Thoughts about the Super League

BrendaBruna said:
I wish Italy had been the one to say "F* you" to the ESL, instead Milan and Inter jumped on the bandwagon on their first chance, just goes to show how italian football has changed through the years, at least when it comes to the top 3.
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Yeah, it's a fucking disgrace. I don't support any of the three but in my eyes it's still a very dark day for all the italian movement. English fans are leagues above us as a whole and they were simply majestic in what they did in the last 24 hours.

rojofa said:
I hope people don't just see this as the victory and that football is saved. The greed is still there that led to this being formulated and the rest of the ridiculous stuff like insane transfer fees and contracts, parasitic agents and even an attempt at PPV Premier League matches recently.

Maybe that was the intention all along - get people outraged about this obscene idea so that the rest of the shit they do seems acceptable by comparison.
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I'd just be happy to see the executives that planned this shit gone forever from football and to have the teams with heavy debts doing some virtuos plan to re-enter their losses, with no more crazy signs and so on and so forth.

But I've the impression somehow it will just keep going as before.
 
So there's been a bit of a scare but it seems like:

-there was a short burst of energy from Perez
-hesitation
-City commited to staying out
-all English teams to exit tonight
-Perez was supposed to have interview 20 minutes ago, didn't go to it

What a fucking rollecoaster. I couldn't focus on anything else, literally nothing, hope this is all over now.

Wishing all the teams owned by American mafias swift take-overs and reclamation of their teams.

Real and Barca will now have to fight for their live, Juventus will decline hard, will be interesting times ahead.
 
Madmac79 said:
Yeah, it's a fucking disgrace. I don't support any of the three but in my eyes it's still a very dark day for all the italian movement. English fans are leagues above us as a whole and they were simply majestic in what they did in the last 24 hours.
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I'm a Roma supporter but always had great sympathy for Inter and what the team became in the last years is pretty underwhelming.
 
Something is off right here, all 6 English clubs leaving at the same time just after being offered huge sum of money? Maybe this is what they were really after from this ESL drama, UEFA providing more money, then they just reverse things and rejoining UCL ECA etc, they keep participating in UCL, Domestic Leagues as usual, fans are happy, it's all good for them, it's all has been planned, for UEFA to admit they had more fundings than what they used to provide.

But for Real Madrid fans, it costs us our reputation, more hate for us for the next 50 years, UEFA FIFA being shittier to us, more refs decision against us ffs.
 
Fakku said:
Something is off right here, all 6 English clubs leaving at the same time just after being offered huge sum of money? Maybe this is what they were really after from this ESL drama, UEFA providing more money, then they just reverse things and rejoining UCL ECA etc, they keep participating in UCL, Domestic Leagues as usual, fans are happy, it's all good for them, it's all has been planned, for UEFA to admit they had more fundings than what they used to provide.

But for Real Madrid fans, it costs us our reputation, more hate for us for the next 50 years, UEFA FIFA being shittier to us, more refs decision against us ffs.
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True, Perez is done and the whole project. He made himself a clown. I think he must quit to make Madrid clean
 
raul_ole said:
True, Perez is done and the whole project. He made himself a clown. I think he must quit to make Madrid clean
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He literally ruined his own reputation built since 2000s in just 48 hours 😭
He would be remembered as greedy old man who tried to ruin our sports now sigh.
 
Fakku said:
UEFA FIFA being shittier to us, more refs decision against us ffs.
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More ref decisions against Real Madrid? I can't recall a decision against Real Madrid in years... Starting from Mijatovic's goal against Juve in '98 and coming to our days (Real vs. Bayern in 2017), referees have often been on Real's side, as far as I remember.
No offence meant, mate... It's just that I can't get where that "more" comes from.

Fakku said:
He literally ruined his own reputation built since 2000s in just 48 hours 😭
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On this I agree.
 
I mean how is this all happening just like that?
I mean why they dont follow this through? People gonna watch it anyways lets be honest so it shouldnt be just the reception. Was there something in the FIFA, UEFA, leaguge contracts that they just missed? If thats the case how if we are talking about a billion dollar business?
I just dont get it........ shouldnt be either.

Maybe ...every other club was just bowing and going for the money what the founders provisioned out of greed and necessaty? And there was just a change of heart for them when they saw one or two teams withdrawing?
 
gabe.paul.logan said:
Maybe ...every other club was going for the money what the founders provisioned? And there was a change of heart for them when they saw one or two teams are withdrawing? that UEFA would offer more money to clubs withdrawing from this than the one they'd have made staying in.
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Fix'd that for you.
I think all revolves around money. UEFA not only said they would retaliate against the clubs sticking with the ESL, but apparently offered lots of money to the ones that would betray the ESL to "come back home".

