European Super League

[El Gato]

No need to wait for fans to get bored when the very same fans canceled the whole idea in a couple of days.

You honestly believe the English bailed because of the fan pressure?

 

[katzik]

You honestly believe the English bailed because of the fan pressure?

Well they actually did and I am happy with that.
At least in England the mother of football there are still some real fans and not posh twitter fb fans that they dream about money money money money.
BvB to include in that with the largest by far fan audience in tickets and home and away games

 

[Luftstalag14]

I don?t believe those clubs that left have to pay 300m if they hadn?t received any money from JP Morgan in the first place.

Also the Saudis actually were the ones funding the ESL? Some BS.

 

[El Gato]

Well they actually did and I am happy with that.
At least in England the mother of football there are still some real fans and not posh twitter fb fans that they dream about money money money money.
BvB to include in that with the largest by far fan audience in tickets and home and away games

They did. But absolutely not due to fan outrage. Especially since even that is quite a divided field depending which club you inspect.

 

[katzik]

Absolutely yes. They said it themselves.
And I really can't see a divided field among English fans.

 

[Windhook]

How the Super League Fell Apart by The New York Times

This felt like reading some novel. Could be made into a movie with Massimiliano Allegri playing Ceferin.

 

[FinBarcelonafan]

WoW german Newspaper has some incredible Leaks:

- JP Morgan wasn't the Investor , the Investor was actually Saudi Arabia
- Abramowitch has got a Call from the Russian Government that a Super league is an attack to the Pride of Britain and Brexit
- City also got a Call from Government that they should quickly leave , the money is coming from Saudis and they don't want their Image to be damaged
- PSG knew from the first Second that Saudis are financing it
- The Saudis contacted Perez the first
- Saudis will now Invest 6B trough UEFA and they want to complete Newcastle takeover this year and become a Super Power

If this the truth I am happy this didn't go through. Otherwise I was looking forward to ESL.

 

[malvolio]

How the Super League Fell Apart by The New York Times

This felt like reading some novel. Could be made into a movie with Massimiliano Allegri playing Ceferin.

Ceferin - the godfather to Agnelli's youngest child - texted the Italian's wife and asked if she might get the Juventus president to call him urgently.

UEFA in a nutshell

 

[Vilarrubi]

I am not sure why you guys call ESL a closed competition and CL as some fair and open competition.

This season in a CL:
4 teams started in a preliminary round, BEFORE 4 qualifying rounds, so they had to play 5 KO rounds to reach a CL:
- Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Andora, San Marino

Then teams who needed to play 4 KO rounds against other champions:
- Scotland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Romania, Poland, Ireland, Serbia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Israel, Iceland, Latvia, Wales, Montenegro and former Soviet countries

Needed to play 3 KO matches:
- Croatia, Denmark, Switzerland

Yet, for example:
4 teams from EPL
4 teams from Spain
4 teams from Italy
4 teams from Germany
3 teams from France
= had all direct promotion to a group stage

Wtf is that?

Former Eurooean champions Red Star Belgrade and Celtic had to play 4 KO rounds against other champions only to reach group stage.

Yet, Sevilla, Monchengladbach or Lazio had a direct spot.

So, a 4th placed team from Spain/England/Italy is million times more important than champions from 80% of Europe who needs to play 3-4 KO qualifying rounds: Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria and foremer Soviet Union countries.

CL is open only on paper.
For example, champions from all over the Europe need to play 2-3-4 qualifying rounds between eachother.

So, in which universe is a CL fair and open for everyone?
It is open only in theory where 40 champions have to kill eachother in 5 KO rounds for 3-4 CL spots.

And then 3 spots out of 32 is not that much different than 1 spot out od 20 is ESL.

The only difference between CL and ESL is that 4 top teams from Italy/England will qualify based on their league position instead of fixed spots for Arsenal and Milan.

I don't understand how can anyone buy stories how a Uefa/CL are good guys with a fair competition open for everyone.

Again, Sevilla, Monchengladbach and Atalanta are million times more privileged than champions from 80% of Europe.

What a beautiful and fair play competition.

Agree CL needs a big reform and the qualifying process for some leagues/teams is tough.

