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European Super League: Uefa under pressure to ditch Champions League coefficient safety net The collapse of the Super League has led to a power shift away from Europe’s elite clubs and now the European Leagues and figures in the European Club Association — which is now without any representatives from the 12 clubs who joined the Super League — are poised to launch an effort to change the access system planned for 2024. If such a system had been in place now it would have meant Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, who finished in eighth and sixth place in the Premier League respectively, qualifying for the Champions League last season ahead of fifth-place Leicester City. Lars Christer-Olsson, the outgoing president of the European Leagues, said before his final board meeting: “There are still open questions concerning access to the competition based on coefficients.” One ECA board member told The Times that there was a strong feeling that the extra guaranteed places should be given to the likes of Celtic, Rangers and Ajax for winning their respective leagues rather than handed to the elite clubs based on historical performances over the previous five years. The balance of power in the ECA — the only clubs’ organisation that Uefa recognises — has shifted significantly away from the elite teams after the 12 clubs involved in the Super League resigned en masse after joining the Super League. Intriguingly, Uefa left the door open for the access plan to change when it announced the new format on Monday. It said then: “Further decisions regarding matters such as the rebalancing of the access list, match dates, seeding system, format for the finals, coefficients and financial distribution will be made by the end of the year and potential adjustments to the format approved today could still be made if necessary.”

So many journo's taking this opportunity to increase their clicks, paywalls have all come down for the good of the "football family...." Horrible bastards.

And what happened... we ended up taking the majority of the flak (once again)....

Milan ultras, Curva Sud, with a powerful message: “Football did belong to the people until the 90s, when Champions League was born, destroying the old European Cup. From that moment, an unbreachable chasm has been created between the big and small clubs" “Football did belong to the people even when nobody lifted a finger to stop the increase of ticket prices that was imposed by some Presidents". “Football did belong to the people even when nobody stepped in to stop the rise of the super agents, who took player salaries to astronomical figures, which could only be sustained with TV rights, the same TV companies that imposed increasingly chaotic fixture lists" “Football did belong to the people even when rules were imposed to stop any rapport between the players and the fans.” “Football did belong to the people even when Supercoppa Finals were played on other continents or the dates of some games were changed a few days before kick-off, damaging those fans who had booked trains or planes to get to the stadium.” “Football did belong to the people even when some clubs were allowed to circumvent Financial Fair Play, while others with less influential Presidents were penalised.” “Football did belong to the people even when the World Cup was forced to Qatar in 2022, despite moving the entire calendar and disregarding human rights violations.” “The Super League is just the latest disgusting step, but those who took football to this point are no less grotesque, so save us these ludicrous performances of rhetoric and morality.” “Now that the money is running out, feel free to fight it out between yourselves, but don’t you dare name the fans. PIGS!”

Liverpool winger Harry Wilson is joining Cardiff City on loan for the rest of the season, reports James Pearce. The Premier League champions will receive a loan fee in excess of £1 million for the Wales international and the Championship outfit will cover all of his wages. Did Liverpool not want to sell Wilson permanently? Yes, if someone had met their valuation but no such offers were forthcoming. They rejected a bid of £12 million plus £3 million to potentially follow in add-ons from Burnley as they held out for £15 million guaranteed. Initially, Liverpool wouldn’t consider a loan for Wilson but that stance changed once the early October transfer deadline passed which meant he couldn’t be sold to a Premier League club. Liverpool came to the conclusion that both his development and his value would be enhanced by playing regularly in the Championship for the rest of this season rather than staying on the fringes of Jurgen Klopp’s squad. Did Cardiff beat anyone else to his signature? Liverpool were inundated with loan offers from Championship clubs, including Derby County, Nottingham Forest and Swansea City. They held talks with Wilson and his agent to discuss them following his return from international duty on Thursday. Cardiff ultimately won the battle because they were able to meet Liverpool’s financial requirements and boss Neil Harris also did a great job in convincing Wilson to make the move. How did Cardiff get him for so little? Selling Wilson was never realistic once the initial window had closed because no Championship club was ever going to meet his valuation. Liverpool’s motivation once they decided to loan him out was finding the right place for him to continue developing so they were happy to take a £1 million plus loan fee and have his wages covered. Was he keen to drop down to the Championship? Ideally, Wilson would have stayed in the Premier League. He proved during his loan at Bournemouth last season that he belongs at that level. He was open to joining Burnley if a deal had been agreed between the clubs. But faced with spending the coming months having to settle for under-23s football at Liverpool, he was happy to drop down a level. He will be a massive asset for Cardiff and is keen to help spearhead their promotion push. Is anyone else going to leave Anfield on deadline day? Midfielder Herbie Kane is off to Barnsley in a deal worth £1.25 million. The club have also negotiated a 15 per cent sell-on clause for the 21-year-old, who spent the second half of last season on loan at Hull City. Barnsley beat off strong competition from Luton Town, alongside interest from Hull and Portsmouth. Ben Woodburn (loan) and Nat Phillips (permanent) could also leave Liverpool prior to today’s domestic deadline.

