European Super League

[serghei]

UEFA's new slogan should be:

Kick politics out of football (unless they're on our side)

I don't agree with how Perez&Co. reacted (and how unprepared they seemed to be for a project they've apparently worked on for years) but UEFA+governments are a bigger evil imo.

Nah. These greedy clubs all in for themselves deciding everything is the worst-case scenario. I agree UEFA are corrupt as well, but these guys just proved a private competition where they call the shots is the worst and totally not the answer.

The only good part is that UEFA is pressured now, don't see another option than just trying to force UEFA/FIFA to change for the better.

 

[FCBfan22]

Nah. These greedy clubs all in for themselves deciding everything is the worst-case scenario. I agree UEFA are corrupt as well, but these guys just proved a private competition where they call the shots is the worst and totally not the answer.

+1

 

[Morten]

The leagues are sacred. What we can change is the midweek games. The Champions League is obsolete. It's only interesting from the quarter-finals."

Have to agree with Perez on this.
The fucking epl clubs lol cowards. First sign of pressure and they buckled.
Perez strategy is to play hardball and bring Uefa to the table. Among the big clubs Barca and Madrid have suffered the most from the pandemic.

Its not UEFA or PLs problem that Barca and RM have wasted
a fortune on average players.

 

[malvolio]

Its not UEFA or PLs fault that the Barca and RM have wasted
a fortune on average players.

just like it's not UEFA's God given right to organize sporting competitions. in the end, its those 12-15 clubs that keeps the UCL afloat.

if they want to do a competition by themselves what stops them from doing that? they can have corrupt/stupid refs delegated as they please. they can have hot/cold balls in the draws also. they can organize fake ballon d'or competition driven by politics. they can rob each other through VAR every game. at least we would have real competition, without some governing body pulling the strings in their favor.

basically all that UEFA does right now, the clubs can do by themselves and also distribute the money how they wish. they could even come up with a better spread of wealth, so smaller clubs get more money.

they are trying to bypass the middle man, UEFA in this case.

 

[Joan]

just like it's not UEFA's God given right to organize sporting competitions. in the end, its those 12-15 clubs that keeps the UCL afloat.

if they want to do a competition by themselves what stops them from doing that? they can have corrupt/stupid refs delegated as they please. they can have hot/cold balls in the draws also. they can organize fake ballon d'or competition driven by politics. they can rob each other through VAR every game. at least we would have real competition, without some governing body pulling the strings in their favor.

basically all that UEFA does right now, the clubs can do by themselves and also distribute the money how they wish. they could even come up with a better spread of wealth, so smaller clubs get more money.

they are trying to bypass the middle man, UEFA in this case.

Exactly.

And if their competition wasn't any good, people wouldn't watch it and it would be cancelled. They'd come back to Uefa begging for forgivness. Somehow, I don't see that happening.

Perez is right his league concept would be much more entertaining that the CL. Bigger, better quality matches since the start of the season. I'd want some changes in their plan, but it's certainly not the death of football some want to depict.

 

[raskolnikov]

Exactly.

And if their competition wasn't any good, people wouldn't watch it and it would be cancelled. They'd come back to Uefa begging for forgivness. Somehow, I don't see that happening.

Perez is right his league concept would be much more entertaining that the CL. Bigger, better quality matches since the start of the season. I'd want some changes in their plan, but it's certainly not the death of football some want to depict.

Maybe in a pyramid structure with promotion and relegation.
But not in a closed of set system where every other team is ledt out of. Also more money equally shared, salarycap and no stupid play off system.

 

[malvolio]

Maybe in a pyramid structure with promotion and relegation.
But not in a closed of set system where every other team is ledt out of. Also more money equally shared, salarycap and no stupid play off system.

they would have eventually ironed out the issues. UEFA played a couple of times with the UCL format, so nothing new.

isn't the NBA a closed league? question for the people in here that follow it. just want to understand how it works.

 

[MTL_Barca]

just like it's not UEFA's God given right to organize sporting competitions. in the end, its those 12-15 clubs that keeps the UCL afloat.

if they want to do a competition by themselves what stops them from doing that? they can have corrupt/stupid refs delegated as they please. they can have hot/cold balls in the draws also. they can organize fake ballon d'or competition driven by politics. they can rob each other through VAR every game. at least we would have real competition, without some governing body pulling the strings in their favor.

basically all that UEFA does right now, the clubs can do by themselves and also distribute the money how they wish. they could even come up with a better spread of wealth, so smaller clubs get more money.

they are trying to bypass the middle man, UEFA in this case.

