The European Super League Megathread

CBarca wrote:I'm not sure that abandoning the countries most prestigious competition and making a "good old boys club" with 12 members while saying "fuck you" to every other club is a "minor change", though.
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I'm not counting this as a minor change. I'm just saying football fans are so averse to change that they've reacted dramatically to any form of change, even organic ones.

I vividly remember the late 90's where the emergence of faster and more athletic players was seen as the death of football. how silly was that reaction looking back.

farfan wrote:

Mr Nick09 wrote:

sportsczy wrote:Trust me Nick...  politicians are interested in votes first and foremost.  Beating the shit out of this super league is a lay up for them.  The people will love it.  They'll eat Flo up and spit him out.

Money only talks when it's a means to get votes and win elections, which is the business that they're in.  There are plenty of other ways to make money.

I have never seen a politician elected in France at a level that matters because of football. Politician will continue to play their own scummy game and the SuperLeague is not changing that. Of course they will answers questions here and there and then what will they do? Nothin because they have 0 power.

Like I said people already against the SuperLeague are not open for a debate. This is another problem of our society where people take positions and are never interested in discussing they other side’s merit. No amount of interview will convince people, they will just accept it because it’s happening and teams are playing games.

How many bullshit reforms UEFA and FIFA tried to pass, first with the Nation League and then the club World Cup? The lesson here is that you either push your idea through or you don’t. Football fans are also some of the most allergic to change I have ever seen. There are still debates about whether VAR is good for the sports, when it should be about the rules of the sports which are prehistoric in some ways. Sometimes football fans deserve nothing good lol.

That's a good point Nick.

I've lost count of how many times football was declared "dead" in the past 25 years as a result of some relatively minor change.  

This is true but does not apply here. CB's right this is not a minor change. Saying "game's gone" when VAR rules out your team's goal is one thing and this is another.

I'm not convinced of this being good for football is because I am not stupid. You don't have to read between the lines even, Perez clearly said this whole league is to make rich clubs richer. His reasoning about this being good for football as a whole is these rich clubs can help out smaller clubs by buying players for larger fees from them. How grand!

This is not a reform for the football.
Reform for the football was in 1999-2000, when UCL format had been changed.
This a reform for improving finances of few big clubs in the world.  evidently they weren't so careful about their finances , for example I suppose Juve wasn't forced to sign Cristiano Ronaldo 3 years ago, and now they need to create an artificial cup to overcome a common difficult situation - that stroke every club in the world. Not just them. At least they received CL revenues.
I get that Real Madrid fans have an  " elitist" vision for the football, but they can't talk for everyone. Why a AS Roma fan should be favorable on it for example ? Their team is not included, so it won' t grow unlike of few others
My club is on ESF but I dislike equally.  I approve some innovations, I've been VAR fan since first day, but here it's easy to dislike it. Destructive impact on local movements and I am not even attracted from   this project. Playing every year against Real, United etc ok , where's the magic of the event ?
Hell, but Am I he olny one to love the current Champions League ?  if  motivation is " Wow , you must be glad, big money ! " I don't care, I am not going to receive some euro for this cup personally .

farfan wrote:

CBarca wrote:I'm not sure that abandoning the countries most prestigious competition and making a "good old boys club" with 12 members while saying "fuck you" to every other club is a "minor change", though.
.

I'm not counting this as a minor change. I'm just saying football fans are so averse to change that they've reacted dramatically to any form of change, even organic ones.

I vividly remember the late 90's where the emergence of faster and more athletic players was seen as the death of football. how silly was that reaction looking back.

Trust me this isn't exclusive to football fans lol, all sports fans are like it.

Almost like it's a Human trait and how you choose to spend your time as a hobby doesn't really change your mentality.

CBarca wrote:I'm not sure that abandoning the countries most prestigious competition and making a "good old boys club" with 12 members while saying "fuck you" to every other club is a "minor change", though.

People compare this to the NBA or NFL and I understand it but it's wrong. It's the most fucked up perverse version of the NBA or NFL. Even the exclusivity of it.

I think there is a world where they can spin this in a way I can at least understand where they're coming from in terms of borrowing from American sports. I enjoy the NBA. This is not that though. This is set up exactly for what it is: a cash grab.

And Flo's comments just make that clear as day. He has zero respect or care for teams who aren't part of his plan. He has contempt for the Napoli's or Atalanta's, clearly.

The comparisons make no sense and clearly come from people who don't understand anything about the sport.

I'm not gonna bother explaining it tho because I'd have to reply to like 7 different posts lol.

I can safely say Robes that we may actually be in full agreements today.

