Jump to content
  • Sign up for free and receive a month's subscription

    You are viewing this page as a guest. That means you are either a member who has not logged in, or you have not yet registered with us. Signing up for an account only takes a minute and it means you will no longer see this annoying box! It will also allow you to get involved with our friendly(ish!) community and take part in the discussions on our forums. And because we're feeling generous, if you sign up for a free account we will give you a month's free trial access to our subscriber only content with no obligation to commit. Register an account and then send a private message to @dave u and he'll hook you up with a subscription.

New Super League to Rival CL - 11 Clubs Sign Up


TheDrowningMan
 Share

Recommended Posts

Just now, Stickman said:

Nice to see uefa really are the bastions of the game who only have the best interests of the “fans” at heart ..

100 extra games to go alongside all those pointless internationals 

 

OFFICIAL: UEFA confirm the new Champions League format from 2024/25:

 

36 teams (up from 32)

 

No groups — 1 league

 

10-match first phase

 

100 additional games

No groups? One league? Surely not a 36 team league or am I just being a twat and mis-interpreting that

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Alex_K

Bureaucrats running the game for decades have been sending tournaments over dead bodies to Qatar, hosting finals in Azerbaijan. Bending FFP rules on the back of bribes and nepotism. Yet the clubs seizing back control is a “step too far”. Laughable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If the proposed European League doesn't proceed hopefully it will be the catalyst for a few positive changes to the domestic set up.

 

Dont think you can bring The Old firm into the league due to the negative/disrespect to the other Scottish sides but surely bringing them into the Cups would be a positive?

 

Fuck Madrid, Id love to see Liverpool V Rangers in the latter stages of a Cup        

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Dave D said:

No groups? One league? Surely not a 36 team league or am I just being a twat and mis-interpreting that

From the Beeb.... 

The new format will see 36 clubs qualifying for an expanded 'first phase', where all clubs will play against 10 opponents of varying strengths.

This will result in a league table, with the top eight qualifying for the knockout phase and the next 16 going into a play-off for the remaining eight slots.

 

So, some form of seeding to ensure the top clubs get into the knockouts. Just a different variation on the theme of more games = more money (including to UEFA). At least it doesn’t have the closed shop element 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

It is interesting how this story is being reported outside of England. There is barely a mention of Liverpool and almost every report has the project driven by Real Madrid, United and Juventus - in that order. It is Perez' baby and has been for a decade.

yet all the anti social media posts from the UK journo's and the media I've seen today have all lead with pictures of Anfield, Klopp or salah 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, Brownie said:

@Bjornebye - did you see the bit where Neville basically said that people on the streets of Liverpool are supposed to be about looking after their own but that's gone now? Can't believe for one second you would agree with that, seeing as the club is owned by fucking hedge fund cunts and not scousers.

 

If this actually goes through then i'm 100% walking away from it, I want nothing to do with this shit any more.

If that's true Neville is a fucking prick using it as a way to attack liverpool city itself, besides most people in Liverpool like anywhere else don't give a fuck about football beyond a glancing interest. He should walk round Manchester and tell them they've forgotten their roots. This is football owners not fans, not the badge, the same fuckers who make business decisions that fuck lives in all sectors of life for a quick buck.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

If that's true Neville is a fucking prick using it as a way to attack liverpool city itself, besides most people in Liverpool like anywhere else don't give a fuck about football beyond a glancing interest. He should walk round Manchester and tell them they've forgotten their roots. This is football owners not fans, not the badge, the same fuckers who make business decisions that fuck lives in all sectors of life for a quick buck.

Don't let it get to you mate, Neville is a wanker Sky whore, if sky told him to get on board with the ESL he'd be praising it to high heaven and how it's the best thing to happen blah blah blah, any excuse to have a go at the City / club /fans for him.

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

If that's true Neville is a fucking prick using it as a way to attack liverpool city itself, besides most people in Liverpool like anywhere else don't give a fuck about football beyond a glancing interest. He should walk round Manchester and tell them they've forgotten their roots. This is football owners not fans, not the badge, the same fuckers who make business decisions that fuck lives in all sectors of life for a quick buck.

even worse, the cheeky cunt had a go at us for calling ourselves the peoples club. 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Man U fanzines and podcasts all over the shop tweeting stuff about 'don't forget where you come from' etc. Am I losing my motherfucking mind here? The club that rebranded itself by taking 'football club' out of its crest to sell more mugs and used to have entire catalogue pages in the Great Universal devoted to Paul McGrath figurines? A club which pioneered the idea of third kits so they could make more bank off parents. 