"Real competition" where Arsenal can lose every week while staying part of the oh so great "super league" just because they were there from the start?

You make it sound like all clubs would bypass UEFA, but it'll be more like a handful of clubs become UEFA and keep everything for themselves. Smaller clubs wouldn't benefit, this system was clearly meant to secure the financial and sporting situation for the current big names.

Perez talking about changing the rules to compete for todays kids short attention span and video games...yes, they are totally only in it for the competition.

What is stopping them? Apparently the fans, and even players. If not then we would have the Super League now, but in reality the whole thing crashed and burned down in like a day. You know you fucked up when you somehow end up as the bad guy when going against corrupt UEFA

 

[malvolio]

"Real competition" where Arsenal can lose every week while staying part of the oh so great "super league" just because they were there from the start?

You make it sound like all clubs would bypass UEFA, but it'll be more like a handful of clubs become UEFA and keep everything for themselves. Smaller clubs wouldn't benefit, this system was clearly meant to secure the financial and sporting situation for the current big names.

Perez talking about changing the rules to compete for todays kids short attention span and video games...yes, they are totally only in it for the competition.

What is stopping them? Apparently the fans, and even players. If not then we would have the Super League now, but in reality the whole thing crashed and burned down in like a day. You know you fucked up when you somehow end up as the bad guy when going against corrupt UEFA

arsenal might not lose every week. with the money everyone gets in the ESL, they can just as well hit the jackpot on 2-3 transfers and do good. promotion/relegation could be implemented down the road.

not all clubs could bypass UEFA at the start. but for sure, once the ESL was in place more and more clubs would want a part of it. and they could implement lower leagues.

of course it is all about money. isn't this the case now? do you think dinamo zagreb for example wants in the UCL for any other thing than the money and exposure it brings? even though they know full well that they are a sparing partner?

perez didn't do himself any favors by coming out with some of the ideas. but he is right in essence. clubs want to maximize their profits and the young crowd will be targeted.

fans are sheep that fall for anything. surprisingly no fan of city was outside the stadium when his club threw mega bucks at players or wanted to get messi on ludicrous salary. nowadays you can fool people pretty easily, look at brexit.

progress is inevitable and the super league will happen eventually. even UEFA got on the act and basically copied most of the idea.

 

[Morten]

arsenal might not lose every week. with the money everyone gets in the ESL, they can just as well hit the jackpot on 2-3 transfers and do good. promotion/relegation could be implemented down the road.

not all clubs could bypass UEFA at the start. but for sure, once the ESL was in place more and more clubs would want a part of it. and they could implement lower leagues.

of course it is all about money. isn't this the case now? do you think dinamo zagreb for example wants in the UCL for any other thing than the money and exposure it brings? even though they know full well that they are a sparing partner?

perez didn't do himself any favors by coming out with some of the ideas. but he is right in essence. clubs want to maximize their profits and the young crowd will be targeted.

fans are sheep that fall for anything. surprisingly no fan of city was outside the stadium when his club threw mega bucks at players or wanted to get messi on ludicrous salary. nowadays you can fool people pretty easily, look at brexit.

progress is inevitable and the super league will happen eventually. even UEFA got on the act and basically copied most of the idea.

Right, like Kroenke wont simply pocket most of the money, he is a parasite.

 

[Laplacian]

just like it's not UEFA's God given right to organize sporting competitions. in the end, its those 12-15 clubs that keeps the UCL afloat.

if they want to do a competition by themselves what stops them from doing that? they can have corrupt/stupid refs delegated as they please. they can have hot/cold balls in the draws also. they can organize fake ballon d'or competition driven by politics. they can rob each other through VAR every game. at least we would have real competition, without some governing body pulling the strings in their favor.

basically all that UEFA does right now, the clubs can do by themselves and also distribute the money how they wish. they could even come up with a better spread of wealth, so smaller clubs get more money.

they are trying to bypass the middle man, UEFA in this case.

You're missing the point of the point of sports. The best teams are determined by their current performances, not by how many fans they bring in for TV money deals. Teams generating their own competition are biased and will want to control in their favor, hence the guaranteed spots for the founders. We need a third party organization to create a relatively unbiased tournament that grants spots to teams who deserve it based on their performances, not their celebrity status among fans.


It's like saying the ATP should be tossed aside in favor of a competition started by Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer and that every major tournament should automatically have them in because they're the biggest celebrities in the game.

Guaranteed spots kill the entire point of a competitive sport.

