Spain threatens to kick out Barca from La Liga if Catalonia votes to secede. Where would you rather see Barca move to?

FYI.... Ligue 1 is allowed to invite non-French teams by simple majority of the presidents (reason that Monaco is in it). LFP president here has already said that Barca and any other team that is free will be put up for vote and will be invited to join if they get the voting. 100% Barca and other Catalan teams would get invited.

Just a very easy option if it gets to that point.

They would split the league in 2 divisions and the winner of each division would play a supercup type 2 leg affair at the end of the season to choose the champion overall.

I'd love to see it tbh because all the provence teams in the south (OM, Monaco, Nice, etc.) would end up in the same division as Barca.

Good info there Sports. Also , Dosto and Kick @

If Barcelona were to ever join any other league , say Serie A , although not trully a pragmatic choice for anyone involved ; it's not just about Barcelona's travelling , it's also about some 17 teams travelling there and their fans too. Portugal , Italy , England(lol), these options could never materialise , it's just not feasible and doesn't serve anyone's best interest , simply because of logistics. But for the sake of the argument , say they wanted to sign up in Serie A . They would either start from the very bottom , the lowest amateur division and start climbing up with the years , or , they would have to merge with an another club in any proffesional division of Italian football .

They could make it a merge basically only on paper , they could retain the name and their colours and their home , but only if they could come to an agreement with said club in the merge, which will be exceptionaly hard to accomplish. Essentialy the other team will be pretty much disabled if they agreed in just about everything Barcelona would demand, so there's that . The last legal and pretty much the last choice they would have , Barcelona could agree to buy another club and take their league id , not sure how to put in English . All teams in proffesional divisions have one since the day they became part of the proffesional part of the sport. But once again , that would mean they would destroy a current team and take their place , in whichever division said club was . Which is something much easier said than done . Barcelona may have a rich history and potential to boost their new league to new economical hights , but i doubt which club would agree to any of this.. Unless it's a club in administration? idk. Barcelona could possibly buy them whole , take their place in the league , then proceed to destroy the brand , so they could recreate the club from scratch and start from amateur divisions again..

That's about all their options , outside of Ligue 1 as Sports says , or a Catalan league. They cannot be incorporated into the league just like that , as much profit as there may be , it is not legal . They cannot just do that out of the blue and even in France , there's a precedent with Monaco , otherwise i doubt it be would have been any different there too.

The only difficulty for Ligue 1 is to break things into 2 divisions as it's being proposed...  not sure if some clubs are cool with that.  Also, since it's more than 20 teams overall, every club wouldn't play the others twice if you're going to stick to a 38 game schedule.

There are challenges.

But at least in France, there's no legal roadblock.   There's precedent with Monaco.  It would all come down to organizing things in a way where the majority of the club presidents would vote for it.

Honestly, i don't see it as a problem.  They accepted Qatar with arms wide open and have even put the PSG president on the LFP Board this year (voted in by other Ligue 1 presidents).  The clubs here are owned by business people and they're looking to increase revenue...  bringing in Barca would obviously increase their money.  More money = "yes" vote.  In essence, that's what it comes down to. There are no socios to answer to. Everything is private enterprise in Ligue 1.

yea that sounds similar to the way American sports leagues are divided, for example the NBA - The Eastern Conference and the Western Conference, then play offs to reach the final championship.

Revenue wise, doesn't Ligue 1 allocate money differently than La Liga (towards Barca). Not sure if the other Catalan teams would end up with more cash, but maybe Barca would take a hit.

And for the people suggesting an all Catalonia league, you must realize there isn't enough teams in Catalonia to form even 1 full first division of good teams.

Here is the list for Catalan teams btw, now way this alone could form a league

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Football_clubs_in_Catalonia

The majority of these clubs are very small and way down in the depths of the divisions.

It would work best if they grabbed some of the smaller regions near by Catalonia, and hopefully the Basque region and formed a solid league. if they managed to get a good TV deal, some of the lower clubs like Girona, Gymnastic and for the Basque clubs like Deportivo Alaves could end up benefiting by gaining automatic promotion and more money distributed to them. Espanyol and Real Sociedad could become top tier clubs in the division etc. That said, how would the TV deal work? Would they even get a good one? These are all good questions

Also in La Liga, that money Barca was getting would now go to other clubs like Sevilla, Villareal and Valencia helping them as well.

Joining another league would be a huge challenge. I mean think about it, allot of the mid/lower la Liga teams I think by just kinda think "fawk it, we aren't really going to beat these guys" and have probably been annoyed with having to face us and Real Madrid for years. Going to another league, and literally every single team in that league will treat us like it's a Champions League final, just cause of the fact it's us. I like it.

can't see how anything like that is going to happen.

Even in the unlikely case that there will be some kind of catalan independence La Liga would be stupid to exclude the Barcelona clubs, just as Barca would be stupid to leave an established big league like La Liga.

As for the French thing, this two tier idea sounds simply terrible.
So what, you'll have the league divided geographically?
And then let's say 12 teams in each division?
Clearly one final game at the end won't solve it, you'll have to have play offs to determine final table positions.
Also, so then the two biggest clubs, Barca and PSG would not face each other in regular league at all? Only, maybe, in playoffs/final?
Sounds stupid if you ask me.

Kick wrote:Surely if you were kicked out, you'd have to start at the bottom, you wouldn't be allowed into any country's top division. Otherwise they'd be backhanding their own teams for a team not from the country.

You'd be better off forming a Catalan league as a majority of your players would leave if you were dropped to say, the 9th division of English Football.

That's the standard procedure indeed. But Barcelona are more than a club and warrant special treatment.
Wouldn't mind seeing them in the conference north though. Forget stoke, imagine messi on a cold night at Stockport

Well presumably plenty of leagues would be interested in getting Barcelona. We could pick whichever plan is most beneficial for us.