Either way, it's disgusting.
 
Saint Angelo said:
So there's been a bit of a scare but it seems like:

-there was a short burst of energy from Perez
-hesitation
-City commited to staying out
-all English teams to exit tonight
-Perez was supposed to have interview 20 minutes ago, didn't go to it

What a fucking rollecoaster. I couldn't focus on anything else, literally nothing, hope this is all over now.

Wishing all the teams owned by American mafias swift take-overs and reclamation of their teams.

Real and Barca will now have to fight for their live, Juventus will decline hard, will be interesting times ahead.
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Its not over, unless UEFA and FIFA really punish the clubs with relegation and point deduction, some clubs like Real Madrid will keep feeling untouchable and above all the others because don’t forget that not all teams are out of the ESL
 
*aLe said:
Fix'd that for you.
I think all revolves around money. UEFA not only said they would retaliate against the clubs sticking with the ESL, but apparently offered lots of money to the ones that would betray the ESL to "come back home".

Either way, it's disgusting.
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I mean both is dirty business but at least UEFA represents something more close to the fans heart.
 
This could, and should, be the catalyst for a change in football - wihere an understanding of "you are a custodian of a community entity, not the chairman of the Bank of Liverpool or the Bank of Manchester" is forced upon owners by fans (and the media), and/or making money becomes (even marginally) less important.

I fear that what will happen instead, is that football just carries on the way it was going, as if the Super League announcement never happened; fans continuing to be priced out of the game, high-stakes money thrown around by top clubs completely isolating themselves from every other club, and there being far too many matches (to afford as a fan, to survive as a player, and to watch without being bored stiff).

The media will stop the fight now - they have Champions League rights to think about. They don't want to piss anybody off. Fans need to take this win as a sign of what they can achieve, and push harder.

If there was a national campaign to cancel your Sky/BT TV subscriptions, I wouldn't think twice before doing it. I really wouldn't. If I knew everybody else was going to jump on it too.

That's all that will make "legacy fans" - or, let's be blunt, real fans - matter again.
 
Agnelli basically destroyed all what he managed to achieve with the club since 2010. A very very underwhelming days for a long term Juventus supporter (more in the past than recently, but still).
 
What worries me is that these clubs and their billionaires aren't stupid - as much as they seem to live in their bubble, they know how football fans think (or can pay for market research) and I'm sure they would have known exactly what sort of reaction they were going to get and that teams would withdraw.

So why did this happen? There has to be some motive.

A similar thing happened when Bethesda introduced paid mods on Steam for Skyrim - an insane unregulated system was fully implemented without notice, everyone kicked off about it and thought they'd won when Bethesda completely removed the feature and apologised. 2 years later once the outrage had died down, they brought back practically the same thing but less extreme (Creation Club) and nobody cared. If that was what they did to start with people probably would have protested and got it canned like the first time. I feel like the original plan was never considered realistic by Bethesda, it was a distraction to get what they had really planned more readily accepted at a later date.

I think a similar thing is going to happen here - CL reforms will be made to benefit exactly these same clubs, but if it's in a less comically blatant way as a "Super League" people will let it slide as it "could have been worse" and they think they've already defeated the idea as the competition is still called the "UEFA Champions League".
 
rojofa said:
What worries me is that these clubs and their billionaires aren't stupid - as much as they seem to live in their bubble, they know how football fans think (or can pay for market research) and I'm sure they would have known exactly what sort of reaction they were going to get and that teams would withdraw.

So why did this happen? There has to be some motive.

A similar thing happened when Bethesda introduced paid mods on Steam for Skyrim - an insane unregulated system was fully implemented without notice, everyone kicked off about it and thought they'd won when Bethesda completely removed the feature and apologised. 2 years later once the outrage had died down, they brought back practically the same thing but less extreme (Creation Club) and nobody cared. If that was what they did to start with people probably would have protested and got it canned like the first time. I feel like the original plan was never considered realistic by Bethesda, it was a distraction to get what they had really planned more readily accepted at a later date.

I think a similar thing is going to happen here - CL reforms will be made to benefit exactly these same clubs, but if it's in a less comically blatant way as a "Super League" people will let it slide as it "could have been worse" and they think they've already defeated the idea as the competition is still called the "UEFA Champions League".
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As aLe pointed out probably on the founders wanted this all along only, the rest of the teams were just negotiating simply, they just joined to show UEFA they are gone if they dont get better deals (in any shape of form). Which probably they got in the end.
 
rojofa said:
What worries me is that these clubs and their billionaires aren't stupid - as much as they seem to live in their bubble, they know how football fans think (or can pay for market research) and I'm sure they would have known exactly what sort of reaction they were going to get and that teams would withdraw.

