The European Super League Megathread

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.

Today I wake up to crazy news! An insult to my belief: football is happiness, freedom, passion, fans and is for everyone. This project is disgusting, not fair and I’m disappointed to see clubs I represented involved. Fight against this! #StopTheSuperLeague

— Lukas-Podolski.com (@Podolski10) April 19, 2021

Unsurprisingly, I'm uncomfortable with Perez's assertions the ESL will "save" football.

Make no mistake, ESL or no ESL, football right now is broken. There are dynasties all around Europe, a select few clubs capable of dominating domestically seemingly forever because their financial advantage is so much greater than the rest. Owners putting money into clubs created this, but the money received from competing in the Champions League also pushed football in this direction. The Champions League was always a limited pot of cash only a small few could ever access and played a large role in the inequality we see today. I don't know what the solution for that is, besides strict controls and regulations on spending, and limitations on the movement of talent.

But at the very least, in this current system, there's still variance. Teams do decline and new teams come up and take their place. Arsenal were a CL team for 20 years, but are now mid-table. Juventus monopolised Serie A, but are now below Atalanta. PSG could lose Ligue 1 to Lille. Celtic dominated Scotland but Rangers have come back. Sporting are going to break the duopoly of Porto and Benfica for the first team in nearly two decades. Basel have declined and Young Boys now rule Switzerland. I believe football should move in a direction to make those things more frequent occurrences.

The ESL clubs have overspent and are now struggling to cope with the massive debts they've accrued and the ever-increasing costs of staying ahead of the game. Their solution to this problem is to find even more money to support their spending, rather than cut back on their spending until its sustainable again. Doing the latter hurts them competitively and gives other clubs a chance to grow and take their spot in the Champions League. The uncomfortable reality is that we need this to happen to maintain competition. The even more uncomfortable reality is this fluctuation in finances and league position is incompatible with running a constantly growing business. Madrid and Barca don't want to cut back to handle their debts because it means the Premier League clubs will overtake them, on and off the pitch.

So, the Super League exists only to preserve the elite. This then pressures other clubs to join, because if they don't, they'll be left behind. For example, it's hard enough for Atletico Madrid to compete with Barca and Madrid, but it'd be almost impossible if those two clubs gained access to another £400m a year, so Atletico have to join. Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool have to join if they want to continue competing with United, Chelsea and City. The Milan clubs have to join if they want to beat Juventus.

Ultimately, the league exists to solve a problem these clubs have helped create. It won't "save" football because it won't address the fundamental problems with it.

Just to add:

Perez mentioned declining viewership in the 16-24 demograhic... has he not considered the impact of pricing?

Watching football is expensive nowadays. A 16-24 year old in the UK will struggle to make enough money to sustain living while also paying subscriptions for Sky, BT and Amazon.

How affordable is this new thing going to be? It's surely another subscription people will have to pay.

If viewership is declining it's because the sport has become too expensive to access.

Jay29 wrote:Just to add:

Perez mentioned declining viewership in the 16-24 demograhic... has he not considered the impact of pricing?

Watching football is expensive nowadays. A 16-24 year old in the UK will struggle to make enough money to sustain living while also paying subscriptions for Sky, BT and Amazon.

How affordable is this new thing going to be? It's surely another subscription people will have to pay.

If viewership is declining it's because the sport has become too expensive to access.

This is an old-head take really.

There's so many games from top teams against no-name opponents that casual fans won't watch.

As football is right now only hardcore fans of a club watch all their European matches. Who watches Shaktar vs Real Madrid except that teams fans?

No amount of price will fix that. Hell I don't watch that many games. There are too many to choose from and making games events can be a solution.

I think it's so fucking irresponsible from UEFA to not reinvent the CL during a financial crisis.

Their response is seriously a reform in 3 and a half years?

