Okay this is all a bit confusing to me so please correct me if my take is wrong but...
A dozen big European teams, backed by some shady billionaire financial backing, are making a new league where only super rich teams can play. Their motivation for doing this is because they're all financially up shit creek from paying insane wages to top players that they can't afford and covid has made the situation worse. The existing leagues are now in a huge panic and threatening to legally nuke them from orbit. For some reason all of this is getting attention from the PM himself during on ongoing crisis.
Is that anywhere near?
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ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered Userregular
Dunno if the likes of Harry Kane will agree. Stay at Spurs, win fuck all, and now never even get to score for England again?
tbf he did say owners, not players
Oh for sure. I'm saying the owners and the player's interests are at odds here. The owners can be delighted about it but it may well mean the player leaves, robbing them of big international stars. But outside of the biggest 6 clubs here I dunno where the likes of Kane are gonna go. Maybe Barca or Madrid will wait maybe Juve will hmmmm no.
Okay this is all a bit confusing to me so please correct me if my take is wrong but...
A dozen big European teams, backed by some shady billionaire financial backing, are making a new league where only super rich teams can play. Their motivation for doing this is because they're all financially up shit creek from paying insane wages to top players that they can't afford and covid has made the situation worse. The existing leagues are now in a huge panic and threatening to legally nuke them from orbit. For some reason all of this is getting attention from the PM himself during on ongoing crisis.
Is that anywhere near?
Somewhat? They're not all up shit creek financially, but COVID laid bare some massive problems with the constant spending of some of them. This league ensures big revenue instead of these teams maybe missing out on the Champion's League by finishing 9th or something. Why compete for the CL when you can never be relegated from the ESL?
Part of me wants them to go ahead with it and fail spectacularly. It's the only path to meaningful positive change. May result in the death of some clubs I'd rather not see cease to exist but that's the price to pay. If they back down and get away with it, it'll be the same old shit again 5-10 years down the line.
TavIrish Minister for DefenceRegistered Userregular
this whole american owners not understanding english football thing reminded me of the time that Dunkin Donuts was a Liverpool sponsor and tweeted their new logo where they replaced the eternal flames for the 96 with iced coffees
So I don't have first hand experience of the euro fandom/interest but Is there actual demand for the ESL games? Like I know CL games pull huge numbers, but the relative rareness of each match up and the knock out stakes have to be a big part of that. When Milan is playing home and aways with Arsenal, United, Tottenham, every year...how much get up is there really going to be for that?
Especially since as a league format - they could be meaningless for one side or the other pretty quick.
There are too many games already for the players health as is, this is just going to grind them to dust, and any team with a bad start is going to start holding players out of the ESL, so they can be fresh for other games. So not even debating the um..."Superness" of some of the teams to start with, I wonder how many of the superstars you'll actually see come mid season.
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H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
So I don't have first hand experience of the euro fandom/interest but Is there actual demand for the ESL games? Like I know CL games pull huge numbers, but the relative rareness of each match up and the knock out stakes have to be a big part of that. When Milan is playing home and aways with Arsenal, United, Tottenham, every year...how much get up is there really going to be for that?
Especially since as a league format - they could be meaningless for one side or the other pretty quick.
There are too many games already for the players health as is, this is just going to grind them to dust, and any team with a bad start is going to start holding players out of the ESL, so they can be fresh for other games. So not even debating the um..."Superness" of some of the teams to start with, I wonder how many of the superstars you'll actually see come mid season.
Are you assuming they would continue to participate in FIFA/UEFA games? I would think that if the ESL is supposed to be an American-style pro sports league, the teams joining it would become exclusive to it.
So I don't have first hand experience of the euro fandom/interest but Is there actual demand for the ESL games? Like I know CL games pull huge numbers, but the relative rareness of each match up and the knock out stakes have to be a big part of that. When Milan is playing home and aways with Arsenal, United, Tottenham, every year...how much get up is there really going to be for that?
Especially since as a league format - they could be meaningless for one side or the other pretty quick.
There are too many games already for the players health as is, this is just going to grind them to dust, and any team with a bad start is going to start holding players out of the ESL, so they can be fresh for other games. So not even debating the um..."Superness" of some of the teams to start with, I wonder how many of the superstars you'll actually see come mid season.
Are you assuming they would continue to participate in FIFA/UEFA games? I would think that if the ESL is supposed to be an American-style pro sports league, the teams joining it would become exclusive to it.
It's 20 teams split into two leagues playing home and away and then quarter finals. They're not going to survive on potentially 10 games a season.
Though that said, chairman of the Danish FA is saying that he expects UEFA to kick the 12 teams out of current competitions on Friday and that the players would be free to choose if they want to honor their contracts or leave the clubs, since leaving the competitions would void the contracts. I don't think he's right, but right now UEFA seems to want to fight fire with fire.
