I don’t really see who this ‘Super League’ appeals to? Who wants to watch Barca & Madrid beat bunch of lesser teams from different countries, when they could just watch them do it in La Liga?… Or a much more interesting and newly competitive Seria A, with or without Juve?
Is the European super league back? | United Statement: We remain committed to UEFA
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Honestly there’s been moments over the last few years where I’ve much preferred watching cricket. Helps England are half decent these days mind
Viewership?
I'm just not convinced there's a clear correlation between even distribution of money, and viewership figures. PL money is evenly spread out but the gap between the big 6 and the rest has never been bigger.
Not that long ago it was big 4? Now two of those big four lay in 9th and 10th while the team consistently finishing 8th are favourites for the league, that’s not long after relegation candidates Leicester won the league. All in the space of what? 6 years?
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Liverpool are entering a rebuilding stage and Chelsea got forcibly took over by the government in a PR scheme before being sold for cheap to an American (the horror). They still have the resources to entrench themselves back at the top with the right deployment. Leicester won the league but there's no way for them to the top in a sustained manner. Ditto for Brighton or Southampton or Brentford; they won't become part of a new top 7 or top 8
Again, I don't think viewership cares too much about this idea of competitiveness. Serie A has been very competitive for a while now. Has that helped them?
The problem is that we're not going back to that era of the past.
Where we are going under the current setup is something more like the following:
The richest and therefore best 5-6 clubs in the world are all in one domestic league (the PL). Even within that group, there is a hierarchy in which 2-3 clubs owned by states have nearly unlimited funds and clubs owned by private individuals struggle to keep up. Despite its recent action against City, the PL proves essentially incapable of regulating or stopping this dynamic. In this situation, the CL is just passed back and forth between English sides owned by oil despots and actually becomes less prestigious than winning the PL itself, its like the FA Cup with European flavor. Meanwhile, everybody outside the PL is perpetually on the verge of bankruptcy since the smaller clubs aren't getting much TV money and the bigger clubs are torn between being financially responsible and getting blasted by English clubs in the CL every year and doing financially irresponsible things in the hope of competing on an uneven playing field.
I don't love the Super League but the status quo is a shit future for football in general.
EPL by itself is the super league. Trust me, once United and Liverpool are state owned, it's just going to explode.
Nobody considered Liverpool to be in rebuilding stage after the transfer window shut. They need a rebuild because of how woefully shit they are to compete in a strong premier league. Just look at Nunez quotes from last week.
Viewership cares because any team can drop points to most if not all teams in this league. Fans of rival clubs will tune in to see if Spurs drop points to West Ham tomorrow and the Leeds v United game in Sunday just got a lot more interesting.
Pep isn’t having a team selection meltdown because he’s finding teams a lot easier to beat this season.
I would go the other way, if the likes of Real, Barca and Juve are so worried about not being able to compete with other European powerhouses, take the pressure off them and stop the ECL, Europe and the other one. Just stick to domestic football.
This in abstract is true for all leagues. When last did Barcelona or Madrid or Juventus go undefeated in the league?
I don’t know why that matters? Barca went into their last two games undefeated a few years ago if that’s makes a difference.
Juve unbeaten in 2012
Such absolute entitled rubbish. There are many ways to close the gap to the PL, some might just take longer than your owners and fans have the stomach for. Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus have to pay the piper. The PL is already a super league and the CL is the other huge competition. The super league will never happen because the English' and Germán clubs will never join at the risk of the fanbase going into revolt. Strange or should I say sad that fans of Barca, Madrid and Juve, teams that have enjoyed a dream football existence, the prospect of big bad premier league with all its money is enough to throw away the history and tradition of the game. And yes I know the European cup got changed and the first division got changed but until that change can show it's clearly better for the game and not some desperate elites. Some of us might accept dirty state/oligarch money in the game but even so football will always belong to the fans and all the governing bodies in the world can't do shit if the people mobilize( which football fans are kinda good at).
It's been a long time coming though. Lots of people have commented in the last couple of years how many of their key players are approaching the age of 30 around the same time and that they'll need to start thinking about a rebuild sooner or later. Though I have to say I don't think anyone was expecting their decline to be this steep and this quick after being just two more wins away from a quadruple last season but it's not like this has come totally out of the blue either and the signs of eventual problems have been there for anyone to see.
That's a sneaky thought. The thing is though it's what the FA wanted all those years ago, they threatened to throw us out of the league if we played in Europe. So if they're for it I'm against. Sorry
edit: post liked for originality.
