European Super League.

[jagfox]

Liverpool fans are going to remove their flags from the Kop in protest...er...that should swing it

[HTG]

Klopp will be out the door before the day is out at this rate. Liverpool supporters will lose their shit completely off the back of this. They'll have cars up on bricks before you know it.  

[AJF]

1 minute ago, jagfox BLM said:

Liverpool fans are going to remove their flags from the Kop in protest...er...that should swing it

To be fair, in a season where fans cannot enter stadiums, there's not much else they can do.

They can't boycott games or protest during matches.

[NotThePars]

I'm copyrighting the banter "we have turned down an application to join the European Super League " tweet so I can bankrupt half the EFL in the next half hour.

[Fratelli]

10 minutes ago, jagfox BLM said:

There's no source for him saying that, just made up by someone on Twitter as far as i can tell.

Edited April 19, 2021 by Fratelli

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

They wouldn't lie.

[Dylangt7]

10 minutes ago, Fratelli said:

There's no source for him saying that, just made up by someone on Twitter as far as i can tell.

Yeah no doubt, He stated clear opposition when it was discussed in 2019. The sentiment is based on truth but its not recent or a precise quote (AFAIK).

Would love the meltdown if he stuck to his principles and walked at the end of the season (or better now) , ready made jobs already at Bayern or the national team for him as well.

 

Edited April 19, 2021 by Dylangt7

[D Angelo Barksdale]

It's maybe a good thing that the elephant in the room is now out in the open. But, whether this goes ahead or not, it simply cannot be business as usual after.

A 12 year old article.

https://amp.theguardian.com/football/blog/2009/may/14/nationalise-premier-league-steven-wells?__twitter_impression=true

[GordonS]

47 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

The coefficient system is designed to make it as much of a closed shop as possible without it actually being a closed shop. 

This has been the direction of travel because uefa want their biggest clubs in the CL to make them money. This is the clubs just saying f**k this, we make you the money so we want to be guaranteed access to the elite competitions. 

Yes and no. Lots of competitions in lots of sports are seeded and that's fair enough. The Scottish Cup is seeded by the round that you enter, international qualifiers are seeded by rankings built up over a number of years. The seeding for UEFA is based on results over 5 years, which is maybe too long, but Sevilla, Roma, Porto, Ajax, Shakhtar, Lyon, Napoli, Leipzig, Salzburg, Villareal and Benfica are in the top 25, with more diversity just outside. But Inter, a so-called Super League club, are 26th.

I think what's being proposed is a radical, categorical departure from what we have now, even though what we have now is fairly poor.

[GordonS]

16 minutes ago, HTG said:

Liverpool supporters will lose their shit completely off the back of this. They'll have cars up on bricks before you know it.  

How will anyone be able to tell the difference?

 

[Sorry, I usually hate clichéd Liverpool jokes but that bait was too juicy.]

[Forest_Fifer]

The government have come out even more strongly against it. They will be opposing it for various reasons but they definitely don't want apolitical football fans getting into the habit of protesting or the emergence of a mass street based movement that could switch from protesting the ESL to protesting NHS privatisation or Digital ID. 
Bread and Circuses are supposed to keep the masses docile not rile them up. 

Jesus, you even managed to get your normal conspiracies into the ESL. Get some help.

[Aufc]

I assumed you were Ayr Utd!

Airdrie united but then they changed back to airdrieonians and im absolutely not going to bother changing my name on a football forum

[GordonS]

29 minutes ago, Detournement said:

Surely a large part of the appeal of being a plastic Man Utd, Liverpool or Barca fan is imagining a connection to an authentic fanbase? Take away the real supporters and everything falls apart, it's just guys kicking a ball around.

If Liverpool fans in Liverpool are protesting then their eg Thai or Nigerian fans will support their position to be seen to be authentic. 

The front 5 rows at a Real Madrid v Barcelona game are tourists. Many of them are in half-and-half scarves. If "real" fans stop going to games then there will be others to take their place, either from the UK or abroad. Those Thai and Nigerian fans just want to see "their" club against the other big names rather than try to learn who plays for Burnley and why they can't beat West Ham.