Yeah, all of this is the logical culmination of a sequence events that began decades ago, first with the formation of the premier league, then with the billionaires buying up the clubs. FIFA, the FA, UEFA are all culpable. The thing is the big clubs have all the leverage. The FA or La Liga can't kick these guys out of the domestic leagues or anything like that. That's where all the revenue comes from. The Premier League's broadcast rights are up for renewal this summer. If the top 6 aren't part of the league, the league's revenues will very seriously suffer. 3 out of the 4 semi-finalists in this year's Champions League are in this Super League. UEFA can't touch those clubs for this season because they can't back out of airing the semi-finals and finals.
The clubs have timed this announcement very shrewdly.
Ajax has such a tiny budget compared to this that they'd just lose every match though.
They're 5-10x behind the rest of these. The glory years were 25 years ago, Ajax is essentially a youth training camp now. Try to get 5 talents every year, hope 1 breaks through the ceiling and get paid for the transfer to Spain or the UK. That's how Ajax has been able to have an oversized budget for NL standards.
They are now leaving younger and younger, and tellingly to more middling clubs. Because the Eredivisie is considered too weak to sharpen skills once you reach a certain level. Better to spend a year or two at the number 12 in Spain, and see what you're really worth.
It'd have to come with gigantic guarantees of revenue, or it'd ruin the club.
It also make me wonder how the city of Amsterdam would view this... Ajax does not own its stadium, they rent it.
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HerrCronIt that wickedly supports taxationRegistered Userregular
I kinda feel bad for Jose, normally him getting the boot would be the biggest story in football.
Today it's not even the biggest story for Spurs fans.
I kinda feel bad for Jose, normally him getting the boot would be the biggest story in football.
Today it's not even the biggest story for Spurs fans.
Don't you worry, he'll find some way to make this all about himself.
He is only getting £20 million to go away rather than the £30 originally reported. That's not even 10 million for every premier league title he's won! Disrespecting the Special One!
Off the top of my head the Mets, Rockets, Chargers, Raiders have all recently been forced into bad personnel/organizational decisions because of cash flow issues, the Coyotes and Hornets were both run by their respective leagues for a while because they were financial pits, and there's been in-numerable teams that were forced to move to new markets because they were struggling.
I cannot imagine suggesting that the US/Canadian league system is in any way better, or something to model after.
I mean, when was the last time a major sports team in North America was facing bankruptcy?
All the time, normally at 25 years after their stadium/arena was built, until the city agrees to buy them a new one. Or when the CBA is coming up for negotiations. Or when the student athletes want to get compensated. Also, depends if you count the Phoenix Coyotes as major team.
I do think the ever increasing shift away from gate revenue to TV deal money really undercuts the promotion/relegation pyramid system in a way that the US model isn't as hurt by. But I don't know if a no draft, no cap, US style league is really sustainable either. Jerry Jones would spend himself to bankruptcy to get one more championship before he kicks it. Which is really the issue here too. The super league is a greedy band aid for all the self inflicted wounds of these clubs.
Capped salaries, drafts, lack of transfer fees, free development systems, franchise tags/service time chicanery/RFA* all seem like levers that drive down a teams potential expenditure that don't exist in international soccer.
* I could be off the mark with this one, I'm not totally sure if soccer has equivalent mechanisms.
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TavIrish Minister for DefenceRegistered Userregular
I cannot imagine suggesting that the US/Canadian league system is in any way better, or something to model after.
I mean, when was the last time a major sports team in North America was facing bankruptcy?
All the time, normally at 25 years after their stadium/arena was built, until the city agrees to buy them a new one. Or when the CBA is coming up for negotiations. Or when the student athletes want to get compensated. Also, depends if you count the Phoenix Coyotes as major team.
I do think the ever increasing shift away from gate revenue to TV deal money really undercuts the promotion/relegation pyramid system in a way that the US model isn't as hurt by. But I don't know if a no draft, no cap, US style league is really sustainable either. Jerry Jones would spend himself to bankruptcy to get one more championship before he kicks it. Which is really the issue here too. The super league is a greedy band aid for all the self inflicted wounds of these clubs.
I agree with most of this, but IIRC the general consensus on Jones is that he's fine with his team not being a winner, so long as the Cowboys do well enough year after year to retain their popularity, because that's what brings in the money. One of the indicators that he's more about selling merchandise than winning trophies is his reputation for using up his salary cap-space to overpay star players, and holding onto them past their prime (which I imagine are motivated by branding reasons, not any kind of loyalty).
I'm not a fan of the FIFA, but this seems like a bunch of rich assholes wanting to use their leverage to browbeat cities into lifting COVID restrictions to keep the full debt party going, so nah, fuck that.
It’s actually pretty impressive that these clubs have managed to make FIFA the good guys.
I wonder if the French and German clubs that gave this a pass did so in part because they were smart enough to realize just how wildly unpopular this would be, and how severe the blowback from FIFA would be. I’ll honestly be surprised if this even happens now, meaning that the 12 clubs that signed their names to this will have lit a bunch of goodwill on fire for nothing.
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Dunno if the likes of Harry Kane will agree. Stay at Spurs, win fuck all, and now never even get to score for England again?