Look me in the eye Oliver Holt

Hearing the first cracks may be beginning to appear in the ugly, misshapen edifice of the ESL. Told two English clubs are close to losing their nerve.

— Oliver Holt (@OllieHolt22) April 20, 2021

Nations league ? Still not sure what that even is
24 teams euro ? Crap
48 teams world cup ? Crap
VAR ? Don't get me started

Since i started following football the only change that made sense to me is goal line technology. The rest is all powder to the eyes at best, did not improve the sport at all, only to increase the cash flow. I really don't see what me - a Juventus fan - gains from playing in ESL instead of CL. Oh i will see Arsenal and Man Utd more often, but i cannot care, i could already watch them each week if i wanted.

Supposedly football would die in 2024 without ESL. But i fail to understand this will help the medium and small clubs. This is the narrative pushed by Perez but he did not explain anything.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

farfan wrote:

CBarca wrote:I'm not sure that abandoning the countries most prestigious competition and making a "good old boys club" with 12 members while saying "fuck you" to every other club is a "minor change", though.
.

I'm not counting this as a minor change. I'm just saying football fans are so averse to change that they've reacted dramatically to any form of change, even organic ones.

I vividly remember the late 90's where the emergence of faster and more athletic players was seen as the death of football. how silly was that reaction looking back.

Trust me this isn't exclusive to football fans lol, all sports fans are like it.

Almost like it's a Human trait and how you choose to spend your time as a hobby doesn't really change your mentality.

Is it though? I'm a fan of MMA, and I can assure heads won't explode if the athletic commissions/UFC decide to introduce some video replay system to help the refs.

You follow the NBA, isn't the league always tinkering with the rules to make the game more appealing to the casuals? how many rule changes did the NBA have in the past two decades? do you think such a hands-on approach would work in England?

I don't think it's crazy to say there is a higher degree of traditionalism among hardcore football fans.

NBA fans rage just as much to rule changes tbh, people lost their damn minds regarding the play in tournament etc.

I have seen similar in other team sports too, maybe MMA fans think differently because it's an individual sport

I should mention that MMA has WAY less casuals than both football and basketball, that's probably why they ste calmer by comparison.

Also to answer your question no i don't think PL fans would react very positively to that.

But that's why they are different sports, trying to borrow from other sports with completely different rules is almost always going to end badly.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

CBarca wrote:I'm not sure that abandoning the countries most prestigious competition and making a "good old boys club" with 12 members while saying "fuck you" to every other club is a "minor change", though.

People compare this to the NBA or NFL and I understand it but it's wrong. It's the most fucked up perverse version of the NBA or NFL. Even the exclusivity of it.

I think there is a world where they can spin this in a way I can at least understand where they're coming from in terms of borrowing from American sports. I enjoy the NBA. This is not that though. This is set up exactly for what it is: a cash grab.

And Flo's comments just make that clear as day. He has zero respect or care for teams who aren't part of his plan. He has contempt for the Napoli's or Atalanta's, clearly.

The comparisons make no sense and clearly come from people who don't understand anything about the sport.

I'm not gonna bother explaining it tho because I'd have to reply to like 7 different posts lol.

It’s comparable to the NBA, NFL and NHL in the sense that there’s a closed set of teams who stay in the league year after year away from anything performance based- this was my only original point

I’m not sure why that’s wrong to say, it’s exactly what’s being contemplated. Obviously it’s not turning the sport into the NBA or a version of it, but removing the performance aspect of qualifying for the champions league really doesn’t make sense for how the sport is played

Honestly I think the most proper comparison is with Eurolega of Basket .
Eurolega that is not going across a great period moreover

I hadn't see you post Luca, so that makes 8 i would have had to reply to lol.

But anyway the whole closed league comparison is very skin deep, yes that part is true but it's incredibly tiny part of the comp.

As CB said it's an incredible bastardised version which is a million times worse, i don't like the comp because it completely ignores all levels of naunce because there's 1 skin deep comparison.

Robespierre wrote:Honestly I think the most proper comparison is with Eurolega of Basket .
Eurolega that is not going across a great period moreover

Agree with this.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:I hadn't see you post Luca, so that makes 8 i would have had to reply to lol.

But anyway the whole closed league comparison is very skin deep, yes that part is true but it's incredibly tiny part of the comp.

As CB said it's an incredible bastardised version which is a million times worse, i don't like the comp because it completely ignores all levels of naunce because there's 1 skin deep comparison.