Big 7 really innit now? Have to include Newcastle given the backing. Unless they take City's place, I'd quite like that.
So do you now why Palace and the so-called lesser clubs have so much money?
The reason is because the big clubs, United, Liverpool etc insisted that the collective TV rights agreement was to be maintained, that is what has make the PL income what it is
If the big clubs had gone for the ability to sell individual rights the ESL would exist already because there would only be 2-3 competitive teams in England
This is not very accurate... Equal distribution of little money means little money for everyone. And less in total, since making the big teams poorer will mean you can't sell you rights abroad... Until very recently, France had a very egalitarian distribution, and their league didn't make anywhere near as much money. Simply because they didn't attract enough dirty money to enough clubs & TV broadcasters in order to promote their league.
The PL decided a while ago to ally itself to Murdoch, Abu Dhabi and others to become the Super League and this strategy worked. We've explained this many times. It has nothing to do with the PL being the best. It's all about London being the capital of dirty money.
What dirty money? England had the highest tv deals before foreign investment came in
I don't really see the practical difference with the current Premier League with enforced FFP, bar the ever-expanding spending. What are the chances of Forest Green becoming PL champions in the next 20 years? Can you honestly say it's more than 0.01%?
I really hope it does happen
Too much dirty money to list, but one famous turning point IMO was the dirty money of Abramovich making it a 3 teams league when it was becoming at best a 2 teams league, and immediately making it attractive to larger viewership around the world...
If you want my thought on the subject you can read this:
It will not stop the PL domination over other domestic leagues, but it will reduce the financial gap significantly... And that's all they can hope for...
The PL made some very smart moves in the last 20 years. It attracted investors from all around the world, ( I think Abramovich was the main turning point), but it also built some strategic business alliances with massive groups, including media outlets. These groups are so invested in the PL that they will do anything to promote it. Murdoch, Abu Dhabi, NENT (MTG in the past) are some very powerful allies to have. Each played a massive role at some points.
A "real hard cap salary"... Like make it prohibited to enter the league with a wage bill higher than 100M/year, that would make the PL competitive and give any club promoted from the Championship a chance at competing in the near future... A similar measure with half that amount would work for the rest of the top5 leagues...
I mean, the Abu Dhabi investment came long after the PL was already well established as the highest value brand and Murdoch’s Sky also set up in Italy, and arrived in England when Seria A was far more prestigious so there’s no reason why that should’ve given us the advantage.
You might as well blame Bunga Bunga for why Seria A fell off. Or David Beckham for being too big in Japan.
When United and Liverpool get absolutely minted new owners the PL's transformation into a super league will be complete, so I can't really blame the prestige clubs from Spain and Italy for wanting to respond to that by forming their own. We're not far from the point where the CL will be won by an English team every year.
If United and Liverpool distributed their own TV rights in 1990 the PL would never have come in to being and the English league would be like Scotland's or Spain's where 2 teams dominate
You didn't read what I said...
The Serie A fell off because, unlike the PL, they tried (or pretended to try) to clean the shop and ended up destroying their brand... But even without Calciopoli, they would have fell off eventually, the way la Liga did recently... The EPL is eating their market.
The EPL being established as the highest value brand isn't an issue for the others... The margin wasn't that big back in 2007 when Aby Dhabi came.
The EPL earning more international tv rights than all the other 4 leagues combined is the game changer. And that happened first in 2016/17, after a 3 years cycle where the PL clubs were quite poor in the CL, none of them at the levels of Barca, Real, Bayern, Juve but the dirty money investment decided to double down on the PL right there and it made sense financially, since the brand was growing...
Before Abu Dhabi, the 3'd richest club in Germany (Hamburg) and the 2'd richest in France (Marseille) were on the same level as England's 5th club (Spurs). Italy's 4th (Juve) was still richer than England's 5th....
Now, thanks to Abu Dhabi, and the others we have at least 12 clubs in England that are richer than Italy's 4th and richer than Germany's third.... France's 2'd is nowhere to be seen.
The PL became a league for 2 teams by 2000, it was obvious back then that Arsenal was the only team capable of challenging United once every third/fourth year. And United was running away with a massive commercial advantage that no normal investment could ever catch up with us. Arsenal investment in the stadium would have made them the obvious second, and that's it... Without the big gamble by Murdoch and later on the dirty money of Abramovich (followed by Abu Dhabi) the history would be very different...
Man, a lot of you have unhealthy hate against EPL and english clubs.
And it is cute that Real, Barca and serial cheaters Juve want to dictate who will play and what. Where were they 10 y ago?
