Baleforce
Ron Henry
Would still be eligible for the europa and the new one though.
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European Super League - Dead on arrival
- Thread starter milo
- Start date
Would still be eligible for the europa and the new one though.
Mate, that statement is the fudging definition of anti-trust
- I will punish your employees for the decision of your board (in European court, you actually think that will fudging stand up?)
- Our company have made a deal with other companies (the FAs) to force you not to do business outside of our group of companies (never stand either, complete anti-trust)
Re the last point
- Please explain to me why that idea was an abomination? with real details
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
UEFA have simply stated that FIFA and the FAs have announced this . There is nothing that UEFA could be taken to court over here.
Regarding why it is an abomination. Any football competition where qualification is not based on sporting merit is an abomination in my opinion.
Mate, implied threat is a threat
Sorry, not being a dingdong, but why? just because you are not accustomed to it? Example - Test Cricket, and ODI World Cups -> top teams don't qualify, they are in
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
Good luck going to court and persuading the judge that UEFA implied a threat.
Actually I think you'll find that qualification for the ODI World Cup is based on ICC rankings. The host and the 7 highest ranked teams in the ICC ODI rankings qualify for the finals. The 10 other nations play a pre qualifier with the final two positions going to the top wo in that qualification competition. If (e.g) Austraila were to slip out of the ICC ODI top 7/8 (depending on host country) and (e.g) Afghanistan were to move up the rankings then Afghanistan would qualify for the finals while Australia would have to play in the qualifying competition.
We can agree to disagree, I've spent some time in companies with anti-trust concerns, that would be a problem in an American court far less a European.
Re the "qualification" your example is the same as Bayern "could" not qualify for CL, Australia/England/West Indies/etc. have gone through absolute brick years but never seemed to miss out (if they looked like it, ICC would simply increase number of teams), but never happens, so basically people are happy with the illusion of choice (well it might actually happen) vs. real variation.
How about if they did an ESL summer tournament (no one ever qualifies for that), is that different?
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
Sorry, I don't understand your first comment. Are you saying that this would be more a problem in US court or European court? I think only the latter matters here.
I guess time will tell, as if your thoughts are valid we will see Juventus etc take on, and beat, UEFA in the courts. I just don't see on what grounds they can even challenge UEFA.
My qualification example is VERY different and I cannot see how you can argue against this . If Bayern finish outside the top 4 in Germany then they would miss out on the Champions League the following season. Not sure if you've noticed but Juventus are currently 5th in Italy?.... If they stay there then they won't qualify for the CL next season, just as the likes of Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and ourselves have all missed out on the CL in recent seasons..... Qualification via a meritocracy. Every time you have pulled out examples of competitions that you say are not based on Sporting merit I have shown that those competitions are in fact based on sporting merit. To say 'the ICC would just increase the number of teams' is just hearsay to suit your argument.
You could actually have come up with some better examples to suit your argument, though in a relative minority sport like Rugby and cited the 6 nations in Europe or 4 nations in the Southern Hemisphere, even then though that is international competition and not club competition. We cannot have a football pyramid system and then auto exclude 99.99999% of the clubs in that pyramid from the top competition while ensuring that a specific 0.00001% of clubs always compete in it.
There is actually nothing to stop an ESL summer tournament happening, though it would have to happen outside of the major international UEFA/FIFA/etc tournaments (so it could only actually happen every two years). Maybe that is the route that the ESL clubs should try to go down? (though I'm not sure how many games could be fit into the summer window - 2 games per team per week for the 6 weeks of July and the first half of August I expect and that would lead to serious burnout and/or the games being played with zero intensity like in the pre-season tournaments).
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Don't know why they didn't have 2 divisions of 20 teams in the esl. Promotion and relegation. You get promoted into the 2nd division from uefa competitions. With the money the biggest teams have they wouldn't be relegated. Could even play it over 2 seasons if they wanted to stay in their domestic leagues. You decide which 40 start in the leagues due to current club coefficients. Which means all the big teams will be in.
