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How? Mediocre sides like Spurs and Arsenal will be propping up the table season after season. And the whole point is they can’t be relegated.
I just heard the interview with Pep where he says that basically there are no consequences for being rubbish so its not really a competition at all.
Even Pep has put the boot in now. With Sky, BT and now Amazon distancing themselves from this I wonder where the money is coming from.
Now the government are getting involved in a review of governance of football, I wonder if they might have shot themselves in the foot with this.
Here’s a question for fans of one of the big 6
When was the last time you went to your lower league local team ?
When was the last time you even watch Championship league highlights ? Let alone a full League one game?
Im talking my own experience of course... so For me to say this new league will ruin football really is a bit rich (forgive the pun)
Oh and I prefer watching my lad play far more than anything .... started 9v9 last week and bagged a goal in his debut for his new team.
When was the last time you went to your lower league local team ?
2 years now. My lad was playing football a lot in those days and we regularly went to see Reading play as my office is walking distance from the stadium and they're our local team.
Championship? What's this lofty league you're talking of?
UEFA and FIFA claiming to be the arbiters of sporting ideals and fairness almost got me on side with the super league. But the Madrid presidents claim of trickle down saving football was equally idiotic.
I do actually support a super league, I think it is inevitable, just not this one, a closed shop with the established clubs taking everything. There has to be hope and jeopardy for all.
I was listening to Radio 2 at lunchtime & they had an interview with some foreign supporters fan clubs who were looking forward to it.
They were talking about how great it would be to see the best playing each other every week.
I can see where they are coming from - but if you see Real Madrid vs Liverpool all the time, when it happens it's not special anymore.
The whole thing stinks & it's not often I agree with James Corden
https://twitter.com/JKCorden/status/1384339056700526595
I can see where they are coming from – but if you see Real Madrid vs Liverpool all the time, when it happens it’s not special anymore.
'Legacy' fans are just not where the money is now. Overseas markets are where the growth is. And these fans aren't really interested in the history, and don't really want to see their beloved Liverpool/Man U playing Burnley.
Oh, for the days when we used to take the piss out of Man U glory hunters who lived 100 miles from Old Trafford. 🙂 Now the prawn sandwiches are getting eaten in Beijing.
James Corden can still do one, though.
Nothing against Beijing prawn sandwiches.
Corden can do one.
‘Legacy’ fans are just not where the money is now. Overseas markets are where the growth is. And these fans aren’t really interested in the history, and don’t really want to see their beloved Liverpool/Man U playing Burnley.
I think it's a case of be careful what you wish for. The Premiership is the most competitive league in the world and this season you'll have seen a damn site more entertaining game watching Leicester, West Ham or Leeds than Spurs or Arsenal.
Imagine being cursed to watch the present Spurs and Arsenal squads play each other every 3 weeks? People may soon be fondly longing for a wet Monday night at Turf Moor
People may soon be fondly longing for a wet Monday night at Turf Moor, when your in with a shot at the title and Burnley are fighting for survival you know they will still be fighting their hardest, they won't have checked out 4 games ago with nothing to play for. There won't be that tension without jeopardy.
But then what have the FA, the PL and the government ever done for football in the north? England games are 90% played in London along with cup finals and semi finals. They are crying because they are losing a share of the pie nothing to do with the fans, they have been screwing us for years while enjoying the perks and jobs for the boys with the right school tie.
Football needs shaking up, **** them all!
Exactly! Everyone knows that the very last team you want to be playing at the end of the season are the ones scrapping to remain in the League.
And so theres no way on earth you'd get some absolutely mental result like West Brom giving Chelsea a proper shoeing at Stamford Bridge.
Thats the reason you watch the game in the first place, for when you look at a scoreline and go "WTF?!!". Like Villa beating Liverpool 7-2?
There will be none of that going on in any 'Superleague'. Spurs may possibly win the odd game I suppose.
