European Super League

[Kidder81]

The cynic in me wouldn't be surprised if the players weren't seeing what way the wind was blowing before coming out so strongly against it. Let's face it most players couldn't give a monkeys who they play for as long as the dough is right, and aren't arsed about the fans (regardless of what they say on their *social media channels) *That are run by PR companies

Are we seriously thinking some of them weren't wondering how much extra they could earn in a Super League?

[Itchy]

It looks like the sporting socialists Sky have saved soccer, well saved it for 14 clubs anyway. Hoorah for Sky 

[quit yo jibbajabba]

Close thread.

Twas an interesting couple of days tho eh 😂

[J70]

Close thread.

Twas an interesting couple of days tho eh 😂

This debacle is going to become a textbook case of corporate arrogance and cultural cluelessness. And the effects an intense, heartfelt, public backlash can generate.

Gary Neville can dine out on this for years. And he deserves to.

[seafoid]

The ESL model was based on Wednesdays ESL and Saturday domestic league. Not enough money in Wednesdaya alone. It would be certain but not enough to give up Saturdays  Plus the money that ESL would generate would give them an unfair advantage in the Saturdays, UEFA can jig around with CL money. One positive aspect of ESL was salary caps on players. Barca/Real is a whorehouse.

[laoislad]

Close thread.

Twas an interesting couple of days tho eh 😂

This debacle is going to become a textbook case of corporate arrogance and cultural cluelessness. And the effects an intense, heartfelt, public backlash can generate.

Gary Neville can dine out on this for years. And he deserves to.

Gary Neville? For what? For having the same opinion as pretty much everyone else?
Pretty sure the fans would have protested anyway, they didn't need Neville or Carragher for that matter to tell them what to do.I saw a clip with James Corden going off on one for 5 or 6 minutes on his show about it, maybe he deserves credit also ?

[Milltown Row2]

Yes fair play to the lads, they came out at the start instead of waiting on it collapsing first before posting on Twitter.

[HiMucker]

Looks like for now the proposed European Super League is very unlikely going to come to fruition dead in the water, but unless there is some serious structural change in how top level soccer in Europe is run and owned by various interests, then it's simply delaying another similarly planned competition/breakaway by the end of this decade.

I'm not sure. I was convinced this one would happen. But as this conglomerate of billionaires and big brands were put firmly in their place by public opinion (not FIFA) now, I'm not really sure what it is they can do to change or soften that feeling, even decades from now.

They may try to increase their numbers and devise a multi-tier European league - with some framework for other European clubs to replace struggling members. But it's maybe hard to believe that such and arrangement would be any more lucrative for the "big 12" than being top dogs in their national leagues.  And it's harder to believe again that national FAs would sanction a promotion/relegation system to the "super league".

Where they though? Or was it the threatened crackdown by the government that really spooked them? The premier League is a massive export for the UK and it looked like the Tories weren't going to sit back and let it happen. I'm just sceptical of the clubs saying they listened to back lash of the fans. They would have surely known that. Fans in the stadium only accounted for something like 4% of profit for these big clubs.

[GetOverTheBar]

Close thread.

Twas an interesting couple of days tho eh 😂

It's still happening as stands "reshaped".

It'll be a mess now. Champions League with no Real / Barca / and the three Italian teams.

Lots of talking to be done.

[GJL]

Close thread.

Twas an interesting couple of days tho eh 😂

It's still happening as stands "reshaped".

It'll be a mess now. Champions League with no Real / Barca / and the three Italian teams.

Lots of talking to be done.

How are the fans of these clubs reacting?

Surley a ESL with no English involvement is a bit pointless?

[Maroon Manc]

There is certainly no premier league club who'd have turned down the opportunity to join a super league especially Leeds United so their antics last night were comical.

As for PSG the super league doesn't need them but PSG definitely needs the super league. Once the world cup is out of the way they'd be all over it. Bayern are the one super power who don't need it, biggest club in their league by a mile.

Everton wouldn't have, no way.

