European Super League

Do you want the ESL to happen?

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    1,921
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I understand where you are coming from but step back and ask yourself is for example Man Utd vs Juventus for the umpteenth time less glamorous than say Man Utd vs Charlton Athletic in the Carabao Cup which it would essentially replace in the football schedule? Also the plans are more for the future of the game. Even if they lost you as a fan, there are many fans around the world who this is targeted for as well as kids in this country who will only know this new league that will replace you as a consumer which is what us fans are in modern football.
 
The PL should let go these clubs - I'm sure they'd come back sooner or later imho
 
This will be the ruin of football. I'd be curious to see how many football fans are actually in favour of this? I suspect not that many.

In theory, if United and Liverpool fans, the two biggest fanbases in the world, could organize even a semi-decent protest - this idea would immediately fizzle.

Unfortunately, that's unlikely to happen because most of them are busy moaning about transfers or the injustice against Virgil Van Dijk.
 
#07 said:
This is what happens when people don't understand their customers.

It reminds me of when Warner Bros decided to make Batman vs Superman. The thinking was clearly: 'People like Batman, people like Superman. Lets put them together it'll make a lot of money!' Only it didn't make a lot of money because the fans of those characters didn't feel the film made much sense.

The people who own the top clubs don't like football. So they don't understand how European competition is seen as an affirmation of status because its earned. Its a nod to a club's status because you work to get your seat at the table, its not handed to you. Its the result of something, not a glorified friendly competition. This tournament will never rival the Champions League because it doesn't prove anything other than you had a big enough brand to get invited when it started.
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Batman VS Superman made a shit ton of money. about $620 million profit. It was the 7th most successful film of the year. So despite them making a shit film, their reasoning was correct..
 
For all those criticising American owners, this is Real Madrid’s project.
They want this to happen to stop the dominance of the premier league. Project big picture was an opening bid for clubs to remain in the premier league.
 
Untied said:
The biggest issue with it is creating a closed shop, where there is no chance of new sides breaking in to the elite tournament. Clearly that is bad in a number of ways, both in terms of fairness and because it let's owners like the Glazers run 'elite' sides poorly whilst continuing to pocket the same TV revenue.

But if it's replacing the CL, let's be honest, how often has a non-top 6 side managed to qualify? Once in the last 15 years. The idea that the CL is merit based? Well those were the same arguments against expanding it to non-league winners, but that happened. What is so meritous about finishing 4th? And as for the meaningless of fixtures: basically every year there are 48 group games played, many of which are not particularly attractive fixtures, in which the two richest sides almost inevitably progress from the group. Are people really that wedded to the, definitely not about the money, Gazprom sponsored, current CL format?
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As Mr. Clough remarked, a season is a true test of a club's strength as you need to master all facets of the game.
So, 4th is your performance over 38 games. That's the merit.

Teams, as good as ever, can get lucky cup runs. You rarely get "Lucky," PL runs over 38 games in comparison.
 
padr81 said:
It would be minimum 30 games, thats no CL replacement.
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Europa group stage -> final is 15 games. 20 sides, playing each other once plus a playoff finale is doable if you replace the CL and drop the League Cup.
 
sun_tzu said:
Actually i think they would sell up pretty quick and cash in ... I suspect their portfolio of out of town shopping in the USA has taken a battering during Covid and assuming clubs get their own TV rights in the new set up? they could make a big profit i would have thought
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Why would they sell up if this goes ahead? Remember founders can't get relegated for 20 years, and it's not likely someone is going to offer $4b. Under this format, they would get easy money to take out each year, with zero risk to not investing back into the club.

The current format of the PL is the only thing stopping them from taking it all out. So they can essentially bleed it dry for 20 years, and get their $4b that way can't they?
 
Tapori said:
As Mr. Clough remarked, a season is a true test of a club's strength as you need to master all facets of the game.
So, 4th is your performance over 38 games. That's the merit.

Teams, as good as ever, can get lucky cup runs. You rarely get "Lucky," PL runs over 38 games in comparison.
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Yeah but my point is at one stage 4th didn't get you near the CL (or European cup) , but the format of the competition changed to allow the rich/elite clubs to profit and participate more regularly. This is just the same thing, taken further.
 
Is there anything that makes this more likely than the other 15 times this has been threatened?
 
V.O. said:
Is there anything that makes this more likely than the other 15 times this has been threatened?
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No.


Way too many hoops to jump through / associations and bodies to appease.

That's before the fan backlash across every club in europe.

Doesn't happen in a million years for me*

*Well maybe 100.
 
Gambit said:
Batman VS Superman made a shit ton of money. about $620 million profit. It was the 7th most successful film of the year. So despite them making a shit film, their reasoning was correct..
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Not sure how a movie can be compared to a football league. That movie is a one-off and it is always almost guaranteed to make a lot of money because of the fandom. A European Premier League is going to ruin the novelty. Fans will get tired and bored of seeing the same team playing each other all the time. This will be a catastrophe for football.
 
Majima said:
Why would they sell up if this goes ahead? Remember founders can't get relegated for 20 years, and it's not likely someone is going to offer $4b. Under this format, they would get easy money to take out each year, with zero risk to not investing back into the club.

The current format of the PL is the only thing stopping them from taking it all out. So they can essentially bleed it dry for 20 years, and get their $4b that way can't they?
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I think because their real estate portfolio is suffering and is much less liquid than united
 
sun_tzu said:
I think because their real estate portfolio is suffering and is much less liquid than united
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No doubt they're losing obscene amounts of money right now. I hope you're right. It's disgusting to think of how much they have taken out of our proud club without investing a penny of their own back in. That would be a day to celebrate for sure.
 