But the reason those teams you mentioned get in without qualifying rounds is because of coefficient. It’s done over a 5 year period so if your league/teams consistently do well in European competition it can become easier to qualify.

For example Serie A got a 4th Champions League spot instead of 3 from 2018/19 because of their coefficient. Italian teams must have been doing well over that 5 year period to get it. Scotland gained another spot last season https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53688401 etc etc


So those teams you mentioned from leagues outside of the usual top 5 would need to perform well in Europe to make it easier for them to qualify. It’s not handed out on a plate. The current system even though it’s not perfect is still fairer than what Super League was suggesting. That would have seen those other leagues fall into irrelevance.

 

[BarcaOG]

They did. But absolutely not due to fan outrage. Especially since even that is quite a divided field depending which club you inspect.

Well, what's your explanation? Sequence of events:
1) Plan the ESL somewhat furtively for a few years.
2) Announce it suddenly. Hundreds of millions of euros at stake.
3) Fans react.
4) Within a day, the scheme collapses.

Step 3 seems decisive here. Unless a huge investor pulled out for some reason and the real reason for the collapse was lack of funds? Curious: what's your account?

 

[Newcomer]

Well, what's your explanation? Sequence of events:
1) Plan the ESL somewhat furtively for a few years.
2) Announce it suddenly. Hundreds of millions of euros at stake.
3) Fans react.
4) Within a day, the scheme collapses.

Step 3 seems decisive here. Unless a huge investor pulled out for some reason and the real reason for the collapse was lack of funds? Curious: what's your account?

He wants to say it is not fan outrage alone. Let's be clear, when the true powers don't want to hear the fan/the people, they just keep going on without wavering. Here, fans outrage got echo'ed by political powers, football ruling powers, media powers, etc.

In ESL camp, there were only the dirty 12 and Perez who was scoring on goals after on goals on TV.

 

[BarcaOG]

Yeah, I think that's right, but that nuanced position was not explained in Wolfe's posts. He is mocking the idea that fans 'stopped' the ESL, which suggests they played an inconsequential role in the matter.

You have made a strong point in that regard.

 

[Jadentheman]

WoW german Newspaper has some incredible Leaks:

- JP Morgan wasn't the Investor , the Investor was actually Saudi Arabia
- Abramowitch has got a Call from the Russian Government that a Super league is an attack to the Pride of Britain and Brexit
- City also got a Call from Government that they should quickly leave , the money is coming from Saudis and they don't want their Image to be damaged
- PSG knew from the first Second that Saudis are financing it
- The Saudis contacted Perez the first
- Saudis will now Invest 6B trough UEFA and they want to complete Newcastle takeover this year and become a Super Power

Will people protest Saudi takeover of UEFA and yet another English club by oil blood money?

I think I know the answer...Even if Saudi's ESL fell through they created a senario where they win-win either way. Football is still dying...

 

[Jadentheman]

Agree CL needs a big reform and the qualifying process for some leagues/teams is tough.

But the reason those teams you mentioned get in without qualifying rounds is because of coefficient. It’s done over a 5 year period so if your league/teams consistently do well in European competition it can become easier to qualify.

For example Serie A got a 4th Champions League spot instead of 3 from 2018/19 because of their coefficient. Italian teams must have been doing well over that 5 year period to get it. Scotland gained another spot last season https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53688401 etc etc


So those teams you mentioned from leagues outside of the usual top 5 would need to perform well in Europe to make it easier for them to qualify. It’s not handed out on a plate. The current system even though it’s not perfect is still fairer than what Super League was suggesting. That would have seen those other leagues fall into irrelevance.

Or they could just give everyone that won their domestics leagues automatic entrance while the 2nd,3rd, and 4th place teams duke it out in KO rounds. Make them earn that spot. Top teams should in theory be ok even if they use their youth and B-league rosters. Or is that not good enough against these "lowly" teams?

 

[Windhook]

Fan outrage played a minor role. Them combined with the massive social media backlash from arguably all the ex-footballers, managers, journalists... that was a great opportunity for the British government to threaten the clubs with anti-ESL laws to gain politically from this. Once the Big 6 were out of ESL it was clear. And it was easy to wash their hands clean with the purity of the game blah-blah, meaning the fans.