So why did this happen? There has to be some motive.

A similar thing happened when Bethesda introduced paid mods on Steam for Skyrim - an insane unregulated system was fully implemented without notice, everyone kicked off about it and thought they'd won when Bethesda completely removed the feature and apologised. 2 years later once the outrage had died down, they brought back practically the same thing but less extreme (Creation Club) and nobody cared. If that was what they did the first time people probably would have protested and got it canned like the first time. I feel like the original plan was never considered realistic by Bethesda, it was a distraction to get what they had really planned more readily accepted.

I think a similar thing is going to happen here - CL reforms will be made to benefit exactly these same clubs, but if it's in a less comically blatant way as a "Super League" people will let it slide as it "could have been worse" and they think they've already defeated the idea as the competition is still called the "UEFA Champions League".
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That's a very intelligent assessment of the situation, it really got me thinking.
But at the same time, the reputation of many people and of many clubs is on the line, so where do they enter? Is Perez just a puppet of sorts? Because I don't believe he'll get away scot-free, he made very categorical claims about how the Super League would be made and WHY it would be made.
 
Again, Uefa and these clubs will likely be back at the table soon to talk about a super league (sic) 'light' under the paper-thin auspices of Uefa. Some sort of middle ground between the new champions league (sic) model and the proposed super league set up.

I share your dream @Chris Davies. But while the brakes have been applied I can't see football sticking it in reverse. There isn't enough ire towards the champions league and premier league (sic) for the momentum to carry. And while my heart tells me it was the fans what won it, I sense that Uefa, the football associations, governments, managers, and players turned the tide. That teams will have seen the number of hoops skyrocket and think: fuck this.

It's not to say it's not worth trying. But there's 30 years of this to unravel. Scots, Swedes, Belgians etc have their pitchforks with views at odds with the fans of the elit teams. Man Utd fans (for example) up in arms, but are they willing to embrace meritocracy if it means losing a champions league spot to Rangers, Malmö or Brugge? No way.

Will Man City fans take on a fan ownership model if it meant their budget being decimated? Tough one. And who takes the lead on that? It's one thing fans taking over a non-league side, but a (pardon my wanky talk) global brand?

It's all too much hassle. What we have now is sheer greed playing itself just onside. It went full Inzaghi on Sunday, but it's time for the quo again.
 
*aLe said:
More ref decisions against Real Madrid? I can't recall a decision against Real Madrid in years... Starting from Mijatovic's goal against Juve in '98 and coming to our days (Real vs. Bayern in 2017), referees have often been on Real's side, as far as I remember.
No offence meant, mate... It's just that I can't get where that "more" comes from.

On this I agree.
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Nah there's like lots of decisions by refs that's against us, and media rarely mentions that that's why people still think that refs benefits us, when it isn't the case anymore, especially this season, I admit that we might have decisions favoured to us of course at times, every club does, but there's lots of refereeing mistakes that costs us something, maybe goal, even a few points, I can show u a few examples if u want, it often happens at La Liga matchday that's why people rarely hears about it, maybe u can even ask any other people u know who regularly watch Real Madrid plays, they would say the same. But what I'm happy is that Zidane doesn't cry at Press Conferences about refs, he's professional enough not to do it, while our rivals like Barcelona (Koeman, even their president Laporta) often does it.
 
Flipper the Priest said:
Again, Uefa and these clubs will likely be back at the table soon to talk about a super league (sic) 'light' under the paper-thin auspices of Uefa. Some sort of middle ground between the new champions league (sic) model and the proposed super league set up.
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Honestly, if the new Champions League format was replaced with the Super League format (but with three divisions representing UCL/UEL/UEC levels, and merit-based qualification obviously - none of this "you're rich so you get in even though you finished 10th" rubbish)... I'd be fairly happy with that.

(Nothing to do with the fact that one of the early PS2 PESes had three European divisions, and it was my favourite game for a long time...)

Seriously, though. I don't think football fans are allergic to change. I urge everyone with a spare 30 minutes to listen to this podcast - specifically the interview with the Executive Director of Football Supporters Europe (FSE). I didn't even know this was a thing, and it's super interesting.

It turns out that fans actually have representation in the majority of discussions between UEFA and the "big clubs" (so, to back up @rojofa's point, they definitely knew what backlash was coming). That representation is completely ignored, every time, but it's there.