Anyway.. the latest is the Citeh are getting cold feet. Gary Neville could well be right. He said that if anyone blinked it would be Citeh because their owners have a very different agenda to the like of the Glazers, who are just after rinsing the most money possible
Rumour has it city only signed up reluctantly for fear of being left behind. I think Bayern taking the time to read the room and coming out in strong opposition should strengthen their hand to pull out. I hope they have the nerve to do so (but it could be bullshit anyway) but they have in the past listened to Guardiola and Vinnie etc, so fingers crossed.
It's easy for Bayern to take the moral high ground but in reality the German club ownership model would preclude their membership. There's no way their fans would stand for it.
C'mon who wouldn't want to play Kaiserslautern or Eintracht Frankfurt on a wet Tuesday in February? Just think of the currywurst und weissbier !!
it was mentioned as similar reasoning from Chelsea... don't think the greed thing can be leveled @ Abramovich, he bought club in full knowledge it would cost him money, he's just after Kudos and trophies.
UEFA and FIFA claiming to be the arbiters of sporting ideals and fairness almost got me on side with the super league
Same lol, especially with the EPL also playing the noble saviour of the Corinthian spirit lol. Has there ever been such an absurd sight?
Possibly yes? Now Bojo is playing the man of the people promising to pass new laws to protect 'the peoples' game' LMAO. This horse bolted 30 years ago.
It’s easy for Bayern to take the moral high ground but in reality the German club ownership model would preclude their membership. There’s no way their fans would stand for it.
I am not so sure, I think they could sell the idea to their fans. I think they are just going with the flow at the moment, if the super league becomes a reality they will be in it. They have won the Bundesliga 7 years in a row, it is effectively dead as a competition. The same as France and Italy, they are all basically 1 team leagues. There may be 1 or 2 seasons a decade when they **** up in transition, but otherwise they will continue to win.
There is a lot of spin happening and everyone involved has 2 faces, I don't believe anything anyone of them says at the moment.
Looks like Chelski are getting to pull out after protests at Stamford Bridge. This made me laugh
https://twitter.com/elliothackney/status/1384550690773733382?s=21
I think that's it, the rest will fall now. Now its all about the repercussions, will they get more power to appease them or will the rest of football peg them back?
Is a placard made out of a Hello Fresh box just the most Chelsea thing around?
Rumour now is that city have already withdrawn.
Juventus vs 2008 Carling Cup winners not looking so attractive....
City & Chelsea are out
This is just the opening salvo of a long protracted process of an inevitable Euro League. If it replaces the Chumps League nobody will care
United have gone now too.
Apparently Maguire and Shaw gave that parasite Ed Woodward, the Glazers representative on earth, a word on how things are with the players, in no uncertain terms
So is it just a few mid-table clubs left to represent the honour of Englandshire in Europe?
This weeks Superleague top (and also bottom) of the table clash will be the same as last weeks...
Spurs v Arsenal
Woodward has just resigned 😳
Don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out, you horrible little ****!
Since some of the owners are American they see the ideal template as the NFL; no relegation, no jeapady. Just a draft pick.
This might work for one nation but footballers come from all over the world.
Barca have pulled out too ?
LOL unrelated to the Super League
Woodward has just resigned
This is rather enjoyable. They're folding up nicely.
From the BBC feed:
This we are told is not related to the European Super League.
If that's true, he has fallen on his sword, but it won't change the way the club is run. It is the glazers and FSG who were the architects of this plan (along with Juve and Madrid), I bet he gets a big pay off for protecting them. One of the revelations of the past couple of days is how closely those american owners have been working over the past few years.
All the clubs should still be punished, but there is a case for the ring leaders to receive something sterner.
edit: he hasn't resigned immediately, he will leave at the end of the year, not quite so dramatic.
owners are having a zoom call
YOU HAVE NO AUTHORITY HERE, FLORENTINO PEREZ!!
Bollox I wanted the ESL to happen just for lolz. This has been great fun though, how long has it taken to implode - 4 days? Crazy
Juventus Chairman has resigned too
All the clubs should still be punished,
I doubt that would be legal.
It’d be too much to hope for that this could precipitate getting those vultures out of the club.