 

Meanwhile I've got to contend with property tycoon Gary Neville, bankrolled by the breakaway Premier League since he was a teenager, working for the company that - thanks to its pay per view and paid for model - means I only get to see televised footy matches through the window of my uncle's house, and for which I'm still paying back Cash Converters for the money they lent me to watch the Tyson/Bruno fight. 

 

Virtue signaling has officially come to the world of football. 

 

The whole world has simple gone, in-sane. 

  • Upvote 12
Link to comment
Share on other sites

China and India  buys Liverpool. 

 

Time to wave them bye-bye. 

 

If it’s a choice between a European Super League and a 36-team single league Champions League, most football fans in Europe would reject both. But then, this isn’t up to us. We’re largely irrelevant.

 

 

The overwhelming negative response to both ideas, perhaps especially the European Super League, makes clear the opposition, but less vocal are those who are in favour. And there must be plenty who are. We need to think about them. Why shouldn’t they get what they want? OK it’s a change but change isn’t always bad. Indeed, this change will make football better for everyone else. Yes it’s a selfish self-centered greedy move which pays no regard to football’s history, but did we expect anything else?

 

 

Money-generating machines such as Manchester United don’t sign up for anything on the off chance that it’ll be popular. They will have research which proves it would be a big money-spinner and highly popular. We shouldn’t deny that, nor pretend that how we feel about it is a global feeling. It isn’t.

 

 

If you’re sitting in Mumbai and fancy watching a game, do you turn on Burnley v WBA or do you watch Chelsea v Real Madrid? Everyone knows the answer to that. There are 1.3 billion people in India alone. These clubs want their money. They won’t get it with Brighton v Southampton.

 

 

There is a big demand to see big games between big clubs at the moment. There may not be after five years of them playing in a sealed league, but here and now, there is. It’s just not in the UK or in Europe.

 

 

That it is not popular with their traditional audience in Britain and Ireland is of little concern to these clubs because we’re not very big and we don’t provide that many eyes on TV screens.

 

The big audience for football is not Europe, it is in India and China, which have a total population of 2.6 billion souls. Thailand has a population a little bigger than the UK, Japan’s is double the UK. Brazil has a population over 211 million people. All these markets are bigger, growing and potentially far, far more valuable to the clubs and to their broadcasters. That’s just the reality.

 

 

When Sky was bought by Comcast it was said to have a total subscription audience in Europe of 23 million. Given not all of those will have bought a deal with football built in, it shows you the European audience’s size is less than stellar in a continent of 740 million.

 

 

The big money is elsewhere. Now, the Big Six (by wealth) Premier League clubs know this. They can’t come out and tell their European fans that they’re not important, but they are much, much less important than they ever have been. Yes, they claim to want to play domestic football on weekends and ESL midweek, but surely know that’s not workable or acceptable to anyone.

 

 

Both India and China are fast-growing economies and with a quickly expanding wealthy middle class. By contrast, growth in Europe is non-existent. All the profit has been tapped out and, in some territories is probably shrinking as post-Covid unemployment bites and the amounts we have to pay look like poor value for money.

 

 

As soon as you look at the global picture, a European Super League which sees Europe’s big sides always playing each other, makes absolute sense to the club's accountants. There isn’t the same root support to placate in your Far East and Indian audience and that makes everyone’s lives easier.

 

 

The distant overseas fan has no investment in the English football pyramid, nor any in the important local civic aspects of football. It’s all entertainment to them, in the same way a movie is. They want to see the best players playing each other. They want mega stars. They care much less or not at all, that it’s a local lad who has come through the youth team. Why would they?

 

This isn’t a criticism, it’s just the nature of an expansion in global appreciation of the sport. In the UK we often forget that. We think we are the most important people, but global corporations think globally, not locally and they gravitate towards where the money is and where the big numbers are. That ain’t here.

 

 

While these six clubs have the moniker of the football club of old, in truth, they are imposters. They’re not Arsenal or Spurs or Chelsea etc, they’re just wearing their clothes. They’re a global sports brand and are run as such. They try not ruffle fans' feathers by saying this too loudly but it is the truth nonetheless.

 

 

Presumably, this is why this move has shocked so many people. They still sort of believed their club was a ye olde football club and not a corporate machine with some faceless CEOs looking to maximise profit for their sports franchise. A mere asset in a portfolio is not how any fan here likes to think of a club, but that is what the Big Six (and others) are.

 

 

Fans like to say they have no choice but to follow their club for various historical and cultural reasons, but this isn’t true. Everyone has a choice. And anyway, it’s not their club any more. Things have changed, only the name has not.

