European Super League.

[Brummie Clyde]

I often wonder how excited fans of these teams will be when they suddenly start losing a lot more games?

[Detournement]

3 minutes 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?

If they could do that why don't they just start new clubs? Obviously because their entire brand is based on the intangible value created by real supporters. 

Barcelona have loads of tourist fans but the passion for the team in the city is extremely strong and the vast majority at every game are Catalans. Foreign spectators/viewers want the fan culture as much as the matches. 

[Dylangt7]

10 minutes ago, GordonS said:

How will anyone be able to tell the difference?

 

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

Lol they are a special breed...one of the few groups of fans that buy into the "more than a club" cult type behaviour.

The mention of JP Morgan being involved in financing this current fiasco. reminded me.

I knew someone that worked there during the time that JP Morgan were supposed to be helping Hicks and Gilet with lending to bail the then Liverpool owners out.

When that news broke for 12 hours everyone that worked in JPM, family members were all subject to a deluge of emails, calls, death threats etc. from Liverpool fans trying to stop the deal. 

SO much so JPM decided it wasnt worth the effort. maybe that would work this time only from fans of every club. (not condoning that type of weird hive mind behaviour) 

[San Starko Rover]

Could be interesting if it goes ahead to see the viewing figures, might well see low figures in Europe as fans boycott it but big figures in North America and Asia. Wonder who’ll be the first club to up sticks and move to a different city like the US franchises do.

[Detournement]

6 minutes ago, ThatBoyRonaldo said:

The Glazers, Kroenke and FSG et al did. As @G51 was explaining further up the thread, the end game here is a salary cap system. The players will still earn more than now but the increased returns will proportionally flow to the owners.

Aye it's guaranteed profit for the owners that is the end goal here, as close to the NFL model as possible.  f**k knows how Florentino makes money out of Madrid but he will somehow. 

 

[San Starko Rover]

Aye it's guaranteed profit for the owners that is the end goal here, as close to the NFL model as possible.  f**k knows how Florentino makes money out of Madrid but he will somehow. 
 

Wonder if they’d try to squeeze in some more americanizims like time outs or playing in quarters for more advertising, could draws be binned too.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

Seeing defenders of the Champions League - a tournament where actual champions have to go through three rounds of qualification whereas teams who finish fourth in their league get straight in - saying this ESL is the worst thing ever is some laugh, to be honest.

The champions league has always been an awkward compromise between meritocracy and inclusivity.

The former demands that the strongest clubs are involved, the latter demands that clubs from all leagues get to participate

UEFA has been stretched between the two and doesn’t really deliver either.

[Jambomo]

10 minutes ago, Brummie Clyde said:

I often wonder how excited fans of these teams will be when they suddenly start losing a lot more games?

In fairness, none of the fans of these teams appear to want or be excited by any of this. They all seem massively against it and certainly the Arsenal and Spurs fans seem to realize they'll be the whipping boys of this league.   

[G51]

The weird thing about this is that there are some notable owners that didn’t buy super clubs to profit from them, notably the owners of PSG and City.

Would explain why City are late at adopting this and why PSG are siding with UEFA until the optics improve.

[Scottydog]

The greed displayed in virtually every league for the last 30 years and the level of corruption displayed by the governing bodies has meant there's been a kind of inevitability to all of this, it has been more a case of "when" than "if".

It's interesting that Mr Neville has been vociferous in his championing of the non greed cause yet his silence in there being 4 or 5 English clubs in the Champions league hoovering up revenue (un-available to the rest of the league/leagues) was deafening, talk about crying wolf when it suits.

At the end of the day is it wrong? Yes, will it happen? Probably.

Options?

It wont happen but I'd love the most corrupt entity of them all (FIFA) render all clubs involved ex-communicate and there-by all contracts of players at said clubs null and void, that'd be fun!

 

[San Starko Rover]

In fairness, none of the fans of these teams appear to want or be excited by any of this. They all seem massively against it and certainly the Arsenal and Spurs fans seem to realize they'll be the whipping boys of this league.   

