Go On, F**k Off The Lot Of You

European Super League: New proposal would be open competition, say organisers

 

There's nothing wrong with national league structure as long as there is good control on the money.

When you let 1 or 2 teams dominate and don't effectively reign in their spending that is where problems occur. The premiership is only treading water because we have more than just a couple of teams that can compete but it's on the precipice. It's crucial that Man City get the book chucked at them considering the recent findings, otherwise English football could go the same way as some of our European chums.

Chumpions & Ropey League need scrapping and we need a world club cup based on a 4 year cycle 2 years alternating with the Actual world cup.

 

Yeah, that would be great for climate change.

 

Play it exclusively on FIFA.

 

But professional football is simply a pure expression of free market economics and capitalism at its least restricted. Why should football clubs be forced to rein in their spending when their owners have the money (or can borrow it) and are happy to spend it? In the real world we have Shell and BP making massive, massive profits. We have Amazon and other giants paying their workers a tiny fraction of their profits simply because they are so big they can do what they like. At least the football clubs pay their players salaries beyond the wildest dreams of 99% of the population. Okay, so the ordinary workers in the offices or the matchday staff don't enjoy very much of the game's vast riches (and in fact are often paid very poorly) but the players and their agents are incredibly wealthy, which is the main thing.

The Premier League is grotesquely rich but it has become so suffocated by the sheer costs. European leagues are suffering because (bar the odd exception) they are trying (and failing) to keep pace with the English clubs.

 

That completely misses the point that although football clubs are run as businesses their existence is based on competing in competitions, which sets them apart from normal business who just exist to make profit for themselves and aren’t out to ‘win’ anything.

For competitions to be fair the rules need to be the same for everyone, if an oil rich nation buys a club in a competition and then spends what they like then that puts other clubs at an unfair advantage.

That’s why sport is different to normal business and we still need some rules in place to control spending.

There is nothing to stop any club shilling merchandise to make money like any business, but there is nothing to say the competitions they compete in have to adjust their rules to align solely with capitalism.

 

Absolutely.
The picture that comes to mind is of a chess tournament. Some players can only 'afford' the standard set of 16 pieces, some can't even afford that and have 12 pawns and no queen. Then there are the teams that can afford to replace their pawns with queens. That may be 'fair' in a capitalist arena, but it's not fair competition.

Edit: Then there's Watford, who waste their money on pieces at queen prices that perform at bishop level... and worse.

 

I completely agree with both your comments above. But that's not how the football clubs / businesses think. The clubs at the top have virtually no interest in fairness, or a level playing field. They want the illusion of competition to ensure the money keeps rolling in, and nothing more.

The FFP rules are preposterous. It's why Johnny-Come-Lately richboys like Man City and PSG are the clubs that have had issues whereas the established giants are fine. The entire system exists as a protectionist racket. I'm not saying that's even necessarily a bad idea because the game is increasingly vulnerable to the mega rich buying their way in and spending their way to success. It was ever thus, of course. Jack Walker did it with Blackburn, for example, but the sums of money now are so earth shattering that regulation, while necessary to ensure the illusion holds, is likely to be futile.

Time to let them go – as long as they completely go. No 'B' teams continuing in the domestic competitions. If you play in the European League you resign from the Premier League. If they have promotion-relegation from the European League then an English team relegated from the European system should have to re-enter the English system lower down. Perhaps not in the National League or League 2 but maybe in the Championship.

Now, that sense of jeopardy would keep things interesting. If you want the high stakes rewards, take the high stakes risks. Imagine Man City going from playing Bayern and Barcelona one season, getting relegated and going to Barnsley and Blackburn the next.

 

Now that... I would love to see.

 

Absolutely. Let them go off and play Cashball (R) amoungst themselves.

 

It's probably the fairest way to make it work, hence why it won't happen.

The worst case scenario is they set up the European league in parallel, which is how it sounds from the idea of each team playing a minimum of 14 games. It means they'd still likely dominate the domestic leagues. So nothing improves for the leagues that are currently dominated by a tiny number of clubs (4-5 in England and Italy, 3 in Spain, one in France and Germany). The richest just get richer.