No dead rubbers. Get in through sporting merit. Uefa not involved. Could put in a salary cap if they wanted.
Baleforce
Ron Henry
not being able to get relegated was the entire point, they wanted the money guaranteed even if they had a bad year of results
Which was never going to be accepted. Which they should have known.
StephenH
David Ginola
that's what doesn't stack up with the whole plan. very strange! slightly unbelievable
Can understand the spanish clubs thinking it wouldn't be that much of an issue. But the english? They must have known the fans would be up in arms. Coming up to the local election ofcourse politicians were going to get involved. The premier league is one thing this country can rightly be proud of. Popular around the world, brings in fortunes and creates thousands of jobs directly and indirectly. The government couldn't afford for anyone to mess that up.
what does it have to do with the PL?
This is the thing I really don't understand, we are 87 pages in and the one relatively coherent argument is "we don't like no promotion/relegation"
- Affects PL? = how
- Affects integrity of the game = how?
- not good for the pyramid = how?
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
It’s not a reasonably coherent argument it is the one outstanding argument.
1. Affects PL because 6 teams would have 3 times the income of the other 14 clubs forever. With those other 14 clubs having no chance to get into that group.
2. Because you take away the possibility that a team can improve year on year and build themselves into a position to compete.
3. Same as 2. Clubs can no longer aspire to win the big prizes.
You do realise that if this had happened 10 years ago then we would not have been included right? and then from then to the duration of the ESL been consigned to battling for 7th place. I suspect even more likely is that if the PL had a 16 club instead of 15 club majority rule for expulsion then we wouldn’t have been invited to the competition at all.
Had we been locked out like 99.9999% of clubs, I suspect that those same people in favour of this on here would be up in arms against it.
I’m still struggling to understand what the reasonably coherent argument in favour of the ESL is?
1. Not specifically, those 6 teams (by merit of brand/work done for decades) made their own competition, CL & Europa have not gone away, the remaining teams & UEFA by your own argument (since it's any team that earns the right can bring the same revenue) could go on and make similar or better revenue in UEFA tournaments. Not even to mention how you can say that while accepting Chelsea/City/PSG
2. Again, exclusion from one tournament does not mandate inability to compete
3. Why would ESL be the big prize vs. PL/CL/domestic cups (I'd argue that all the clubs in the PL would have much better shot at domestic cups)?
You see the problem is, the only counter to what I said is
- The clubs that want to form the ESL are the ones people want to see (hence your vague connection of them not being in CL somehow meaning other clubs can't earn money), therefore they have earned that right not by finishing in position x for this year but by decades of both on/off pitch work.
The coherent argument for the ESL is simple
- Your dislike of something is not legal or even ethical basis to stop a private enterprise from attempting to find an additional revenue stream.
- As I mentioned earlier in the thread, if the ESL became a summer tournament with exactly the same rules, made the same money, where would the uproar be? or threats?
The fact is, Sky/BT/UEFA/FA have hooked everyone on some flimflam about the integrity of the game, that some fudging how this will affect teams lower down the ladder? why?
- Because they are desperate to protect their income streams and everyone is playing along like a stooge for those corporations, hilarious.
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
1. CL & Europa are greatly devalued by the clubs who are currently the biggest ones competing in a different competition. The value of the TV and prize fund dwindles as a result. You say that the 6 teams are in by merit of work done for decades. But it is defined by a single moment in time. 10 years previous and neither Spurs or Emirates Marketing Project would have been in there (I still say we were only in there because of the fact that the vote of 15 members are needed to expel a club from the PL). What is your point about Chelsea/City/PSG?
