be 3pm Saturday.

If they play on a Wednesday for example they should have to play their league games on Friday night or Saturday morning even the super clubs struggle in those games.

 

[chiefdave]

If throwing them out of the Premier League is not legally possible, I hope the PL grows a pair and has the teams’ midweek league games played the day before or the day straight after one of these ESL games...the weekend games for these 6 teams should also be 3pm Saturday.

I don't see how its not possible. Its a clear breach of the rules.

L.9. Except with the prior written approval of the board, during the season a club shall not enter or play its senior men's first team in any competition other than:

L.9.1 - The UEFA Champions League;
L.9.2 - The UEFA Europa League;
L.9.3 - The FA Cup;
L.9.4 - The FA Community Shield;
L.9.5 - The Football League Cup; or
L.9.6 - Competitions sanctioned by the County Association of which it is a member.

The Times reported that Richard Masters (PL chief exec) has written to the clubs involved reminding them of that and that the ESL will not be sanctioned and therefore they would effectively be quitting the PL. The question of course is do the league have the guts to follow through and enforce their own rules.

 

[dadgad]

I don't see how its not possible. Its a clear breach of the rules.

The Times reported that Richard Masters (PL chief exec) has written to the clubs involved reminding them of that and that the ESL will not be sanctioned and therefore they would effectively be quitting the PL. The question of course is do the league have the guts to follow through and enforce their own rules.

Systemic cowardice showed its true colours when Sisu moved us to Northampton breaking the FL’s own rules. Spineless or corrupt, take your pick?

 

[shmmeee]

I don't see how its not possible. Its a clear breach of the rules.

The Times reported that Richard Masters (PL chief exec) has written to the clubs involved reminding them of that and that the ESL will not be sanctioned and therefore they would effectively be quitting the PL. The question of course is do the league have the guts to follow through and enforce their own rules.

Dont see why not. What have the other 14 got to lose? Leicester, West Ham, Everton and Leeds suddenly become power houses, everyone else suddenly is six places further up the league.

If I were then I’d be itching to kick the fuckers out. The idea that everyone is richer when these clubs hold all youth to ransom and inflate wages and fees massively on their own is for the birds.

 

[Bidda]

Dont see why not. What have the other 14 got to lose? Leicester, West Ham, Everton and Leeds suddenly become power houses, everyone else suddenly is six places further up the league.

If I were then I’d be itching to kick the fuckers out. The idea that everyone is richer when these clubs hold all youth to ransom and inflate wages and fees massively on their own is for the birds.

I'm interested in the logistics of this ESL arrangement.

If the six English clubs join the ESL, would their squad members all be barred from all English domestic competitions, CL, EL and the World Cup?

If so, a time will come when these clubs either need to buy or sell players. Assuming they are allowed to still buy from, say, the remaining PL teams, would players be willing to move if they lose their rights to play in English football or the WC, etc? Some undoubtedly will, because they're only in it for the money I guess, but would there be others who would not contemplate a move? if so, won't this limit the ESL clubs' access to a player pool?

Equally, at present, these clubs loan their young players out to EFL clubs but, won't they be barred from doing so if they join the ESL? Will this discourage young players from joining if their only future is to stay with their parent club with little or no hope of getting match experience?

 

[SkyBlue_Bear83]

I'm interested in the logistics of this ESL arrangement.

If the six English clubs join the ESL, would their squad members all be barred from all English domestic competitions, CL, EL and the World Cup?

If so, a time will come when these clubs either need to buy or sell players. Assuming they are allowed to still buy from, say, the remaining PL teams, would players be willing to move if they lose their rights to play in English football or the WC, etc? Some undoubtedly will, because they're only in it for the money I guess, but would there be others who would not contemplate a move? if so, won't this limit the ESL clubs' access to a player pool?

Equally, at present, these clubs loan their young players out to EFL clubs but, won't they be barred from doing so if they join the ESL? Will this discourage young players from joining if their only future is to stay with their parent club with little or no hope of getting match experience?

I think if this does go ahead it's going to be a logistical nightmare for everyone. If they remain in the domestic leagues it will probably be the end of the league and fa Cup due to fixture congestion. Managers and players will be against it because it will be too many matches, they are talking about putting in 18 extra matches for the group stage only for ESL.

Then the new ESL apparently has 5 teams invited every year based on 'merit' but what happens if these teams turn down the invitation based on principle, how will this effect qualification for champions League and europa league assuming uefa insist these competitions continue as it is. Obviously teams won't be able to play in the ESL and champions League in the same season so working out who qualifies for what competition.

The only solution if it goes ahead is too kick them out of every other competition (think they will find it very hard to ban players from playing internationals (presumably the ESL has factored in international breaks when thinking of the schedule but wouldn't surprise me if they haven't or want to get rid of national teams)

Let them play there glorified pre season friendlies and let the real fans start up the clubs again from the bottom of the pyramid if they wish to do so.

This is being pushed by the yanks no doubt about it.

 

[Deleted member 2477]

As Bielsa said: the corporate creep has happened in every walk of life why should football be any different.
The fascist right in the U.K. dominate the newspapers and all media outlets. They also own the offshore betting franchises which makes billions from the Asian markets. This is the cancer that now dominates European football. And now we have a Tory PM defending the integrity of a working class game. The irony.

Spoken like a true marxist

 

[Deleted member 2477]

I think if this does go ahead it's going to be a logistical nightmare for everyone. If they remain in the domestic leagues it will probably be the end of the league and fa Cup due to fixture congestion. Managers and players will be against it because it will be too many matches, they are talking about putting in 18 extra matches for the group stage only for ESL.

Then the new ESL apparently has 5 teams invited every year based on 'merit' but what happens if these teams turn down the invitation based on principle, how will this effect qualification for champions League and europa league assuming uefa insist these competitions continue as it is. Obviously teams won't be able to play in the ESL and champions League in the same season so working out who qualifies for what competition.

The only solution if it goes ahead is too kick them out of every other competition (think they will find it very hard to ban players from playing internationals (presumably the ESL has factored in international breaks when thinking of the schedule but wouldn't surprise me if they haven't or want to get rid of national teams)

Let them play there glorified pre season friendlies and let the real fans start up the clubs again from the bottom of the pyramid if they wish to do so.

This is being pushed by the yanks no doubt about it.

Very true

 

[SkyBlueSoul]

Dont see why not. What have the other 14 got to lose? Leicester, West Ham, Everton and Leeds suddenly become power houses, everyone else suddenly is six places further up the league.

Saw this table if those 6 clubs are taken out

 

[Nick]

I think the pundits will have a decision to make.

If they get offered loads more than what Sky / BT pay them, how many will say no?

 

[chiefdave]

I think the pundits will have a decision to make.

Is quite funny seeing Sky and BT pundits, along with the owners of the remaining PL clubs, being outraged at the idea of money ruining the game.

How anyone at Sky can turn round and say, with a straight face, think of the fans is beyond me. They don't give a seconds though to causing fans all sorts of problems by changing the schedule to suit themselves.