Yeah, an organisation like that shouldn't have monopoly on European football.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Some precedent . In 1931 the 10 biggest argentine clubs left the association and spun off into their own  non FIFA recognized league . The players were banned from participating in international competitions and the team we put forward in 1934 only had members from the 20 smaller clubs . Later in 1934 the two leagues merged and all players were once again able to participate in int football.

I'm sure most countries have a story similar to this if you go back far enough.

If there are any Aussies / Kiwis out there, this is basically the Rugby League Super League war in the late 90s. Half the clubs broke away to form their own rebel league. All players playing in the rebel league was not allowed to participate in international games. The players took the governing body (ARL) to court and the judge ruled they cannot ban the players. ARL just went screw you, we won't ban them but we won't pick them either. The Super League went and created their own international tournament made up of Super League players only.

In the end, 3 years later the official league (ARL) and rebel league (Super League) merged to create the NRL. A lot of clubs went bankrupt, and it took a long time for the sport to recover.

Freeza wrote:This is an old-head take really.

There's so many games from top teams against no-name opponents that casual fans won't watch.

As football is right now only hardcore fans of a club watch all their European matches. Who watches Shaktar vs Real Madrid except that teams fans?

No amount of price will fix that. Hell I don't watch that many games. There are too many to choose from and making games events can be a solution.

I think it's so fucking irresponsible from UEFA to not reinvent the CL during a financial crisis.

Their response is seriously a reform in 3 and a half years?

Yeah, an organisation like that shouldn't have monopoly on European football.

Don't disagree about UEFA but cheaper prices absolutely would boost viewership.

Last summer when the PL restarted, some games were shown on free TV. Southampton vs Manchester City drew a bigger peak audience than City vs Arsenal on Sky Sports:

https://www.digitaltveurope.com/2020/07/07/bbc-sets-premier-league-viewership-record/

That was a new record for the BBC, incidentally. If football viewership has declined overall, it was not reflected in that number.

Another example. Crystal Palace vs Bournemouth drew an audience of 3.6m on free TV:

https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/bbc-premier-league-crystal-palace-bournemouth-tv-rating-viewers-3.9-million

Look at these viewing figures for FA Cup games between big teams and minnows. Norwich vs Man United drew nearly as big an audience as Chelsea vs Liverpool:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53628532

The numbers don't really support the idea that casual fans are checking out of games against minnows en masse, at least as far as the UK is concerned.

Can we get numbers outside England? Because you've got a much more committed football culture than a lot of other places and it seems like something you're born into.

And yeah sure, free games draw bigger viewing figures.

Essentially it could work with a streamer like Amazon to show games, but not with UEFA as the negotiating part I reckon. They'd request a huge part of the pie. I think teams negotiating directly with Amazon (example) could result in much cheaper prices because you wouldn't have to pay a bunch of corrupt bureaucrats. There's enough of those in all our clubs already.

Money should go to the talent and the fans, but it isn't set up like that currently and people clamouring for it to stay the same is ignoring the reality of the upcoming economic turmoil.

I've seen Real fans against this tournament with the only argument being that Barca almost went bankrupt and they want that to happen. Absolutely ridiculous. No one really wants that.

farfan wrote:

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

farfan wrote:


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.

Bro what. MMA fans are fucking idiots. I enjoy watching UFC but their forums are a cesspool.

In the Super League project there will be a “solidarity” plan that will divert funds out of the system for 10 billion euros in 23 years, with an average of over 460 million euros more than 60% of the current amount guaranteed by Uefa for all the other teams. [Sole24Ore]

— Bianconeri Zone (@BianconeriZone) April 20, 2021

Billionaires pitching the old trickle down economic plans. Flashbacks

I can’t wait for Juventus to offer a loan with an option to buy after 2 years for Kevin Lasagna for 100 million with the super league money

Imagine the premiums that non-super league clubs will charge this group of 12 idiots

On the other hand, I’m happy to see that none of these clubs can take the moral high ground. Welcome my Milanese fratelli

The bald fraud speaking against the super league, while the Madrid based bald fraud refused to speak on it.