A club like Man City could move to the 45,000 seat stadium in Abu Dhabi and in all likelihood make more money than they do now, half of it from tourists from Europe, Australia and the Far East. Why compete with Man Utd for hospitality and local sponsors when you can have the Middle East and Arab world to yourself?

[Dylangt7]

I'm in now way an apologist for UEFA / FIFA in terms of how they run football at their level. The European Tournaments are shit from a sporting perspective and should just go back to a straight knock out tournament being European Cup and Cup Winners Cup. That's not just nostalgia speaking - its the essence of cup football.

BUT most of the changes that have got us to this stage in those tournaments have been made through pressure from these "big clubs" (and at times that probably included our own clubs Rangers and to a lesser extent Celtic - simply due to timings of success). Granted individuals at UEFA have benefited personally from weekly group games BUT it was the big clubs pushing for all those changes and have threatened to walk every couple of years  to get a bigger share of the pie.  UEFA mistake was to open the door to this type of pressure and we now have the natural end game of that greed.  

[Brummie Clyde]

Hahaha. Surely they aren't desperate to get their towns wrecked.

Rangers fans famously stabbed a Villa fan in the 70s, during a "friendly".

My Dad being Glaswegian, had trouble getting into the Villa end. Thankfully his Brummie friend was able to vouch that he was a Villa fan.

[Detournement]

4 minutes ago, Forest_Fifer said:

2 hours ago, Detournement said:

 

Jesus, you even managed to get your normal conspiracies into the ESL. Get some help.

Given that they have used the pandemic as cover for qualitive changes that enrich billionaires and disrupt traditional patterns of consumption then it sits perfectly with the WEF Great Reset plan, digital ID and the British Gas Fire and Rehire strategy. 

Shock Therapy used to be reserved for emerging nations now we are getting a taste of it.

[GordonS]

2 minutes ago, Dylangt7 said:

  UEFA mistake was to open the door to this type of pressure and we now have the natural end game of that greed.  

It's easy to see the appeasement as a mistake, but really, if they hadn't done it we would have reached this point 10-20 years ago. And that appeasement might be enough to keep Bayern Munich, Dortmund, PSG, Porto etc inside the tent, which will kill the Super League before it starts. If this fails then those 12 will find their position seriously weakened, maybe enough to make some of their owners think it's time to get out and fk over a different industry instead.

[Brummie Clyde]

I am so glad i support a shitey team like airdrie whereby something like this doesnt really affect me.

For the record, It is a pish idea

My Preston North End mate said the same thing

[sparky88]

1 minute ago, GordonS said:

The front 5 rows at a Real Madrid v Barcelona game are tourists. Many of them are in half-and-half scarves. If "real" fans stop going to games then there will be others to take their place, either from the UK or abroad. Those Thai and Nigerian fans just want to see "their" club against the other big names rather than try to learn who plays for Burnley and why they can't beat West Ham.

A club like Man City could move to the 45,000 seat stadium in Abu Dhabi and in all likelihood make more money than they do now, half of it from tourists from Europe, Australia and the Far East. Why compete with Man Utd for hospitality and local sponsors when you can have the Middle East and Arab world to yourself?

We seem to just take for granted that these clubs are doing this for money but I'm not sure it's money per se that they are interested in. At the end of the day, the money they make will just be used to pay Kevin De Bruyne 700k a week, instead of 300k a week, for example. And noone gets involved in football to make money.

[Dons_1988]

10 minutes ago, GordonS said:

Yes and no. Lots of competitions in lots of sports are seeded and that's fair enough. The Scottish Cup is seeded by the round that you enter, international qualifiers are seeded by rankings built up over a number of years. The seeding for UEFA is based on results over 5 years, which is maybe too long, but Sevilla, Roma, Porto, Ajax, Shakhtar, Lyon, Napoli, Leipzig, Salzburg, Villareal and Benfica are in the top 25, with more diversity just outside. But Inter, a so-called Super League club, are 26th.

I think what's being proposed is a radical, categorical departure from what we have now, even though what we have now is fairly poor.

Of course it is but this has been the direction of travel for a long time. The champions league has been tweaked and changed many times to guarantee that the competition is largely populated by certain teams. That is mutually beneficial for the clubs and uefa. They clearly don’t want the CL to be an actual competition made up of champions of each country. Someone already mentioned on the thread that the new proposed format has places for ‘historical achievement’.