Ha! To be fair to Ozil, he did offer to pay the mascots wages. "I was so sad that Jerry Quy aka our famous & loyal mascot @Gunnersaurus and integral part of our club was being made redundant after 27 years. As such, I’m offering to reimburse @Arsenal with the full salary of our big green guy as long as I will be an Arsenal player...

Mesut Ozil exclusive: ‘Pay cuts were rushed so I did what I believed was right’ Mesut Ozil has moved to close down speculation over his future by confirming that he will remain at Arsenal until the end of his contract next summer, with the German playmaker determined to put a difficult period behind him and finish an eight-year career in north London on a high. Talking exclusively to The Athletic, Ozil dismissed any notion of him leaving the Emirates Stadium before his £350,000-per-week deal expires in June and pledged to prove he can still make a valuable contribution if he is given an opportunity by head coach Mikel Arteta. “My position is clear,” says the 31-year-old. “I’m here through to the last day of our agreement and I’ll give everything I have for this club. Situations like these will never break me, they only make me stronger. I showed in the past that I can come back into the team and I will show it again.” Ozil also spoke for the first time about rejecting a pay cut during the COVID-19 shutdown, admitting it may have contributed to his lack of game time since the Premier League’s restart but standing by that decision. The forward also addressed the controversy that followed a social media post he released in December condemning China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims and the response of fellow Muslims. In a wide-ranging interview with The Athletic last October, Ozil expressed his intention to stay with Arsenal until “at least 2021”, despite falling out of favour with then-head coach Unai Emery. Emery was later sacked and Ozil returned to the line-up under interim boss Freddie Ljungberg before starting all 10 of Arteta’s Premier League fixtures before the sport went into lockdown in March. But after the resumption in June, he did not play a minute of Arsenal’s 13 matches in all competitions and Arteta refused to discuss the matter at length, citing “pure football reasons” for Ozil’s absence. Although the former Real Madrid star was sidelined for a short spell with a back problem and was named among the substitutes twice, he did not set foot on the pitch and was given permission to begin his summer break early as Arsenal prepared for their FA Cup final victory over Chelsea. It led to renewed suggestions that Ozil could be on his way out of the club and some reports indicated they might even look to pay up the remainder of his contract to settle the predicament and release funds to aid the rebuilding job they hope to conduct in the current transfer window. “I’ll decide when I go, not other people,” counters Ozil, who joined Arsenal from Real Madrid for £42.5 million in 2013 and secured the four-year deal worth £350,000 per week, that has become such a bone of contention, in 2018. “I didn’t sign for two or three years, I signed for four and that should be respected by everyone. Things have obviously been difficult but I love Arsenal, I love to work there, I love the people in the club — the real people, those I’ve been with for a long time — and I love London, it’s my home. “Whatever happened in the last two seasons, I’m happy and very strong mentally. I never give up on anything. I want to help my team and I’ll fight for it. If I’m fit, I know what I can do on the pitch.” Physical condition was assumed to be a factor in Ozil’s post-lockdown non-selection, though Arteta’s public comments focused more on wanting players who were “on the boat” — he explained that to mean there is a set of values and behaviours he expects his squad to display on a daily basis. “I can’t talk about my private conversations with the coach,” Ozil says. “But I can tell you I know my body well. I was fit enough to play every game before the break and, apart from a small injury, it was the same after. My daughter was born while we were off so maybe I was not always sleeping perfectly, but this is normal. I actually had more energy and excitement to play because of her. “As a player, you sometimes have bad days and can’t always be happy, especially if you’re not playing. When you know how good you are and you know you’re not going to be picked, it’s hard to be at 100 per cent and, of course, you can get disappointed. This is my profession, it’s what I love doing: being on the pitch, playing matches, showing the people, helping the club and my team. “I fully respect the coach’s decision but I believe these things should mainly be decided on the pitch. After the restart, I wasn’t given a chance to show what I can do. You don’t play 10 games in a row if you’re unfit, not good enough or don’t behave well. If I played these games badly and was then left out completely for that reason then I might understand, but this was not the case.” The coronavirus outbreak resulted in football’s suspension and many clubs sought to mitigate the financial impact of the pandemic by asking certain employees to take salary adjustments. With the Professional Footballers’ Association — the players’ union — advising its members to contemplate wage deferrals as opposed to cuts until the extent of the crisis was better known, Arsenal’s proposal to the first-team squad of a 12.5 per cent cut for 12 months was initially turned down. Arteta