European Super League

[tigerman]

Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham have agreed to join AC Milan, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Juventus and Real Madrid to form a European Super League.
There's talk that players won't be selected for the World Cup, it's World Series Cricket all over, except this is much bigger.
With Covid still rampant I wouldn't have thought that now is a good time to be starting a new league.

 

[Baloo]

Interesting move and one that's been bubbling for a while now. The Champions League format was created in an attempt to prevent this. FIFA will most likely ban the players from all FIFA sanctioned competition, so that's anything national team related, which won't worry these clubs at all.

Reminds me of World Series Cricket really.

 

[mrposhman]

The biggest thing I hate about this (being a lower league club supporter) is that the "big clubs" think they are the hardest hit from Covid and are being screwed at having to provide more funding for lower league clubs.

Quite the opposite. Maybe they think if smaller clubs go broke then more will turn to support the big clubs but that won't happen. They will just move to support the new version of their old club which almost always seems to spring up but starting from the bottom of the english football pyramid.

Fifa and Uefa have said that all International and Domestic competitions will ban them from competing so these clubs can say goodbye to the Premier League as well as the Champions League. I believe if they do this, then fans will initially like it, but will soon switch off when they start playing the same teams over and over and some don't gain the success that others have.

What it will do for sure though, is completely kill some of the other major leagues around the world. A Primera Liga without Atletico, Barca and Real?? Yeah ok.

 

[Redford]

Absolutely fantastic commentary from Gary Neville on the subject. Absolutely brilliant. Guy is seriously articulate and insightful.

 

[taztiger4]

Absolutely fantastic commentary from Gary Neville on the subject. Absolutely brilliant. Guy is seriously articulate and insightful.

You mean English footballs Kane Cornes , LOL

 

[Redford]

You mean English footballs Kane Cornes , LOL

No way. He articulated everything that's bad about this bullsh*t. And he did it brilliantly.

 

[mrposhman]

No way. He articulated everything that's bad about this bullsh*t. And he did it brilliantly.

I agree, even a manc can be correct occassionally

This is about pure greed from those top teams who have long believed that everyone else is there to feed them.

 

[Redford]

I agree, even a manc can be correct occassionally

This is about pure greed from those top teams who have long believed that everyone else is there to feed them.

You can tell what this is all about, and I have to admit, my beloved Red Sox and their owners, are part of the problem (Fenway Sports which owns the Red Sox also own Liverpool).

Obviously it's about greedy private owners getting together to create their own League and associated revenues from it. Probably accelerated by the Covid crisis and what its meant to their bottom lines.

You know what, fine. Let them do it. Then, when Liverpool or Inter or whoever finish last, and they're not beating up on teams like Norwich or Parma anymore, and there's no League Cup to win, or FA Cup to win, or qualifying for anything else like Champions or Europa (assuming they get punted from all those comps), then watch the fans all drop off and the same greedy owners start bitching and moaning about wanting to go back to their domestic leagues.

 

[mrposhman]

You can tell what this is all about, and I have to admit, my beloved Red Sox and their owners, are part of the problem (Fenway Sports which owns the Red Sox also own Liverpool).

Obviously it's about greedy private owners getting together to create their own League and associated revenues from it. Probably accelerated by the Covid crisis and what its meant to their bottom lines.

You know what, fine. Let them do it. Then, when Liverpool or Inter or whoever finish last, and they're not beating up on teams like Norwich or Parma anymore, and there's no League Cup to win, or FA Cup to win, or qualifying for anything else like Champions or Europa (assuming they get punted from all those comps), then watch the fans all drop off and the same greedy owners start bitching and moaning about wanting to go back to their domestic leagues.

I think you have hit the nail on the head. Its all greed because those big teams feel that they are the sole reasons why the EPL / Serie A and La Liga TV rights are so high, and they resent that these are spread through other "lessor" clubs, in particular lower divisions.

If they are solely stuck with only the ESL then they will not make any of the sort of money that they expect. I'd expect TV audiences to be down, as many supporters of other clubs will just decide not to watch them (this is more of an option for the EPL and Serie A, if La Liga lost the top 3, the league unfortunately would be decimated, below the top 5 or 6 clubs, the rest are at best Championship quality).

 

[Baloo]

Not sure which way the public will go. Using WSC as an example, it did draw the crowds because it had the best players. They always made it more of a spectacle. This was despite most cricket traditionalists vowing never to watch WSC.

I can see a point where there is an agreement where the domestic leagues come secondary to the Super League. These teams will go back to the national comps but the Super League, run privately, will take precedence. It'll be an uneasy marriage of convenience but ultimately the national associations will always want to have their best players in the International comps.

 

[tigerman]

The cost of the Tv rights for the EPL should come down, be nice to watch a game on free to air.

 

[tigerman]

Absolutely fantastic commentary from Gary Neville on the subject. Absolutely brilliant. Guy is seriously articulate and insightful.

Just listened to it, outstanding, he will have a lot of support with those comments.

 

[Ricemagic]

They're going to get banned from all local and any European CL, Europa tournaments. So the only thing they will have is their 20 team Super League to play in. Players won't put up with it, many are patriotic and want to play internationally for their country and they'll walk out on the greedy 15 and go to clubs they can play for and represent that country.

Devastated as a Liverpool fan off 45 years, already made my points known on Red Sox and LFC social media accounts to sell LFC, and go back home Yanks!!

I won't watch them in this new league, for sure the big clubs mentioned with worldwide supporter bases can create a club, I'll buy a share if I have to in a club with a local name something like Anfield FC, Manchester Old Stafford Arseofall, Spuds

And I even seriously hope the EPL, UEFA kick us all out of their league's asap. It's just a greedy money grab, in the middle of a pandemic the damb fools.

I mean the beauty of the current format is European nights are special, you might play Real or Juventus once in five years, a special occasion. A great night. Not twice a year. That's for your domestic league.

No offence but Spurs and Arsenal a big 15 club with no Champions League winning history. Yeah right. And most of them haven't won a league for ages as well, Liverpool we've won it once in 32 years, sheesh.

Atletico beat us last year, they probably won't play Liverpool again. There'll probably be no avenue for Turkish teams, or Greek teams, Russian teams, etc to be included. No more Cup finals in Istanbul, Lisbon, Athens, just sad man....