European Super League

[Luftstalag14]

I didn’t like this ESL thing to begin with. However I am not sure if I want to see the British government coming out in full force to kill a business operation/entity in the name of some other business operations and entities. Is this the role of a government in a free market, capitalistic society?

 

[Joan]

nothing happened really. just politicians and UEFA scrambling to come up with ways to counter the ESL.

also fans falling for this charade and crying about the 'death of football'. even though that happened long time ago. imagine city, chelsea or psg fans talking about integrity

Saving my time, thanks malvolio

So, are Uefa and Boris Johnson saving football?

 

[Yannik]

Been busy this morning. Any good coverage/recap recommendation?

- Bobo Johnson wants to introduce laws to stop the ESL
- Perez supposedly lied about ESL agreements being binding
- reports of City and possibly Chelsea getting cold feet and wanting to pull out
- Zidane diplomatically called out Perez in a public interview
- Rummenigge doubles down Bayern will not join
- Agnelli apparently approved the CL reform on Friday, then snitched, complained about it and joined the ESL
- Harry Maguire told Woodward he is a shithead.
- Liverpool employees requested to speak to FSG and they refused to face them.
- Bill Shanklys grandson wants his statue removed from Anfield

 

[malvolio]

Saving my time, thanks malvolio

So, are Uefa and Boris Johnson saving football?

the way i see it, they are saving UEFA. ESL clubs don't want to ditch their local leagues.

 

[Morten]

the way i see it, they are saving UEFA. ESL clubs don't want to ditch their local leagues.

For now, no, but the end game is pretty much to ditch domestic leagues anyway.

 

[serghei]

If you would just update the CL, reduce it to 16 teams, make it an elite competition only, have a groups stage with better, more balanced teams, with play-offs, like East and West in the NBA, then quarters with seeding based on group ranking (1A-4B, 2A-3B, 3A-2B, 4A-1B), this would be the best of both worlds.

You'd have stacked groups (8 teams in each with great derbies in each round), you'd get rid of dumb draws, random idiotic rules (like no teams from the same country can play together before QF), and have great playoffs too.

Do something with the CL groups, because what happens there is nearly irrelevant.

 

[Birdy]

Politics is always about power dynamics and power play.

The question how much power UEFA, FIFA, and governments have to pull out real-world actions that can stop the ESL.
Which would mean also those actions have to be legally well-grounded.
I doubt their power is as much as people make it out to be

My prediction is that after some drama and a series of war episodes, there will be a compromise between the ESL clubs and UEFA.
UEFA will probably decide to implement right now the CL reforms and allow for more games and more games between top clubs.
ESL will be suspended.
But only temporarily.
In the big scheme of things, it's inevitable. It's inherent in the logic of any capitalist development that allows monopolies to be formed.
ESL will happen sooner or later.

 

[serghei]

ESL will not happen as some might want to fantasize. Domestic leagues will naturally carry the most volume of games during a season. But you can take the good ideas from ESL and implement them in the CL, because the format got stale a bit.

 

[mc_lovin]

If you would just update the CL, reduce it to 16 teams, make it an elite competition only, have a groups stage with better, more balanced teams, with play-offs, like East and West in the NBA, then quarters with seeding based on group ranking (1A-4B, 2A-3B, 3A-2B, 4A-1B), this would be the best of both worlds.

You'd have stacked groups (8 teams in each with great derbies in each round), you'd get rid of dumb draws, random idiotic rules (like no teams from the same country can play together before QF), and have great playoffs too.

Do something with the CL groups, because what happens there is nearly irrelevant.

The format (2 groups of 10, best 4 in each group play knockouts) of the proposed Super League is great. Without this "founding member" nonsense I would be all over it.

But I guess Tottenham and Arsenal really wanted the path of least resistance (or PL clubs in general). For the other top teams it shouldnt be too problematic qualifying by sporting merit.

 

[BBZ8800]

�� [MENTION=12370]Mike[/MENTION]Keegan_DM

?Boris Johnson met PL chief exec Richard Masters this morning. I understand the PM said whilst he is a staunch free marketeer, the ESL is ?anti-competitive?, adding ?we should drop a legislative bomb to stop it - and we should do it now.? Boris prepared to unveil the new law in the Parlament.PL meeting ongoing.?

Boris Johnson stealing Covid vaccines from EU in a shaddy deals with Astra Zeneca and now he'll do whatever needed to protect English intrests in football.

And then people are shocked when teams want more money.

These governments, politicians, CEOs and everyone are the biggest mafia ever.
They would stab you at the back in a second to earn more money for their tribe.

Everyone are looking only at their asses.
From vaccines to football.

And some users here talk about sports and fair play.

That's all a fucking mafia and rigged from top to bottom.

 

[katzik]

If you would just update the CL, reduce it to 16 teams, make it an elite competition only, have a groups stage with better, more balanced teams, with play-offs, like East vs West in the NBA, then quarters with seeding based on league ranking, this would be the best of both worlds.

You'd have stacked groups (8 each with tough derbies in each round), you'd get rid of dumb draws, and have great playoffs too.

Do something with the CL groups, because what happens there is nearly irrelevant.

Why do we have to make it so "elite".

Lyon and Leipzig managed it to the semis last year.
Roma in 2018, Monaco 2017.

The same goes with the quarter finals etc..