intervened, pleading with his players to accept the club’s request, and eventually, they became the first and so far only Premier League club to successfully implement pay reductions. It has been reported that Ozil was ultimately alone in declining to be involved and the subject resurfaced last week when Arsenal announced 55 redundancies, angering some of their players, who had agreed to the pay cuts on the condition that all staff would retain their jobs as a consequence. “As players, we all wanted to contribute,” Ozil stresses. “But we needed more information and many questions were unanswered. Everyone was fine with a deferral while there was so much uncertainty — I would have been OK to take a bigger share — and then a cut if required, once the football and financial outlook was clearer. But we were rushed into it without proper consultation. “For anyone in this situation, you have a right to know everything, to understand why it is happening and where the money is going. But we didn’t get enough details, we just had to give a decision. It was far too quick for something so important and there was a lot of pressure. “This was not fair, especially for the young guys, and I refused. I had a baby at home and have commitments to my family here, in Turkey and in Germany — to my charities, too, and also a new project we started to support people in London that was from the heart and not for publicity. “People who know me know exactly how generous I am and, as far as I’m aware, I was not the only player who rejected the cut in the end, but only my name came out. I guess that’s because it is me and people have been trying for two years to destroy me, to make me unhappy, to push an agenda they hope will turn the supporters against me and paint a picture that is not true. “Possibly the decision affected my chances on the pitch, I don’t know. But I’m not afraid to stand up for what I feel is right — and when you see what has happened now with the jobs, maybe I was.” Arteta is not the first Arsenal boss to ostracise Ozil, though, and the fact it also occurred during Emery’s tenure points to something deeper. The reality is that the hierarchy would like the 2014 World Cup winner to move on, a desire not shared by the man himself, and therein lies the issue. “It’s hard. When a player wants to leave and the club says no, the player must accept it unless they find a solution together. So when a club wants a player to leave and the player says no, the club must accept it unless a solution can be found together. I don’t want to leave, so that’s it,” Ozil says. “In 2018, I had plenty of options that would have earned me far more money as a free agent, but I committed myself to Arsenal because this was the club and the fanbase I wanted to play for. In that sense, nothing has changed. Mikel knows my quality and I will be ready when he needs me. “I’m not going into pre-season thinking, ‘Final year, I can chill — I know I don’t play’. These are not easy times for Arsenal and I want to help. I still have a lot to offer and I train as hard as I can, whether I’m in the squad or not. If you’re called in, you have to be prepared. I’m doing all the necessary work on the pitch, with the fitness coach and in the gym. This is all I can do.” It is mentioned that Arsenal’s performance statistics with and without Ozil last season do not reflect well on the former Germany international, although he did excel in certain attacking categories throughout that sequence of Premier League appearances before lockdown. “If you consider the circumstances, you cannot use these statistics. If you have to, it is more accurate to look at the data for my whole Arsenal career and also from the 10 games after Mikel was appointed — not so bad for someone who had barely been picked for a year and a half,” he says. “People will always love or hate you, and the main thing is the people who know you and what they think. What the people outside say about my play or my character is irrelevant — they just speak bullshit to make publicity and they know by using my name it will bring them attention. “Do it as much as you like. I don’t care, or listen to people who don’t know me. I didn’t get here because of them but because of the family and friends who I trust and are always behind me.” Ozil was in the eye of an entirely different storm late last year when he criticised the alleged persecution of Uighur Muslims in China, remarks from which Arsenal distanced themselves. “Every human is equal,” says Ozil, who is of the Islamic faith. “It doesn’t matter what religion or colour you are — Muslim, Christian, Jew, black, white or anything else. We are all the same. “What I said was not against Chinese people, it was against whoever is doing this to the Uighur Muslims and other people who are not helping them, such as other Muslim countries. “I have given a lot to Arsenal, on and off the pitch, so the reaction was disappointing. They said they don’t get involved in politics but this isn’t politics and they have got involved in other issues. “In America, we saw George Floyd killed and the world spoke up to say Black Lives Matter, and that is correct. We are all equal and it’s a good thing that people fight against injustice. There are a lot of black players and fans of Arsenal and it’s fantastic the club is backing them. “But I wish people would have done the same for the Muslims because Arsenal have many Muslim players and fans as well, and it is important for the world to say that Muslim Lives Matter.”