Create a genuine 80-team European league and play it separately to the domestic leagues. Have promotion and relegation between the Euro league and the domestic leagues. Make every team relegated out of Europe resume lower down in their domestic league, which would ensure it would take at least two years for them to get back into the European league. That would restore a genuine sense of competition and it would make the European league matter and improve the domestic leagues in one go.

 

The PL is the richest league so the biggest driver of this is all the other big teams elsewhere in Europe who want more money to compete with them. The British clubs have to be careful they don’t ruin the cash cow that is the premier league, in return for something that doesn’t replace any lost revenue with what that currently makes them, as well as the champions league which will of course go. Clubs like City and Chelsea (at the time) weren’t fussed about the ESL because they didn’t/don’t need the money, Newcastle likely won’t care now either.

 

I’m looking forward to it. Better than the shower of ***** that we serve up week in week out.

 

But the Premier League isn’t a Super League in all but name, precisely because of the imbalance you go on to cite. Anyone creating a Super League now would be crazy to allow such an imbalance, which is why they need it to be a closed shop with no relegation like the major leagues in US sport. I think the great challenge of running it would be to get the likes of PSG and Real Madrid to accept operating on an equal footing to everyone else in the league.

 

Any news on Barnstonworth Utd?

 

Out of interest, why are Real Madrid and PSG the issue? Two very different clubs, placed 2nd and 6th respectively on the latest list rich list by Deloitte. But Real are, by most measures, historically the most successful club in Europe. PSG were formed in 1970 and, although now the most successful club in France, could probably be described as the nouveau riche.

When 15 of the top 30 world's richest clubs are from the Premier League and when Brighton are richer than Benfica it's arguably not the case that Real and PSG are the problem.

Southampton are the 30th richest club on the Deloitte list and their team is absolutely bobbins.

 

There was nothing young about Gomes, Holebas, Behrami, Prodl, Britos or Jurado mind!

 

Yes, TOFFS have stopped selling the tops.

https://www.toffs.com/shop-by-team/football/movie-fictional/barnestoneworth-united

 

I'm sure Willis can answer for himself but I took the post to mean that teams used to dominating uncompetitive domestic leagues might not wish to be assigned to mid-table mediocrity.

 

Ah, fair enough. Yeah, I guess so. But I guess that's the case for almost all the clubs that breakaway. Their hubris means that none of them will envisage the possibility of them being the ones that are mid-table fodder or relegation candidates. They will all imagine they'll transfer their domestic dominance, or at least status, to a European league. Some clubs might be in for a rude awakening if the new system gets off the ground and Tottenham, to pick a club entirely at random, are consigned to playing in Euro Division 4 every year with exciting trips to Dynamo Ballbag and FC Nuclear Power Plant when they imagined rubbing shoulders with Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and AC Milan.

 

Yes, which is why I quite like the idea.

 

To advance on that, I took it as them wanting to ring fence income like the US leagues, rather than enter a league were they risk relegation and ending up worse than they started. A team like Real may want more money, but they already take the lions share of the income available in La Liga, and that is currently pretty much guaranteed every year.

NFL teams can afford to have salary caps, drafts and player franchising precisely because they don’t have any risk to their income via relegation.

 

Yes, quite right. I mentioned Real and PSG off the top of my head as dominant clubs in their leagues, used to getting their way, not equating old and new money at all. As I've said in the past, big football clubs, although they play in 'leagues', do not understand the term - as in the phrase 'in league with'. It means operating collectively for the benefit of all concerned. So collective marketing of merchandise, collective bargaining for TV deals, rules to restrict dominance in playing squads etc. The only direct competition is on the pitch for the pursuit of trophies.

 

Or use the pools panel?

 

And while the European clubs are plotting their Super League and UEFA are rolling out an expanded Champions League, FIFA announce plans for a 32-team club world cup, to be held in June 2025.

 

Of course they will because they're greedy ***ts.

 

So touching to see people put faith in a Government regulator blocking English clubs from joining a European Super League.

People love the free market... until they don't.

To be fair, this reheated proposal looks like they've learned a lot from the previous backlash.

It's bigger – 64 clubs. It's not a closed shop. They say the matches will be free-to-air.

Which poses the question – who's paying?

Saudi Arabia must be the hot favourites.

 

Actually I don't have much against the proposal - Seems fairly sensible.

 

Apparently the only stipluation is that Newcastle need to win everything, every year.