Even with the power imbalances we currently have, it’s obvious how the premier league can throw up shocks and I’m not surprised given there is now a massive top 6 after 4 CL places with possibly more huge foreign investment to come that nervous owners are looking to permanently pull up the ladder.

Competition is what makes football fun though, and I enjoy it for the relegation battle in the premier league as much as the title battle... that’s often where the real drama is. This would have none of that. I can see it ultimately being the reason football’s bubble burst.
 
Sounds like a strategically timed leak to (a) place pressure on domestic clubs to relinquish more power, and (b) to make the big picture stuff sound comparatively more palatable.
 
Sort of thing that PSG owners need. It will be a very long time for other clubs to make the step up unless they can attract more state backers.

I'd rather English teams resist, they've built up a great league. It's up to other leagues to improve and English teams shouldn't be lending their own popularity and in turn ruin the PL product. Yes this replaces the CL but this will become the focus, the PL and the English game will be lowered in status.

I'd rather the European Cup be an additional prestigious tournament like it is. A nice change but doesn't override the PL.
 
Makes no sense for the Premier league to do this, its already a competitive and lucrative league. The only reasoning would be the owners like the glazers etc don't like the lost income from missing out on the cl, so like American franchises want to get rid of relegation / tiered entries into top tournaments.

If it does happen, it'll still be heavily watched as it'll have the top talent, but I think it'll be a death blow for me in terms of watching United. It destroys everything good about the current system in the name of earning more money. I'll probably just focus on whatever league replaces the PL and watch the occasional super league match.

Edit I'm seeing the teams would still stay in the PL, just that cl will be replaced with a closed shop tournament. Just greed is all that is
 
TheGame said:
Yes because the proposed teams and owners involved in this are angels with the highest morals:rolleyes:.

In terms of your last comment, those teams charge those prices because thick teams pay them, if teams didn't pay ridiculous prices in the first place, they know they couldn't charge them.
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I think the parity in broadcasting revenue has allowed the "smaller" teams to spend way beyond what they should be. It also allows them to hold out for insane money knowing that even if they get relegated they have parachute money to last a year.
 
Stupidity. They are working very well to make people sick of this sport. Keep going and in few years you will have empty stadiums.
 
Stop this from happening and we'd be a step closer to getting the Glazers to sell up. If this goes through, we're stuck with them and will get to enjoy watching ourselves become the whipping boys of the European elite.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
This is it. It's finally happening. Was always inevitable IMO.

Massive blow for the PL but other European leagues have grown incredibly stale with the same team winning every year.
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The million dollar question is: Why did other leagues grow so stale?

In my opinion there are several reasons for that. The two most obvious ones are:

1) UEFA CL money. It's insane how much more money teams that participate in the CL earn compared to teams that missed out on it. If you play in a foreign league and make the CL a few times in a row, you're almost guaranteed to finish top 4 in your league for at least the next decade, because you've such a huge financial advantage.

2) The EPL. Our very own league poisoned the transfer market, because each and every club is owned/controlled by an oligarch or investor, that pumps money into their club. Add the huge TV deals etc. and it becomes clear, that even a bottom-third EPL team has more money than the vast majority of La Liga, Bundesliga or Serie A clubs. Our clubs can easily buy the most promising talent from those leagues, if they don't happen to play Real, Bayern, Barca and maybe (!) Juve. That basically guarantees the success of those superteams I just mentioned, because not only do they farm their league rivals, nowadays the PL clubs do farm those clubs, too.

The gap between those superteams and the rest is only getting bigger and bigger.

In my opinion it's the wrong idea to just install a European Premier League with all the best teams of Europe. The CL is the perfect European competition. You have to earn your place every single year by performing in your own domestic league and the games are always something special. That would fade away, if a European Premier League becomes reality.

They should try to find solutions for somehow closing the huge financial gap between the PL and the other European leagues and also maybe develop a new system for transfer windows, that helps the non-elite clubs. This would be more interesting and exciting than such an incestous super league.
 
So teams like Everton and Leicester can’t break into Europe? Which would mean their star players will leave to join super league teams I’d imagine.
 
Majima said:
Yes.

Don't see the issue? The current format of the CL forces the owners to invest into the club, if they want to see any of the CL money by getting top 4. This format removes that risk completely.

It doesn't benefit us at all. All that will happen is the Glazers get to take even more money out of the club (Founders get a lump sum upon joining), whilst not being punished for not investing (founders can't get relegated). If we think they are taking a lot out now, what will it be like when there's no way there's no direct financial impact to them? That's the only reason they let the club invest any of the money now.
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Possible that this will happen, but on the flip side the best players will want to play for those few select clubs.

Its a power grab by the top teams. Nobody is denying that.
 
So 17 away trips in Europe, 19 away trips in the Premier League. Expanded World Cup and Euros, yeah I’m sure the players and managers will be jumping for joy at this :rolleyes:
 
Damien said:
Not surprising given the leak from a couple of years ago.

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Most of the clubs will probably stay the same. Spurs might make it but can't see there being six English clubs in it and they're the ones most likely to miss out.
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What a collection of cnut teams.
 
If it replaces the champions league and domestic football continues alongside it, why not ?

If they want to replace domestic football with a European league, it won't work. Fans won't support it and therefore pay for it either. Need domestic and European league or the CL.

Sounds like it would be impossible to actually do before 2024 or so anyway.
 
To quote the great poet Jessie J :

It's not about the money, money, money
We don't need your money, money, money
We just wanna make the world dance
Forget about the price tag

It really is that simple they just want to make us happy during these strange times. Promise...!!
 
The owner of the clubs have and will lose too much money with coronavirus therefore it will definitely happen.

But such a competiton with no relegation respectively new clubs can join the competition will be boring after 2-3 years.

If the competition starts in September 2022 means our league season in the next season is actually meaningless right? :confused:
 
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