They actually generally have a bit of class and know their history and roots

Everton are owned by a billionaire from overseas, he's not an Everton fan. He's bought the club to make money, there is no logical reason why he or any other premier league would have turned it down. The only clubs who'd say no are fan owned clubs.

[David McKeown]

Looks like for now the proposed European Super League is very unlikely going to come to fruition dead in the water, but unless there is some serious structural change in how top level soccer in Europe is run and owned by various interests, then it's simply delaying another similarly planned competition/breakaway by the end of this decade.

I'm not sure. I was convinced this one would happen. But as this conglomerate of billionaires and big brands were put firmly in their place by public opinion (not FIFA) now, I'm not really sure what it is they can do to change or soften that feeling, even decades from now.

They may try to increase their numbers and devise a multi-tier European league - with some framework for other European clubs to replace struggling members. But it's maybe hard to believe that such and arrangement would be any more lucrative for the "big 12" than being top dogs in their national leagues.  And it's harder to believe again that national FAs would sanction a promotion/relegation system to the "super league".

Where they though? Or was it the threatened crackdown by the government that really spooked them? The premier League is a massive export for the UK and it looked like the Tories weren't going to sit back and let it happen. I'm just sceptical of the clubs saying they listened to back lash of the fans. They would have surely known that. Fans in the stadium only accounted for something like 4% of profit for these big clubs.

Government intervention would have put FIFA in awkward position given their clear stance on governments not being entitled to meddle in football associations and/or competitions.  Mind you FIFA do things as they suit.  I see David Martin was appointed FIFA vice president yesterday.  Hes from Dromore, was removed from the IFA board in 2010 by Nelson McCausland on the basis of his and others handling of the dismissal/resignation of the chief executive.  Martin then failed the competency tests that were enacted after a report into that situation when he tried to get back on to the board and failed them twice more only getting back on to the board once they were removed.  When asked about the Super League he apparently refused to condemn it and simply deflected questions saying they were for another day

[seafoid]

There is certainly no premier league club who'd have turned down the opportunity to join a super league especially Leeds United so their antics last night were comical.

As for PSG the super league doesn't need them but PSG definitely needs the super league. Once the world cup is out of the way they'd be all over it. Bayern are the one super power who don't need it, biggest club in their league by a mile.

Everton wouldn't have, no way.

They actually generally have a bit of class and know their history and roots

Everton are owned by a billionaire from overseas, he's not an Everton fan. He's bought the club to make money, there is no logical reason why he or any other premier league would have turned it down. The only clubs who'd say no are fan owned clubs.

Everton weren't going to be invited to the closed shop. Neither were Lazio or Monaco. But if it went ahead those teams would be disadvantaged by the cash piles of the ESL teams. So they had to oppose it.

[seafoid]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/04/20/europes-elite-suffer-sports-astounding-humiliation-will-take/

Europe's elite suffer sport's most astounding humiliation - and wounds will take a long time to heal
The European Super League plan blew up in an extraordinary day, leaving the sport more divided than ever... but still intact
SAM WALLACE
CHIEF FOOTBALL WRITER
20 April 2021 • 9:52pm

Fans celebrate outside Stamford Bridge after it was announced that Chelsea Football Club would seek to withdraw from the new European Super League CREDIT: Getty
It was on the Spanish chat show El Chiringuito late on Monday evening that the Real Madrid president Florentino Perez declared with some confidence that, along with his 11 European Super League co-conspirators, he was about to "save football" and within 24 hours many would argue that he had done just that.
Some of the most powerful clubs in the European game, and some of its wealthiest owners had suffered the most astounding humiliation in sporting history. The career of their most ambitious leader, Ed Woodward, the Manchester United executive vice-chairman, and chief architect of this, the game's most divisive breakaway, was hastily curtailed. In Italy, doubt surrounded the future of the equally hawkish Andrea Agnelli, president of Juventus, and erstwhile chairman of the European Club Association whom he had abandoned as recently as Sunday.
In west London, protesting Chelsea fans flocked to an empty Stamford Bridge and sat in Fulham Broadway to block the team bus entering for the fixture against Brighton. The club's legendary former goalkeeper Petr Cech, now technical director, was compelled to break out of the Covid-secure bubble and negotiate from behind a line of police officers. "Give us time!" he could be heard shouting in response to fans' demands. But Roman Abramovich did not need time. From an undisclosed location, on an undisclosed phoneline, the Russian owner pulled the plug on Chelsea's involvement and very soon the European Super League would be no more.