Seeing as the share price is all they’ve ever cared about anyway as they write themselves yet more share options
This comment on Guardian live feed made me laugh:
Reports: Andrea Agnellil resigns as president of Juventus
Have put the end section of Layla on to accompany this part of the evening.
Aw no please don't make me like Gary Neville.
Is that Neville's protest beard?
Lots of denials floating round
Especially out of Italy and Spain
Fingers crossed the fat lady will sing pretty quickly
But don’t think it’s quite finished ( yet )
Woodward has only brought his resignation forward by a few months I think... very noble!!
Agnelli hasn't resigned... yet.
Now that they know it's not happening, the clubs PR departments are getting the players to release critical statements about the SL to try and fool the fans.
No one is buying it I hope.
All 6 Prem clubs have pulled out now
Well, that league didn't last long.
I had the weirdest dream last night.....totally far fetched but just enough reality to make me spend the day wondering if it was real.
Did I dream that binners believed that Maquire (the coward who deserted his sister and fiancée in Greece) had stood up to the club.
Any story and player statement/tweet that has come out after around 6pm last night is spin by the clubs PR departments. They are trying to get the fans back on side with the team, while the owners hide away for a while hoping it all blows over, distracted by the on pitch action.
Obviously the big boys were scared of having to face the mighty hammers and decided to run away.
No doubt money has passed hands and the hammers have agreed to throw matches next season and return to where the real passion in football lays....the relegation battle.
This is far from over. All the 6 clubs have done so far is seriously devalue the Premier League as a brand. They've just shat on the goose that lays the golden eggs.
They've not really tarnished their reputation as we all knew what they truly like all along. They've just fully displayed it like a randy peacock.
It'll be interesting to see how this goes now in terms of domestic football. Will they be welcomed back with open arms by the premier league, the other 14 and the FA and they all allow them to do whatever they want to keep them sweet, or will they strike while they have this massive amount of support and nail them to make sure this s**t or something like project big picture doesn't come up again.
It would be nice to think this would be a catalyst for big changes in the way football is governed in England but I reckon it'll be business as usual in a week or so.
The premier league will face challenges anyway, the TV money will likely go down next time around. Everyone talks about the emerging Asian markets, but they are still poor markets, how many Chinese fans does it take to generate the revenue of 1 European fan, I bet it is 20 or 30.
The Dutch and Belgium leagues are merging, that is a big step and I can see that leading to a series of league mergers in the coming years.
Change is coming, trying to hold the tide back isn't going to work, lets just hope what has happened over the past few days gives the fans a voice in shaping the change. But getting all gammony and trying to take football back to a fake utopian 50's era will be worse.
So, are we still 'legacy' fans then?
I'm interested to know who the potential broadcaster was. I don't believe for a second that they were going to go ahead with this without a broadcaster nailed on already. They're all coming out and saying it wasn't them. Somebodies telling porkies.
I'd really like to see a move towards what they have in Germany with the 50+1 rule. With everything we've seen over the years in the way some owners behave towards clubs, some supporter representation is a must.
My own club very nearly went out of existence because someone bought it for £100 and used it as an opportunity to asset strip the club by removing the non-profit clause and selling off the ground to developers. The plan being for the club to go bankrupt which would allow the owners to pocket the profit from the ground sale.
Is any of this ESL shenanigans all that surprising?? Most PL clubs have been sold by fan owners to billionaire businessmen, they weren't buying these clubs because they're fans, they buy it as a business. Yes the PL makes a lot of money through sponsorship and TV rights but most of that is going to players wages or transfer fees, there's still very little profit if any to be made through football so it's hardly a surprise these owners are trying to make more money out of their assets. So much of football is still be ruined by ridiculous wages for players, and now Raiola seems to be trying to get Haaland as the first €1m per week footballer, it's ludicrous.
Unbelievable...
https://twitter.com/LFC/status/1384763846557147142?s=20
At least he's pretending to show some contrition and trying to limit the damage. Though it's clearly a bit late for that. I doubt we'll be seeing any of that from our owners
I’d really like to see a move towards what they have in Germany with the 50+1 rule. With everything we’ve seen over the years in the way some owners behave towards clubs, some supporter representation is a must.