And it is cute that Real, Barca and serial cheaters Juve want to dictate who will play and what. Where were they 10 y ago?
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So will this be like a rebrand/restructure of the CL or will it be Barca v bayern as a league game so no prem anymore?
But it will make it not competitive against other leagues.
Which will result in top players leaving.
Which will result in PL clubs being weaker in the CL and less valuable TV rights.
Which will result in clubs not being able to sustain their then-current levels of spending.
Which will result to even more loss of talent.
Which will...(I hope you understand what's happening here..)
Funnily, I wrote a piece on here thanking United and Liverpool for the foresight NOT to do what teams like Madrid did to their league when they had the power to do so.
Then I said almost everything you see is being driven behind the scenes by Madrid , Barca and others who fear irrelevancy, and that the Superleague would not be giving up.
I was made fun of … again … with cries of “yeah right, so it’s an attack on the crown?”
Well…
I agree with Golberg and others: they are looking for a window to force their way into the money only going into the Premiere league.
They would be willing to rip apart everything to “save” 5 or 6 clubs. They are attacking UEFA because they are a monopoly of sorts and their chains on things like investment would have a tough time holding up in court.
But ultimately what they want is an nfl style league that would make VAST amounts of money and save teams from floundering leagues.
But you would lose a LOT. Relegation would eventually go out the window… you can believe that. The fixed value of NFL teams is one of the things that makes that system work.
I don’t really care, if it happens it happens, nothing stays the same, everything evolves.
For all I know I am very surprised that it still has not happened yet.
Ideally it all resets to what it was like pre CL but…yeah
If a super league happens then it will only be a matter of seasons before both real and barca become unbeatable.
If the resources rise then what is there to stop them?
Both clubs are already by far the most popular both by amount of fans and also by preference of choice for the players.
For all I know I am very surprised that it still has not happened yet.
Ideally it all resets to what it was like pre CL but…yeah
If a super league happens then it will only be a matter of seasons before both real and barca become unbeatable.
If the resources rise then what is there to stop them?
Both clubs are already by far the most popular both by amount of fans and also by preference of choice for the players.
It will take awhile, but eventually there would be no Prem. They would feed you poison slower this time though.
All of this. Not to mention, the NFL had a MINIMUM salary cap as well. A minimum amount you must spend each year. Without massive outside investment and a fixed value of teams (no relegation) … you would be MUCH more likely to create bankrupt teams with this model
But if the PL is mostly popular due to it's "competitiveness", increasing that said competitiveness to the point where each side can compete for the title and each side can be relegated would do wonders for league revenue?
The hypocrisy of Spanish and Italian fans complaining about the Epl Is amazing.
In the 80 and early 90s the best players went to Italy because that's where the money was, and English clubs couldn't compete with them kind of salaries.
Then you have Real Madrid constantly smashing transfer records, and the best players going to Spain.
The money is now in the Premier league and suddenly life isn't fair and its ruining European football.
In the 80 and early 90s the best players went to Italy because that's where the money was, and English clubs couldn't compete with them kind of salaries.
Then you have Real Madrid constantly smashing transfer records, and the best players going to Spain.
The money is now in the Premier league and suddenly life isn't fair and its ruining European football.
United basically invented the commercial aspect of football and that was in place long before the PL era, the dominance of United and Arsenal was down to the mangers more than the money
The money counted too... But I never said otherwise... And I think Abramovich's dirty money (and later on City's... Both welcomed by PL's complicity) prevented us from winning 5 in a row once Arsenal went into austerity mode (around 2006/07) to pay back their stadium.
Real, Barca and Juve's finances are in the most appalling state and their solution isn't one of reflection and humble dignity to improve;
it's to dismantle everything to keep their debt boats afloat paying themselves and everyone ridiculous money because they feel they deserve it.
It has been said numerous times but they didn't make these same points about "saving football," when literally every top player wanted to play in La Liga and Serie A in the 90s and 00s.
I hope they either leave or they get told that they and others are as part of the football system as anyone else and they should sort their own houses in order rather than paying nearly 360million for 3 players.
it's to dismantle everything to keep their debt boats afloat paying themselves and everyone ridiculous money because they feel they deserve it.
It has been said numerous times but they didn't make these same points about "saving football," when literally every top player wanted to play in La Liga and Serie A in the 90s and 00s.
I hope they either leave or they get told that they and others are as part of the football system as anyone else and they should sort their own houses in order rather than paying nearly 360million for 3 players.