 

 

We should be disgusted by how we’ve been treated but not surprised. You pay and you watch the new tournaments or you don’t. That’s it. That’s the modern reality.

 

 

It’s a new day, but a good one because it means domestic football will need a complete redraughting. Yes, it may reduce income but so what? Just pay players much less. They’re massively overpaid as it is.

 

 
 

In actual fact, it may be the best of all worlds. Those who don’t mind who the club plays can enjoy the big games against Juve or whoever, and those for whom it seems like plastic experience can go and watch local football in person or on TV. Everyone is happy.

 

 

Gary Neville can deliver articulate critiques of the breakaway clubs for as long as he likes on a TV channel that hived off the First Division and put it behind a paywall with the lure of cold, hard cash. They will not care. He’s coming at it from a totally different angle and it’s an angle that there is less money to be made from. Yes. it is horrible exploitative capitalism but hey, why did you think they’d be above that?

 

 

Perhaps it is surprising that it took this long to happen. But as soon as Sky closed the free access door in 1992, it was probably always inevitable.

 

 

Football is the people’s game and it remains so, but it is now at least two games. VAR alone saw to that and all that is happening here is the fracture is being more clearly manifested by being shaped into a league. All those who say it’ll fail - and I was one - are probably wrong. It will be kept afloat by money from parts of the world that are not here.

 

 

And that’s OK. The Premier League of old can be renamed the First Division and will be a very popular more competitive league, far better for not being so financially unbalanced.

 

 

We will not miss the so-called Big Six and they will increasingly feel to UK people like they’re playing a game that is not for us, but is for people a long way away and they deserve their football too, after all. So let’s not worry, let’s leave them to it and wave bye-bye.

 

 

It’s been a long time coming, it’ll be a long time gone

 
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, El Rojo said:

Exactly. Make Neville say, 'Where do you want your stat-chew, Nat Phillips?'

Nataniel Philips - Premier League winner 2021 looks forward to the Champions League final against PSG and speaks exclusively to us around his hopes to break into Gareth Southgate's first eleven.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

Man U fanzines and podcasts all over the shop tweeting stuff about 'don't forget where you come from' etc. Am I losing my motherfucking mind here? The club that rebranded itself by taking 'football club' out of its crest to sell more mugs and used to have entire catalogue pages in the Great Universal devoted to Paul McGrath figurines? A club which pioneered the idea of third kits so they could make more bank off parents. 

 

Meanwhile I've got to contend with property tycoon Gary Neville, bankrolled by the breakaway Premier League since he was a teenager, working for the company that - thanks to its pay per view and paid for model - means I only get to see televised footy matches through the window of my uncle's house, and for which I'm still paying back Cash Converters for the money they lent me to watch the Tyson/Bruno fight. 

 

Virtue signaling has officially come to the world of football. 

 

The whole world has simple gone, in-sane. 

And it’s live! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Denny Crane said:

China and India  buys Liverpool. 

 

Time to wave them bye-bye. 

 

If it’s a choice between a European Super League and a 36-team single league Champions League, most football fans in Europe would reject both. But then, this isn’t up to us. We’re largely irrelevant.

 

 

The overwhelming negative response to both ideas, perhaps especially the European Super League, makes clear the opposition, but less vocal are those who are in favour. And there must be plenty who are. We need to think about them. Why shouldn’t they get what they want? OK it’s a change but change isn’t always bad. Indeed, this change will make football better for everyone else. Yes it’s a selfish self-centered greedy move which pays no regard to football’s history, but did we expect anything else?

 

 

Money-generating machines such as Manchester United don’t sign up for anything on the off chance that it’ll be popular. They will have research which proves it would be a big money-spinner and highly popular. We shouldn’t deny that, nor pretend that how we feel about it is a global feeling. It isn’t.

 

 

If you’re sitting in Mumbai and fancy watching a game, do you turn on Burnley v WBA or do you watch Chelsea v Real Madrid? Everyone knows the answer to that. There are 1.3 billion people in India alone. These clubs want their money. They won’t get it with Brighton v Southampton.

 

 

There is a big demand to see big games between big clubs at the moment. There may not be after five years of them playing in a sealed league, but here and now, there is. It’s just not in the UK or in Europe.

 

 

That it is not popular with their traditional audience in Britain and Ireland is of little concern to these clubs because we’re not very big and we don’t provide that many eyes on TV screens.

 

The big audience for football is not Europe, it is in India and China, which have a total population of 2.6 billion souls. Thailand has a population a little bigger than the UK, Japan’s is double the UK. Brazil has a population over 211 million people. All these markets are bigger, growing and potentially far, far more valuable to the clubs and to their broadcasters. That’s just the reality.