The German model is just as flawed, 1 club has won the Bundesliga for the last 7 years, and something like 13 of the last 18. The wealthy professionals in the board rooms enrich themselves while coercing and manipulating the clueless amateur fan representatives into doing what they want. And don't forget Madrid is fan owned and were a leader in this, Barca are also fan owned and went along with it.
And lets not just blame foreign owners, spurs are British owned and run, Barca, Madrid and Juve are all owned and/or run by nationals from the countries that they operate in. Their is a lot of blame to go around. But this whole thing is about greed by already extraordinarily wealthy people, lets not get distracted by nationalistic and borderline racist excuses.
All the 6 clubs have done so far is seriously devalue the Premier League as a brand. They’ve just shat on the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Certainly the TV rights aren't worth as much if the broadcaster thinks the big clubs could possibly flounce off halfway through the contract.
Presumably negotiations are already underway for the renewal of the current deal, which expires in 2022, I think.
The German model is just as flawed, 1 club has won the Bundesliga for the last 7 years, and something like 13 of the last 18. The wealthy professionals in the board rooms enrich themselves while coercing and manipulating the clueless amateur fan representatives into doing what they want. And don’t forget Madrid is fan owned and were a leader in this, Barca are also fan owned.
It may not make any difference to who wins the league but it might stop clueless or disreputable owners being able to destroy clubs
Barca and Real vote for a president, in fact Perez even bought forward the vote to ensure he was voted in again before this was announced. I also think supporters of those 2 have seen how broke their clubs are and probably thought that was the best way out of it.
I don't think it has anything to do with nationality of the owners, it's purely about making more and more money
But this whole thing is about greed by already extraordinarily wealthy people
Yet again the Rich trying to decide that the best way of dealing with inequality is not to spread the wealth around a bit, but to shutter themselves away in quasi-self governing enclaves. It's astounding to me that folk can see this for what it is in football, but refuse (or are blind to it) to call it out everywhere else..
Glad it's failed, but I hope it drives some proper discussion and change now. Those that play and watch football have changed a great deal and leagues/competitions and everything beneath needs looking at I guess.
they'll just make sure to grease the right palms next time.
One of the ways to start clipping the wings of the bigger clubs, is to stop appointing their executives and representatives to positions of power in the football hierarchy. I was disappointed to see that Agneli was replaced at the head of the European clubs association by Rummenigge. This was surely a perfect time for the smaller clubs to display that they should be represented by one of their own. It is just replacing one fox with another to guard the hen house.
It may not make any difference to who wins the league but it might stop clueless or disreputable owners being able to destroy clubs
So the clubs are destroyed by greedy populist lying presidents instead, your just arguing for what bread you want your shit sandwich served on.
So the clubs are destroyed by greedy populist lying presidents instead, your just arguing for what bread you want your shit sandwich served on.
I’m not arguing about anything. I’m looking at what happened at Brighton back then and know that it never would have been allowed to happen if there was supporter representation at board level. Same for clubs like Bury, Wigan, Charlton, Blackpool and Orient.
My mate said the whole ESL thing was like organising a night out with your mates before everyone asks their missus
it never would have been allowed to happen if there was supporter representation at board level.
You will have to explain how you think fan representation on the board would have stopped any event from happening. Lay people in corporate and political environments just get steamrollered by the professional operators, just like in Madrid and Barca.
In even crazier news, Celtic and Valencia are apparently looking to appoint Mourinho.
You don't get this level of drama, excitement and sheer madness in rugby.
My mate said the whole ESL thing was like organising a night out with your mates before everyone asks their missus
This is an excellent analogy.
Yes if one good thing has come of this, it's hastening the departure of Jose, and I hope/suspect, allowed for his sacking for disciplinary reasons and avoided paying him £30m of wages
In even crazier news, Celtic and Valencia are apparently looking to appoint Mourinho.
Why anyone would appoint him when he has basically had every one of the last 4-5 teams hate his guts by the time he's left the club is absolutely beyond me.