In other news.. The new Nike home shirt is £69.99!!!

It sure has.. a late kick-off normally means no trains back up North (not an issue this year I know), but the main thing is the lads in Thailand don't have to wake up 2 hours earlier to watch their team, fuck the fans that travelled down to Wembley but have to either leave before the final whistle or miss the last train.... What a choice.

I think the timing is more to do with it being better for the overseas markets.

They used a credit card (Union Pay International are sponsors) instead of a coin for the toss in the Juve vs Spurs game last night.

Wolves vs Spurs

Ronald Koeman on Virgil van Dijk: "He's back to Liverpool and he's ready to play for next week. He takes a rest. The medical staff of the Dutch national team spoke to the medical staff of Liverpool and we made the decision that he was only playing the Germany game."

So basically a revamped Cup Winners Cup which they got rid of.

There you go... right on cue.. Inter Milan to Sue La Liga President Javier Tebas over Luka Modric Inter Milan have announced their intention to sue La Liga president Javier Tebas over his claims the Nerrazzuri are using "tricks" to sign Luka Modric. Per Football Italia, the club released a statement on the matter, saying: "FC Internazionale Milano announces that it will take legal action against Mr. Javier Tebas in the face of statements made today in the Press." Tebas voiced his displeasure with the market and how certain clubs conduct their business in an interview with Spanish newspaper ABC (h/t Football Italia): "Things don't happen just because we make mistakes, but I don't think this is the case, but other clubs things have happened, which shouldn't happen. "I'm not only referring to PSG but also Juventus with the signing of Ronaldo and Inter, who have no money to buy players but then offer a mountain of money, the source of which I don't know. "Tricks in the market? As for Juve I don't know. We'll have to see how their deal [for Ronaldo] pans out, but Inter's offer for Modric hid some tricks. "The PSG-Neymar issue was also rigged. PSG are a club of 'just tricks' like Manchester City, and this generates circumstances that destabilise the market and media." UEFA should consider disqualifying them from European competition. Sport Witness noted many have accused of him of "sour grapes," and he denied criticism of favouritism toward Real Madrid and Barcelona in the same interview. These latest comments are the first regarding Serie A, and it's no wonder he expressed anger at Cristiano Ronaldo's move to Juventus and the links between Inter and Modric―as La Liga president, he would much rather see the two stay in Spain. He has gone to great lengths to keep La Liga's big stars around: As reported by Sid Lowe of The Guardian, he flat-out rejected PSG's deposit of Neymar's buyout clause last year, going directly against FIFA regulations. This isn't the first time a club has threatened to sue Tebas, as Manchester City also hit out at the La Liga boss last year, per Stuart Brennan of the Manchester Evening News.

I bet the Atleti fans don't care but agree knobhead behaviour and didn't realise it was 30 mins long... thought it was just a quick announcement!

https://t.co/o5fzfALPd4?ssr=true

Agree but BT Sport are showing it for free online.

A little unfair with "scrambling" comment, we have had the CL as a focus. I think without that we'd probably have been finishing 2nd.... but I'll take 4th and Number 6.

£93 for a full kids kit with Salah on the back....

Someone on Twitter called it... "Elite mentality...." the rest of us just call him a cunt....

I'm getting this feeling he's not one of your favourite players? [emoji23]

Hope he misses out by one goal!

Any streams for the AJ fight please?