 

[malvolio]

You're missing the point of the point of sports. The best teams are determined by their current performances, not by how many fans they bring in for TV money deals. Teams generating their own competition are biased and will want to control in their favor, hence the guaranteed spots for the founders. We need a third party organization to create a relatively unbiased tournament that grants spots to teams who deserve it based on their performances, not their celebrity status among fans.


It's like saying the ATP should be tossed aside in favor of a competition started by Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer and that every major tournament should automatically have them in because they're the biggest celebrities in the game.

Guaranteed spots kill the entire point of a competitive sport.

oh really? so you're telling me UEFA giving away 4 UCL spots for each top 5 league is in line with the 'point of sports'? or portugal winning an EURO because UEFA tought it is ok for a third place in a group to qualify? or the fact that the EPL will have 5 teams in next year's UCL?

sporting merit died off long ago in football vis-a-vis european competitions . once the UCL wasn't about being league champion. so it's basically at the mercy of UEFA who gets what. and it usually caters to the rich and powerful.

didn't see any english fans rioting because they might have 5 teams in the UCL.

what's wrong in football clubs to make their own competition following their own rules? let the free market decide if it's better or worse than UCL. if it's worse than it will die off and we will go back to UEFA.

 

[Laplacian]

oh really? so you're telling me UEFA giving away 4 UCL spots for each top 5 league is in line with the 'point of sports'? or portugal winning an EURO because UEFA tought it is ok for a third place in a group to qualify? or the fact that the EPL will have 5 teams in next year's UCL?

No one's saying UEFA's perfect.


Besides there's a huge difference between those examples and the one I gave, UEFA is still completely merit based. Top 4 in the top 5 leagues aren't guaranteed spots for teams, they're based on the performances in the league.

This is like saying ATP tour tournaments aren't fair because the top 120 players are guaranteed spots in Grand Slams tournaments, so to counter that we should make it even worse and making it a Big 3 guaranteed tournament....

I really don't see your point here. The current format is bad, so we should inflate the issue? Your argument should be to support methods to reduce it instead.

 

[Bulgroz]

I do understand where malvolio's sentiment is coming from, to be fair. All those different format changes over the past 20-30 years fucked a lot of countries, to promote the ones with bigger markets. And the latest format adopted, with guaranteed spots for teams with the highest UEFA points is almost as dumb as the ESL. The whole thing is rigged from the start. I've said it here already a few times, when people were mocking the number of UEFA points some countries get: of course they're hardly ever gonna catch up to the big ones when they can barely get 1 or 2 teams to the UCL group stage. I've said that to defend France, but we also benefit from it a lot. This year, except PSG, all of our teams did absolutely horribly. And it's been going on for a while. We manage to save our 3rd UCL spot thanks to a rigged system. And it gets even worse every time they implement a new version of it. So in a way, ESL is just an even worse version of something that's been going on for a long time.

I guess it all depends on what you expect from a major competition. If all you want is to only see Barca - Bayern or Real - City all year long, then it's all great. I know I wouldn't care much for a thing like that, and I'd rather see games that are a bit exotic. And if your complaint is that "exotic teams are trash", then the solution to that is a better wealth distribution, so that other teams get a fair shot too. Not an even worse distribution (which is what ESL was about, let's face it).

There's a reason why WC is so loved all around the world btw. It's not because the best teams are facing each other. As Newcomer pointed out, NT football is very rarely on par with club football. The reason why everyone gets so hyped about WC is its rarity. You only get to see an important game between Italy and Brazil one every 4 years at best. Do people here really think everybody's going to be super hyped up about the 15th Bayern-Real in a year?

 

[Messi983]

Nah. These greedy clubs all in for themselves deciding everything is the worst-case scenario. I agree UEFA are corrupt as well, but these guys just proved a private competition where they call the shots is the worst and totally not the answer.

The only good part is that UEFA is pressured now, don't see another option than just trying to force UEFA/FIFA to change for the better.

At least these clubs were pretty straightforward what their goals are. Uefa is even more greedy (doing not much else but living mostly of exactly those same clubs; and that's why I don't expect any serious punishments for them which Perez&Co. also know) but are hiding behind some saving the football BS premises.

And they're also against politics being involved in football except when they need them on their side like this time. I mean, in the end Uefa might still "won" this battle (tbh I don't think there are really winners in all of this besides Nasser, lol) but nothing would be resolved in 24 hours without Boris Johnson and other governments. Čeferin has admitted as much himself.

Yes, Perez and Agnelli (mostly them if we're looking for invididuals) are looking very bad at the moment and Uefa is a winner in public eyes but for me they've just proven their hipocrisy once again.