️ "It is not sport if the relationship between the effort and reward doesn't exist."

️ "It is not sport if it doesn't matter if you lose"

Pep Guardiola shares his thoughts on the European Super League pic.twitter.com/Qy7gJMYdUW

— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) April 20, 2021

Interestingly, some good reporters here are saying City and Chelsea are getting cold feet and joined out of fear of being left behind.

For them, money isn't exactly a problem, but they're owned by people very concerned about their public image and who use sports for positive publicity. The Super League has been such a terrible PR move City and Chelsea would probably stand to lose more than anyone else.

Then again, other reports are saying the PL six have a strong, united front, so who knows.

rincon wrote:The bald fraud speaking against the super league, while the Madrid based bald fraud refused to speak on it.

️ "It is not sport if the relationship between the effort and reward doesn't exist."

️ "It is not sport if it doesn't matter if you lose"

Pep Guardiola shares his thoughts on the European Super League pic.twitter.com/Qy7gJMYdUW

— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) April 20, 2021

kinda rich coming from a guy who always had unlimited budgets

Lets not pretend that current football is a flawless meritocracy either

Jay29 wrote:Interestingly, some good reporters here are saying City and Chelsea are getting cold feet and joined out of fear of being left behind.

For them, money isn't exactly a problem, but they're owned by people very concerned about their public image and who use sports for positive publicity. The Super League has been such a terrible PR move City and Chelsea would probably stand to lose more than anyone else.

Then again, other reports are saying the PL six have a strong, united front, so who knows.

I mean, its clear that this is being driven by the 3 American owners , agnelli and perez. Everyone else is in it because they think "well if this is happening I can't let my club not be a part of it ". Same reason psg, bayern and BVB will all join too

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

rincon wrote:The bald fraud speaking against the super league, while the Madrid based bald fraud refused to speak on it.

️ "It is not sport if the relationship between the effort and reward doesn't exist."

️ "It is not sport if it doesn't matter if you lose"

Pep Guardiola shares his thoughts on the European Super League pic.twitter.com/Qy7gJMYdUW

— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) April 20, 2021

kinda rich coming from a guy who always had unlimited budgets

Lets not pretend that current football is a flawless meritocracy either

That's why he is still the bald fraud, he is right though.

M99 wrote:These assholes see one year of their income statement being in the red and they pull this shit. F off.

Unbelievable isn't it

MIA SAN MIA

FC Bayern sagt Nein zur Super League.

https://t.co/qto2CHsnsz

— FC Bayern (@FCBayern) April 20, 2021

Robespierre wrote: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.

Bullshit. The reform was in '97, not in '99, and it wasn't for football, it was just to appease the big clubs, just like every subsequent change in format.

Claiming that THIS change ruins the game because it kills the meritocracy is either idiotic, ignorant or hypocritical. Or a combination of them. If you are okay with the second, third or fourth placed teams from the bigger leagues getting in the CL ahead of the number one teams from the lesser leagues, then you have no business complaining now. They didn't get in based on meritocracy, they got in because they were more popular and, on paper, stronger. Guess what? Same shit applies now

BarcaLearning wrote:All these extremely high amounts of money projected that the SL will generate are so artificial as well. Probably largely made up by the bankers at JP Morgan just like their other bs projections of the various markets, and they will just change their projections and blame other things if when things turn sour and they dont end up generating the kind of figures they want. It really is just another dangerous financial game/bet. As Jay said already, the fundamentals are not there to support it, the everyday football fan can hardly sustain a living these day, they would probably have to unsubscribe to other things they watch in order to pay to watch the SL Otherwise the SL will only be able to rely on the rich worldwide and brands to generate the kind of income they will need.

They're not. The tv rights alone for the NFL are $10b a year

The owners are fine with some bad PR for ...a year? 2 years? People will watch it anyway, regardless how they feel now. It will generate money. They will force it upon you and you will be the slave to this product who you truly are. There are some execs on boards who dont support it, but all owners back it. This is the way.