2. Exclusion from a tournament that dwarfs others financially does mean inability to compete. We saw how hard it was to compete with the regular CL clubs and how it took over a decade to be able to do so, but at least we could build and get there. This competition multiplies the difference between the haves and have nots by a much greater factor, additionally it locks in the haves so that only they can confidently operate a much bigger budget. Not sure whether you've noticed or not but the clubs with the biggest budgets win just about every competition across Europe? The ESL locks in 0.0001% of clubs to be those clubs pretty much forever more (or at least until somebody does something else along similar lines).... maybe the next step for the ESL is to expel a club or two that isn't actually that big - like Tottenham Hotspur for instance? We're nowhere near as big as any of the other clubs included so why not get rid of us and take even more revenue for themselves?
3. The ESL would be the big prize because of the money involved. The ESL teams would have 25 man squads of top class full internationals as well as the best young players due to being able to operate wage budgets 3 or 4 times the size of the clubs not involved. The top 5 (unfortunately not 6) already win most of the trophies but at least there is a chance of a Leicester happening. The ESL takes that chance from a low percentage to virtually zero. That's not for me.
I don't care one bit for the PL or Sky or BT or UEFA or FIFA. I just care passionately about the biggest prize in football being a closed off competition and the money associated with that closed off competition likely causing even more disparity in the domestic competitions. As I said before, I would've liked to have seen the reactions from the few in support of this on here had we not been included in the plans. There is a huge amount of "I'm alright Jack" here I think.
I still don't see a coherent argument from you for the ESL. What is it about the ESL that you actually like?
glasgowspur
Dimitar Berbatov
Your point 1, we don't want you running away and making money for yourselves, we want you to stay here so we can make money off your back.
Kind of negates the whole integrity thing does it not.
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
I don't care about that angle. All I care is that is that football competition is not a closed off so that specific clubs always play in year on year no matter what. If the ESL had come along challenging UEFA with decent qualification rules so that positions in the competition were earnt on sporting merit then I'd be all for it. I actually can't stand UEFA or FIFA and would be happy if both organisations died a death. I just don't want to see that death caused by my favourite sport becoming an NFL franchise type operation.
So here is lies the real point
- You are refusing to acknowledge that football (in the way you think) is already dead, is already a closed shop (you could probably do a list of the top clubs and how many times they miss out on CL, trophy wins over last decade for a check on reality)
- You are putting the responsibility of keeping the game fair/valuable on the clubs, vs. UEFA/FA
As @glasgowspur mentioned, UEFA has failed to address any of the concerns of the top clubs (if you tried to do multi-year planning, e.g. when having to pay for large scale infrastructure projects when the year by year participation and revenue is not predictable), and instead of fixing, resorts to threats/punishment to keep their share of the pie going.
I'll give you another good example, for years the value of the FA Cup and Domestic cups have gotten worse and worse to B team participation, not enough revenue. So instead of the FA fixing that, we back a model to force top teams to play in it, even if there is no viable money vs. doing their own thing.
At the end of the day, ESL would have evened up the top of the game (more even footing of all 15 with a real wage structure model) at the cost of making more official the closed shop, while leaving the door open for the FA/UEFA to create viable alternatives. Instead the usual suspects (clubs that fudging cheat) will continue to dominate with whatever illusion that someone will break into the top and private enterprises like Spurs will continue to be forced to subsidize the lower leagues and the corruption of UEFA/FIFA/FA.
Ok ask yourself this. If it went ahead and spurs were not invited what would happen to us?
The next pl tv rights package would probably drop by a big margin.
With even less chance of winning the pl and no chance of getting into the esl we'd get less sponsorship money.
Good players won't want to join us, we wouldn't be able to afford their wages anyway.
Paying off the stadium suddenly becomes a monumental task.
Next generation of fans decide to support the clubs in the esl instead of us. Many of our current fans think what's the point? Why bother paying to watch a team that has zero chance of ever being successful, so give up.
Corporate aren't going to pay for hospitality.
We start getting in a financial mess. Nobody wants to buy into us because you can't grow the club. So we sell players but there are only really 15 clubs that have money to buy at a decent price.
How does that effect the pl? Because 14 members of the pl faced that situation. Especially after covid it could have caused some to face financial ruin.