Pretty much this, every fan I’ve seen backing it on social media seems to be from overseas and obviously has probably never been to a game. The English fans seem pretty against the idea.

[Dylangt7]

12 minutes ago, GordonS said:

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.

Agreed, it was a chess game that was only ever going to end one way. As it said this was always the natural end game of a sport that is run by the "clubs" themselves. But by "Clubs" we actually mean owners. (not the fans, the players, the staff including CFOs etc.) 

Personally I hope the 12 actually follow through with it. I think the American owners have over estimated the revenue and interest in these type of franchise weekly games on a PPV platform. They may gain more "global" armchair fans initially but will lose a large portion of the fans that actually go to games home or away. Lower level teams will benefit from disillusioned MUFC and LFC fans. The interest would drop significantly after the first few years,

Then the BIG SIX in England will come crawling back but will have to start in the National conference. F*ck 'em. 

 

[Scottydog]

Just now, G51 said:

The weird thing about this is that there are some notable owners that didn’t buy super clubs to profit from them, notably the owners of PSG and City.

Would explain why City are late at adopting this and why PSG are siding with UEFA until the optics improve.

Doesn't the guy that owns PSG sit on the governing board of FIFA/UEFA and on the board of one of the Champions league main sponsors?

[BigDoddyKane]

when the clubs main turnover comes from overseas fans and it may be at that point already then those clubs wont give a feck about the homebased fans

[G51]

2 minutes ago, Scottydog said:

Doesn't the guy that owns PSG sit on the governing board of FIFA/UEFA and on the board of one of the Champions league main sponsors?

He’s part of UEFA’s ExCo, yeah.

Qatar also poured a lot of money through BeIn into CL broadcasting rights.

[D Angelo Barksdale]

It's also worth noting that the general disgust and outrage from the fans and the threats of expulsion from governing bodies was probably already factored in by these c***s before they went public.

[djchapsticks]

9 minutes ago, Scottydog said:

The greed displayed in virtually every league for the last 30 years and the level of corruption displayed by the governing bodies has meant there's been a kind of inevitability to all of this, it has been more a case of "when" than "if".

It's interesting that Mr Neville has been vociferous in his championing of the non greed cause yet his silence in there being 4 or 5 English clubs in the Champions league hoovering up revenue (un-available to the rest of the league/leagues) was deafening, talk about crying wolf when it suits.

At the end of the day is it wrong? Yes, will it happen? Probably.

Options?

It wont happen but I'd love the most corrupt entity of them all (FIFA) render all clubs involved ex-communicate and there-by all contracts of players at said clubs null and void, that'd be fun!

 

It won't happen because it can't. FIFA booting a club wouldn't effect a player's contract, only their registration. Upon removal from FIFA, registrations would just be transferred to a newly set up governing body.

[Hedgecutter]

It's only a matter of time until some billionaire pulls a Clydebank-Airdrie type stunt and transfers on outfit to another city on the sly without the need for spending 5 years in  the vineyard leagues, resulting in e.g. Spurs taking Nantes' place and move to Paris to become Paris Hotspur to rival PSG , have French representation in the ESL, or whatever.

Edited April 19, 2021 by Hedgecutter

[Detournement]

8 minutes ago, djchapsticks said:

It won't happen because it can't. FIFA booting a club wouldn't effect a player's contract, only their registration. Upon removal from FIFA, registrations would just be transferred to a newly set up governing body.

Players would surely have a case that their club leaving UEFA sanctioned competitions invalidates their contract if they wanted to take legal action.

[djchapsticks]

Just now, Detournement said:

Players would surely have a case that their club leaving UEFA sanctioned competitions invalidates their contract if they wanted to take legal action.

Perhaps they could, but the likelihood of them walking away from like £150k per week to find employment in a non-ESL club for maybe half of that is unlikely to say the least.