Petr Cech appeals to fans gathered outside Stamford Bridge CREDIT: Getty Images
First Chelsea went, then Manchester City and then Atletico Madrid. Then came news of Woodward's resignation, announced to club staff at Old Trafford – a decision that he had made some time ago, according to sources. Woodward, it was claimed, had planned to leave at the end of 2021 after 16 years at United overseeing the Glazer ownership but decided to make the announcement now. In quick succession, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United and Liverpool all withdrew. The public relations experts instructed in five European countries who had so far bullishly stood by the plans were told to stand down. The line went cold. The league was dead.
In Spain, the country's richest man, Perez, the old dictator of Real Madrid - kings of the European Cup, kings of the Champions League - had indeed made history. Perhaps he had even saved football. This had been a furious three-day reckoning and the once secret plans of this wealthy elite of venture capitalists and fossil fuel billionaires, of career football politicians like the old man in charge at the Bernabeu were over. The limits of their power had been exposed. The people had spoken.
Project Big Picture, the proposal to radically change the voting rights and revenue distribution of the Premier League, lasted five days before it was killed at a Premier League shareholders' meeting on a Thursday lunchtime in October. The lifespan of its equally disreputable sibling, the Super League, did not even make it past three days. The power-grab reforms of the wealthiest clubs and their owners, emboldened by losses incurred in the pandemic, have been defeated for a generation and maybe even longer. The game is still imperfect, still riven by inequality, still loaded with debt and jacked up on inflated player wages. But the last five months have told us that some lines cannot be crossed.
An extraordinary day. At 11am, the Premier League shareholders met for the first time with six of their number absent, unthinkable in the past for a collective that has prided itself on the tight discipline of its governance and the collegiate nature of its decision-making. While talks went on for more than three hours, Wolverhampton Wanderers' official account tweeted that maybe it was too late for a bus parade to celebrate their 2019 Premier League title. They had finished seventh that year, behind six clubs who were now breakaway rebels. Southampton's account offered congratulations and pointed out that under those rules Saints were now the 2015 champions. There was a mood of insurrection.

Wolves: 2018/19 Premier League Champions
In the meeting the 14 clubs discussed their next move. Even then they believed that the sheer weight of public feeling – the universal condemnation from politicians, royalty and governing bodies - would be too hard for the six rebel clubs to bear for long. They suspected that City and Chelsea, whose owners regarded their clubs primarily as a public relations exercise, would be the least enthusiastic. There was a quiet confidence that they had won the war already, the question now would be how to win the peace.
It was clear then, as it is now, that the six rebel clubs could not be allowed to come back into the fold without punishment for breaking Rule L9 that prohibits members from entering unsanctioned competitions. But the executives noted that punishment of players and managers would be unfair on individuals who had played no part in the plotting. Any punishment would target specifically those who had knowledge and complicity. How many of them may offer themselves up for sanctions is another question.
What is certain is that the wounds, already raw from Project Big Picture, will take a long time to heal. The most radical among the 14 would like the Premier League to have the kind of regulatory powers conferred on US leagues who can compel an owner to sell a franchise if they are determined to have taken action that contravenes the values and integrity of the competition. That day still seems a long way off, but what is certain is that this was a victory for the Premier League, for its 14-strong super majority, for the likes of Leicester City, Southampton and Crystal Palace.
At the Premier League office there was elation. Getting the 2019-2020 season completed in the teeth of the pandemic had been an exhausting, no-days-off exercise. Then this season, chief executive Richard Masters and his team had been hit by two huge betrayals from the major clubs. This morning, the world's most popular sport league finds itself battered, divided, and with a whole new level of resentment and mistrust among some of its members. Yet, still intact.

[GetOverTheBar]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56830308

It's finished.........for now.