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tbf he did say owners, not players
A dozen big European teams, backed by some shady billionaire financial backing, are making a new league where only super rich teams can play. Their motivation for doing this is because they're all financially up shit creek from paying insane wages to top players that they can't afford and covid has made the situation worse. The existing leagues are now in a huge panic and threatening to legally nuke them from orbit. For some reason all of this is getting attention from the PM himself during on ongoing crisis.
Is that anywhere near?
Oh for sure. I'm saying the owners and the player's interests are at odds here. The owners can be delighted about it but it may well mean the player leaves, robbing them of big international stars. But outside of the biggest 6 clubs here I dunno where the likes of Kane are gonna go. Maybe Barca or Madrid will wait maybe Juve will hmmmm no.
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Somewhat? They're not all up shit creek financially, but COVID laid bare some massive problems with the constant spending of some of them. This league ensures big revenue instead of these teams maybe missing out on the Champion's League by finishing 9th or something. Why compete for the CL when you can never be relegated from the ESL?
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this whole american owners not understanding english football thing reminded me of the time that Dunkin Donuts was a Liverpool sponsor and tweeted their new logo where they replaced the eternal flames for the 96 with iced coffees
Especially since as a league format - they could be meaningless for one side or the other pretty quick.
There are too many games already for the players health as is, this is just going to grind them to dust, and any team with a bad start is going to start holding players out of the ESL, so they can be fresh for other games. So not even debating the um..."Superness" of some of the teams to start with, I wonder how many of the superstars you'll actually see come mid season.
Are you assuming they would continue to participate in FIFA/UEFA games? I would think that if the ESL is supposed to be an American-style pro sports league, the teams joining it would become exclusive to it.
It's 20 teams split into two leagues playing home and away and then quarter finals. They're not going to survive on potentially 10 games a season.
Though that said, chairman of the Danish FA is saying that he expects UEFA to kick the 12 teams out of current competitions on Friday and that the players would be free to choose if they want to honor their contracts or leave the clubs, since leaving the competitions would void the contracts. I don't think he's right, but right now UEFA seems to want to fight fire with fire.
The clubs have timed this announcement very shrewdly.
They're 5-10x behind the rest of these. The glory years were 25 years ago, Ajax is essentially a youth training camp now. Try to get 5 talents every year, hope 1 breaks through the ceiling and get paid for the transfer to Spain or the UK. That's how Ajax has been able to have an oversized budget for NL standards.
They are now leaving younger and younger, and tellingly to more middling clubs. Because the Eredivisie is considered too weak to sharpen skills once you reach a certain level. Better to spend a year or two at the number 12 in Spain, and see what you're really worth.
It'd have to come with gigantic guarantees of revenue, or it'd ruin the club.
It also make me wonder how the city of Amsterdam would view this... Ajax does not own its stadium, they rent it.
Today it's not even the biggest story for Spurs fans.
Don't you worry, he'll find some way to make this all about himself.
No need to feel bad. Some other dumb club will hire him expecting his long ago history of success will somehow override his recent history of success.
He is only getting £20 million to go away rather than the £30 originally reported. That's not even 10 million for every premier league title he's won! Disrespecting the Special One!
Bruno is the first ESL footballer to actively speak out against the Super League
dreams can't be buy indeed
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Some coaches can get you there but just don't have what it takes to keep you there.
Prior to this it was "can JohnHenryFC win out to qualify for the top 4 and champions league"
Now it's, uh, well, shit, who the hell knows?
strange, not like Liverpool to turn down free t-shirts
Some Galaxy brain takes emerging as the day goes on.
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I mean, when was the last time a major sports team in North America was facing bankruptcy?
All the time, normally at 25 years after their stadium/arena was built, until the city agrees to buy them a new one. Or when the CBA is coming up for negotiations. Or when the student athletes want to get compensated. Also, depends if you count the Phoenix Coyotes as major team.
I do think the ever increasing shift away from gate revenue to TV deal money really undercuts the promotion/relegation pyramid system in a way that the US model isn't as hurt by. But I don't know if a no draft, no cap, US style league is really sustainable either. Jerry Jones would spend himself to bankruptcy to get one more championship before he kicks it. Which is really the issue here too. The super league is a greedy band aid for all the self inflicted wounds of these clubs.
Chuckle:
* I could be off the mark with this one, I'm not totally sure if soccer has equivalent mechanisms.
Tweeter is a well known lefty shitposter
I agree with most of this, but IIRC the general consensus on Jones is that he's fine with his team not being a winner, so long as the Cowboys do well enough year after year to retain their popularity, because that's what brings in the money. One of the indicators that he's more about selling merchandise than winning trophies is his reputation for using up his salary cap-space to overpay star players, and holding onto them past their prime (which I imagine are motivated by branding reasons, not any kind of loyalty).
I wonder if the French and German clubs that gave this a pass did so in part because they were smart enough to realize just how wildly unpopular this would be, and how severe the blowback from FIFA would be. I’ll honestly be surprised if this even happens now, meaning that the 12 clubs that signed their names to this will have lit a bunch of goodwill on fire for nothing.