Turns out that "legacy" fans (who were surveyed by the FSE) aren't just priced out of the game and feeling less of a connection with it as a result - they're also bored with football because there's too much of it. They are massively against the expanded UEFA club format.

Most interesting to me was that most (rich) fans who have travelled to international tournaments their entire lives, were surveyed as saying that they wouldn't be going to Euro 2020 when it was rescheduled and actually surrendered their tickets when they were asked to confirm their ticket reservations, because they have fallen out of love with the game - primarily because of how oversaturated we are with football matches, but also because of the evident focus on making money out of us all.

So I don't think football fans are against change - it's just that we want less matches, and more meaning in those matches (which is what the Super League guys assured us was the case with their product, except that isn't true, because there was no merit involved in being there).
 
What Agnelli said in the interview he released before the withdraw of the 6:

We're going to create a competition that simulates what they do on digital platforms - like Fifa - means we're going to meet them and face the competition of Fortnite or Call of Duty that are the real attention centers of today's kids, who will be spending tomorrow."

Why am I not surprised that this shit was one of their inspiration models.
 
Off-topic, but you know what I miss? The Anglo-Italian cup - and not just because it gave Tranmere a whole new lease of life (brilliant podcast about that here).

If anything, a "conference league" should be second-tier teams against other second-tier teams. Now that's a way of getting money into the football pyramid below the top divisions!

I guess the question is "would anyone watch it". This is where the problem lies, with all of this. The "legacy" fans would, the "global" fans wouldn't...

...just in the same way that I would absolutely love a Champions League without the "big six", where Leeds v Lazio replaced Liverpool v Real Madrid, but the fans below the age of 30 wouldn't (see the response to that tweet I posted on the previous page).

But in the absence of a million UCL games a season, I would watch both the "big six" matches and I would 100% watch Watford v Salernitana in a "conference league" too, to see more of the world of football, rather than just the top 1% of it.
 
This is bizarre. The whole thing has to be a UEFA inside job. The plan probably was to polish up their image all along. You can't make this shit up:

"I am delighted to welcome City back to the European football family. City are a real asset for the game and I am delighted to be working with them for a better future for the European game."
 
Meanwhile the SL founders.
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Ameppe said:
Have you read this?

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I dont even understand what are they refering to here.
 
majuh said:
This is bizarre. The whole thing has to be a UEFA inside job. The plan probably was to polish up their image all along. You can't make this shit up:

"I am delighted to welcome City back to the European football family. City are a real asset for the game and I am delighted to be working with them for a better future for the European game."
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Yeah, when you think about it, the whole thing just has such a staged feel to it with Perez being the obvious moustache-twirling villain who only cares about money.

And, of course, UEFA and FIFA are the good guys who save football in the end.

Idk, it's just weird.
 
Chris Davies said:
If there was a national campaign to cancel your Sky/BT TV subscriptions, I wouldn't think twice before doing it. I really wouldn't. If I knew everybody else was going to jump on it too.
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Agree 100% I've said the same a few times.

The root of the whole financial problem in football is locked in a vicious circle.

Clubs clamoured so much to sign the best players that wages began to escalate out of control as they tempted them to sign with outlandish offers. This meant income had to increase to pay for them, meaning larger tv deals with bigger subscription prices, ticket prices going up, merchandise prices going up all meaning more money in the game, meaning even higher player wages and rinse and repeat.

Now it's at the stage where they can't get enough income so they try to invent other ways to get it rather than look at the root cause of the problem - player wages and transfer fees.



Chris Davies said:
Off-topic, but you know what I miss? The Anglo-Italian cup - and not just because it gave Tranmere a whole new lease of life (brilliant podcast about that here).

If anything, a "conference league" should be second-tier teams against other second-tier teams. Now that's a way of getting money into the football pyramid below the top divisions!

I guess the question is "would anyone watch it". This is where the problem lies, with all of this. The "legacy" fans would, the "global" fans wouldn't...

...just in the same way that I would absolutely love a Champions League without the "big six", where Leeds v Lazio replaced Liverpool v Real Madrid, but the fans below the age of 30 wouldn't (see the response to that tweet I posted on the previous page).

But in the absence of a million UCL games a season, I would watch both the "big six" matches and I would 100% watch Watford v Salernitana in a "conference league" too, to see more of the world of football, rather than just the top 1% of it.
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I'd be up for that, problem is I fear there's not enough of us.

I remember the Ango-Italian. We played Fiorentina, Bari, Cremonese off the top of my head. I think Cesena and Ascoli too and probably a couple of others. I particularly remember the Fiorentina game under the floodlights.
 
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