Many people writing here are blaming UEFA, FIFA.
We are with you guys, we know the horrible things they have been doing last years (FIFA Dubai 2022, really??)

But I am expecting much more from the big clubs of Europe. Not a closed rich tournament founded by an American shinny bank with Beyonce singing on the halftime and fat people clapping "defence, defence".

Let's all fight Uefa or Fifa but this is really horrible, it is even worse than the monsters of Uefa have created.

 

[serghei]

Why do we have to make it so "elite".

Lyon and Leipzig managed it to the semis last year.
Roma in 2018, Monaco 2017.

The same goes with the quarter finals etc..

Many people writing here are blaming UEFA, FIFA.
We are with you guys, we know the horrible things they have been doing last years (FIFA Dubai 2022, really??)

But I am expecting much more from the big clubs of Europe. Not a closed rich tournament founded by an American shinny bank with Beyonce singing on the halftime and fat people clapping "defence, defence".

Let's all fight Uefa or Fifa but this is really horrible, it is even worse than the monsters of Uefa have created.

Roma and Leipzig would make the 16. The problem with the CL being boring is that some teams are not at the required level (I'm talking about Ferencvaros, Astana, those cannon fodder that just get slapped around in the CL), and those belong in the Europa League (which should not be seen that bad, it's a disrespected competition with more quality in it than people give it credit for). So, you almost have like 2 competitions, one in the Groups, and another after.

The CL should get downgraded in terms of participants, but the number of games should be kept around the same with a change of format. The only way you keep the same number of games with fewer team is by expanding the league part (groups).

 

[Adversus]

This will not make clubs who were previously great great again. If anything it will make them less than they are now because now while they may no longer be European powerhouses they still are in their domestic leagues.

Within a few seasons teams like Juventus, Chelsea, Arsenal and any of the others are going to be mid table or bottom of the table in a league dominated by Real Madrid, Barca, Utd and City (because of their Arab money).

And the worldwide fans of those clubs are glory hunters. Within a few seasons those fans will lose interest and they will see their revenues plummet.

With the state Barca are in right now and then without Messi. Barca may even start very poorly and find themselves in that position with no global stars.

I'm an Everton supporter and when the big clubs in England wanted to split to form the Premier League Everton were one of the founding members who had won the league 9 times (I think 3rd highest) and in the mid 80s were one of the top teams in Europe. We were one of the so called Big 5. Unfortunately just as the premier league started Everton were going through transition and we've never recovered.

Besides I still don't know how these teams will be able to develop players if they can't loan them to other clubs so that means they will need to sign all their players from the UEFA pyramid which is going to cost a fortune and may even work out well for teams in the domestic leagues.

I'm not against it but the split needs to be absolute. Let's be honest. The champions league was killing the domestic leagues anyway.

 

[malvolio]

Why do we have to make it so "elite".

Lyon and Leipzig managed it to the semis last year.
Roma in 2018, Monaco 2017.

The same goes with the quarter finals etc..

lyon, leipzig, roma or monaco getting to the semis are just exceptions. just look at who qualifies from the CL groups every seasons and who plays semis and finals. it's the same clubs anyway.

lyon, roma etc could be in the second tier and promote the next year, when arsenal and tottenham are eventually relegated.

 

[Bulgroz]

nothing happened really. just politicians and UEFA scrambling to come up with ways to counter the ESL.

also fans falling for this charade and crying about the 'death of football'. even though that happened long time ago. imagine city, chelsea or psg fans talking about integrity

I mean, can Barca, Real, or any big football club really, talk about integrity?

I love how some fans think they have moral high ground because of "history". History's not a free pass for clubs to act like thugs or cunts, which is basically what any big team's management is doing. They only care about "history" when they can market it in a certain way. If it gets in their way, they don't care about it that much. They love selling brand new jerseys that "pay hommage" to an older version of it. But when "history" means (for example) not having a brand on the shirt, they find a way around it. The whole "Unicef" sponsoring stint was just to prep the field for an actual shirt sponsor ("oooooh but it was Qatar foundation, it's an ONG!"). Beautifully cynical.

I also remember the whole circus around one of Bordeaux's young player (Valentin Vada, who turned out to be crap, but was a huge prospect back then): Bordeaux worked its way around FIFA's rules that prevented recruiting foreign kids under 16 by handing out a "job" to the player's father. Since the father had to move from Argentina to Bordeaux for the job, he brought his kid with him. "Oh, what's that you say Mr Vada? Your son wants to play football? My, we can certainly find him a spot in a small local team called Girondins de Bordeaux!". Sounds familiar ? Yeah, it should, Bordeaux was not the first to try to play that card. Anyways, when Bordeaux tried getting Valentin Vada a license, UEFA and FIFA said no because Bordeaux used a loop-hole. Took them a few years (during which Vada couldn't play any official game, he was only allowed to practice). In the meantime, Vada's agent explicitely said that several big teams (Barca and Chelsea, among a few others) called him to say "if your players comes to our city, we'll get him a license in no-time, don't worry". They were all very confident, because apparently all those rules didn't apply the same way depending on how important your team is (and probably on how much you can pay).

I'm just saying that to point out it's the same thing on different levels for a lot of teams all around the world. In that example, Bordeaux acted crookedly in the first place too. All in all, I don't really see how Barca fans should be allowed to lecture PSG fans, just because their team was created later than them. Just like it bugs me to see PSG pretending to take the high road after taking a dump on FFP for years.