Of course, Barça should use its leverage for the benefit of Catalan teams as a whole, not just the club, so L1 is realistically the likeliest option.

"We need Barcelona to stay in the league," Benzema told a press conference while on France duty. "That's what football is all about – two great teams like Madrid and Barca playing against each other.

"If they need to leave La Liga then that would be a problem so I hope things stay as they are.

chad isn't reading this section I hope so I can say it out loud. I actually like Benzema. One of the more likeable players from Madrid. Never got into scuffles during the heated Mourinho days, never says anything disrespectful off the pitch, keeps it politically correct even in the "Messi vs. Ronaldo" debates ("I can't compare them, they have a differnt style of playing. Two great players."), plays selflessly on the pitch aaaaand:



Good lad Benz.

Is any of these scenarios even remotely realistic?

Also, the way I read the link posted in the OP the La Liga guy merely said should Catalonia become independent a law would have to be changed for Barca etc to remain part of La Liga.
Sounds neither like a threat nor like an insurmaountable problem to me, since in the case of an independence I imagine quite a couple of other laws would have to be modified as well

Most likely neither is going to happen, as Catalonia will remain in Spain and Barcelona will also, or if they do get independent La Liga will allow them to stay as it would hurt La Liga, Real Madrid more then Barcelona, but expect us not to get many favours

Seems far fetched. But as I've said I would rather Barca and some of the closer communities + the Basque clubs join and form a league.

I mean, whats the point of gaining independence, to just turn around and play in a different nations league, if the whole point is that you are now independent

In France, Ligue 1 is only a national league because all the club are French other than Monaco....  it's a private entity, all the clubs are private entities and nobody receives government help or has government ownership.

They would probably rebrand it if the Catalan clubs joined and call it "Ligue 1" and "Liga Uno".  It's not like it's called the "British Premier League" or something like that AND/OR have any nationalistic laws like the Bundesliga (only Germans are allowed to own the clubs).

Think of it like the NBA, NFL or NHL in the US where you have both US and Canadian franchises.

In terms of revenue sharing of media rights, however, Barca would need to make huge concessions. It's the same model as the EPL in Ligue 1.

neuro11 wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

farfan wrote:


or how about a gallo-romance league that includes teams from france , northern italy, and catalunya .
juventus vs lyon in the derby delle alpi
monaco vs genoa in the riviera derby

best league in the world

Not even close to the best league in the world

In any case, I doubt Italy and Spain would like to go from 3 CL spots each to a combined 3 (possibly 4, but both L1 and SA sides flop in the CL so there's no guarantee that it would surpass bundesliga).

He said catalunya not spain and northern italy. Catalunya alone can hardly get a CL spot and so merging would not be a problem......

I meant Italy and France

TBH, UEFA should just become regular season and playoffs with several divisions and be done with all these different leagues, cups and European cups. Have one big competition every season.

The system in Europe reminds me of the retarded NCAA football system in the US.

Would love to see Barca in Italy, though the Milan-Barca fixture might be tiresome. It'd be interesting to see them against Juve, Roma, Fio etc. Though in a realistic level, France is the more likely destination

Also, think of the loan opportunities that might open for us Barca vs Barca B with some pesky eye-talians

I think if we were to leave, there is a way higher chance we join Ligue 1 than Serie A. The board has even hinted to this over this past summer, but they also mentioned that above all they would prefer to stay as is in La Liga.

I don't think Serie A fans should get there hopes up that they might have the chance to play Sabadel, Gimnastic, or Girona anytime soon

realistically , barcelona joining ligue 1 will never happen .

one problem with FCB joining ligue 1 would be the strict financial scrutiny they'd be under .
the DNCG puts the teams on a tight leash when it comes to debt , and barcelona's far exceed what they usually allow .
add this to the diminished TV revenue and barça will be a in a very delicate situation .

barça leaving la liga is bad business for everybody . no way the LFP will let emotions get in the way of making money .

Barca's debt level ratios aren't unmanageable because they generate so much revenue. Barca and Madrid actually have very healthy financials, I'm sure that if they joined L1 it would have some economic assurances considering a lot more people would want to watch L1 as a result. It's one of the top sports brands out there.

I went ahead and started a new career on FIFA, with the 6 Catalan clubs in the game moved over to the Ligue 1 lol

First I moved Barca and Espanyol to Liga Adelante.

Then I moved the absolute worse League 2 clubs and swapped them out with the Barca, Barca B, Espanyol, Sabadell, Girona, and Llagastera. That way it won't really affect shit as the odds of any of those wack french clubs ever being promoted into La Liga are really, really slim.

Lastly, I promoted Barca and Espanyol to the Ligue 1, and moved down two clubs that were promoted the previous season. I left the clubs that were in Liga Adelante in Ligue 2 as it's only fair. I will let them fight there own way up. To note though, this left Barca without UCL football for one entire season.

I picked Llagostare as they got a nice kit, and started my season.

Yeah, it wouldn't be a problem. All Ligue 1 LFP care about is that there is financial investment guranteed (bank guarantee or something similar) to cover any deficit for the upcoming season. It's done year to year. PSG had no problems and Barca have far more solid financials... it's a non issue.

But just like in my game, wouldn't they lose out on UCL for one season? They can't go in representing Spain that year, and France would already have it's set of teams qualified. It would leave Barca out one season.

That alone makes it highly unlikely they would consider moving. Even though having Barca in the long run would help Ligue 1 move up the co-efficiants, which I'm sure ligue 1 would love.

UEFA wouldn't take Barca out of CL if it had already qualified itself based on the La Liga season... In fact, i think it would he illegal of UEFA to do so.

We'd probably go in representing Spain if that were to occur for that season.