 

 

When Sky was bought by Comcast it was said to have a total subscription audience in Europe of 23 million. Given not all of those will have bought a deal with football built in, it shows you the European audience’s size is less than stellar in a continent of 740 million.

 

 

The big money is elsewhere. Now, the Big Six (by wealth) Premier League clubs know this. They can’t come out and tell their European fans that they’re not important, but they are much, much less important than they ever have been. Yes, they claim to want to play domestic football on weekends and ESL midweek, but surely know that’s not workable or acceptable to anyone.

 

 

Both India and China are fast-growing economies and with a quickly expanding wealthy middle class. By contrast, growth in Europe is non-existent. All the profit has been tapped out and, in some territories is probably shrinking as post-Covid unemployment bites and the amounts we have to pay look like poor value for money.

 

 

As soon as you look at the global picture, a European Super League which sees Europe’s big sides always playing each other, makes absolute sense to the club's accountants. There isn’t the same root support to placate in your Far East and Indian audience and that makes everyone’s lives easier.

 

 

The distant overseas fan has no investment in the English football pyramid, nor any in the important local civic aspects of football. It’s all entertainment to them, in the same way a movie is. They want to see the best players playing each other. They want mega stars. They care much less or not at all, that it’s a local lad who has come through the youth team. Why would they?

 

This isn’t a criticism, it’s just the nature of an expansion in global appreciation of the sport. In the UK we often forget that. We think we are the most important people, but global corporations think globally, not locally and they gravitate towards where the money is and where the big numbers are. That ain’t here.

 

 

While these six clubs have the moniker of the football club of old, in truth, they are imposters. They’re not Arsenal or Spurs or Chelsea etc, they’re just wearing their clothes. They’re a global sports brand and are run as such. They try not ruffle fans' feathers by saying this too loudly but it is the truth nonetheless.

 

 

Presumably, this is why this move has shocked so many people. They still sort of believed their club was a ye olde football club and not a corporate machine with some faceless CEOs looking to maximise profit for their sports franchise. A mere asset in a portfolio is not how any fan here likes to think of a club, but that is what the Big Six (and others) are.

 

 

Fans like to say they have no choice but to follow their club for various historical and cultural reasons, but this isn’t true. Everyone has a choice. And anyway, it’s not their club any more. Things have changed, only the name has not.

 

 

We should be disgusted by how we’ve been treated but not surprised. You pay and you watch the new tournaments or you don’t. That’s it. That’s the modern reality.

 

 

It’s a new day, but a good one because it means domestic football will need a complete redraughting. Yes, it may reduce income but so what? Just pay players much less. They’re massively overpaid as it is.

 

 

 
 

In actual fact, it may be the best of all worlds. Those who don’t mind who the club plays can enjoy the big games against Juve or whoever, and those for whom it seems like plastic experience can go and watch local football in person or on TV. Everyone is happy.

 

 

Gary Neville can deliver articulate critiques of the breakaway clubs for as long as he likes on a TV channel that hived off the First Division and put it behind a paywall with the lure of cold, hard cash. They will not care. He’s coming at it from a totally different angle and it’s an angle that there is less money to be made from. Yes. it is horrible exploitative capitalism but hey, why did you think they’d be above that?

 

 

Perhaps it is surprising that it took this long to happen. But as soon as Sky closed the free access door in 1992, it was probably always inevitable.

 

 

Football is the people’s game and it remains so, but it is now at least two games. VAR alone saw to that and all that is happening here is the fracture is being more clearly manifested by being shaped into a league. All those who say it’ll fail - and I was one - are probably wrong. It will be kept afloat by money from parts of the world that are not here.

 

 

And that’s OK. The Premier League of old can be renamed the First Division and will be a very popular more competitive league, far better for not being so financially unbalanced.

 

 

We will not miss the so-called Big Six and they will increasingly feel to UK people like they’re playing a game that is not for us, but is for people a long way away and they deserve their football too, after all. So let’s not worry, let’s leave them to it and wave bye-bye.

 

 

It’s been a long time coming, it’ll be a long time gone

 

This is what I said yesterday. The majority of fans of these big clubs are simply people who pick one of these teams to support and what they want is to watch them in big matchups.

 

The Super League caters to this majority and the "legacy fans" as they call them are the vocal minority and unimportant to the big picture. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Poster said:

All I can think of is how would prince Philip have taken this news? Ah fuck it, if Danny Murphy is so against it then it must be ok. 

 

I'm in. 

Redknapp is sitting on the fence still. That lad just can't make a decision.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share


×
×
  • Create New...