I just felt called out but I’m with both of you, it’s not the NBA (which has its own problems but is much, much better than this shit)

But if you take away the performance based qualification system from the CL.... it ruins the entire purpose

I also think Florentino and co believe that the domestic leagues need these clubs much more than the club needs the league. That’s a dangerous game but in reality, it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out

No doubt and apologies if you felt called out.

Only thing missing is a draft and a salary cap because it makes sense for ESL to discard that, would be pointless to implement this in Europe. Franchised leagues as in north america is clearly the targeted model. NHL is by far the poorest league and before pandemic is was only going up, the new franchise in Seattle paid 650 millions US $$$$ to integrate. Imagine the potential here, how much Dubai cheick or Russian coal king would pay to start a brand new club in whatever european capital that guarantees ESL revenues ? 1 billion or more ? It's a safe investment

This may be only the beginning of the process, not its finality

For now they say uuuuuuu smaller clubs can qualify but watch out in next few years once there is dust on the outrage and ESL is the new normal. Once medium to small clubs are forgotten or became farm clubs. Would not be surprised if they eventually close the league and screw the rest.

Football could really benefit from a salary cap tbh, if you're gonna take any inspiration from America it should be that.

But as I've said before when this subject had come up i believe we've gone too far gone for all that stuff now. With how greedy Perez and the likes have shown themselves to be i doubt they'd ever agree to it.

That's where it should end tho, other stuff just doesn't make sense.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Football could really benefit from a salary cap tbh, if you're gonna take any inspiration from America it should be that.

But as I've said before when this subject had come up i believe we've gone too far gone for all that stuff now. With how greedy Perez and the likes have shown themselves to be i doubt they'd ever agree to it.

That's where it should end tho, other stuff just doesn't make sense.

This requires a commissioner that represents the owners and a player's union. They basically negotiate an agreement between the two parties every 5 years.

The problem with Europe is that it's multinational... it's hard to define a common interest that can be unilaterally represented.

So you need to adapt that... each country has its owner and union reps... and then they elect a representative of each. Need to add more nuance.

BEFORE any of this is even possible, you need to agree in principle to a revenue-sharing format where every club is required to spend a percentage of its revenue on player salaries (which is how a salary cap is calculated too). In the NBA for example, i think 2/3 have to go to player salaries.

Anyhow, it would be great.

Yeah i agree.

Honestly it's not realistic, way too many obstacles as you point out.

Yeah sorry I'm seeing the comparison everywhere, it's not @ anyone in particular re: Americanization of the sport

Luca wrote:

Thimmy wrote:Based on what did people decide that Perez is a key figure in all of this?

He’s the chairman brother

He's the actual chairman of this proposed league? Oh wow

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

farfan wrote:

CBarca wrote:I'm not sure that abandoning the countries most prestigious competition and making a "good old boys club" with 12 members while saying "fuck you" to every other club is a "minor change", though.
.

I'm not counting this as a minor change. I'm just saying football fans are so averse to change that they've reacted dramatically to any form of change, even organic ones.

I vividly remember the late 90's where the emergence of faster and more athletic players was seen as the death of football. how silly was that reaction looking back.

Trust me this isn't exclusive to football fans lol, all sports fans are like it.

Almost like it's a Human trait and how you choose to spend your time as a hobby doesn't really change your mentality.

Nah it is not exclusive, but god damn football fans take it another level. The smallest change you guys act like it is end of the sport.

This thing about football fans being averse to change cannot be a justification in this case. Its a massive change that directly threatens a lot of what people love in European football.

I'm very vocally pro VAR (watching a game without VAR in 2021 is awful), and I'm also pro a change to the current CL system. It's clear that top clubs have to play each other more often as there is too big of a gap in national leagues except for the PL. Yet this implementation of a European league is shit. Closing and guaranteeing the founding clubs money and places simply speaks of greed.

As Robes said, this isnt for football. This is for the exclusive benefit of 12 clubs and to the detriment of everyone else.

if the founding clubs think that they can financially safeguard their future by a guaranteed 350 million a year, they are mistaken.

i for one is already concerned how that is going to bring chaos and inflation in already unregulated transfer fees in market when non ESL teams will put hefty price tag on some 18 year old kid who has yet to play pro football, now they fully know  those teams will get guaranteed 350 million for participation on the top of their own self generated revenues.

another thing is should ESL not be successful, how long before investment bank will keep up to their legal obligation before they pull plugs, and where do or will they go to next for extra financing or how they are going to then later sustain financially i dont know. i always think clubs that fails to think of the worst case scenarios will always go down fast and quick first in hand.

and today in sky i was laughing on news how that one anonymous board member of those clubs told insider that they were expecting this backslash and they are not concerned at all because they were expecting this and their main concern is to bring money to the club and not fans.