The New European Super (borefest) League

And I'm bloody annoyed at all the club's, not just these 6, how can you be on this modern football gravy train and plead poverty... Bad business by inept executives.
 
KraniX said:
I think the reaction of UEFA, FIFA and various governments played a significant part in the decision.

Shows the owners and execs are living in a different world and couldn't give a ****.

I sat a few feet away from Ed Woodward's office in the Man Utd London office for years, he didn't give any of us normal staff the time of day. Glad he is finally going, 7 years too late.
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You should have taken a dump in his top drawer of his desk in lieu of letterbox action if you were that close to his office. A missed opportunity for sure.....
 
Wow 84 pages in 3 days.
Now that this is over (at least for now) and the emotion is dying down I do wonder if there will be a holistic reflection on the crisis.
The ESL proposal and the way the protagonists went about things is abhorrent and rightly condemned however Football would be naive to take the view that they have defeated this enemy and now all is well with the world. The game has sustainability issues. You may argue that it has for decades but the motivation for these 12 clubs I'm sure was partly based on what they perceive as an existential threat - mainly to their financial interests admittedly but also to the future of the way the game operates at the global elite level.
The debt levels at many of these clubs is a problem and its a problem that continues to grow as wages and transfer fees show no sign of abatement. Unless you are prepared to flout with restriction of trade and competition law by implementing a salary cap then you have to find a way of growing revenues. Outside of the domestic markets, football is digital entertainment, the clubs and leagues are content providers and as such are in competition with Netflix, Amazon, other sports. As a fifty year old man who grew up in the UK obsessed with football I don't relate to the millions of consumers across the world who view the likes of the EPL and CL as content but I recognise that they are now the ones that are the market for the product. That's where the scale revenues are for the bigger clubs and the fear in some quarters will be that traditional TV distribution revenues have peaked and won't sustain the clubs business models. There is a point there however I feel the more important point is that this is because these clubs (the 12) are either badly run or have greedy owners.

The point I'm trying to make is that the underlying problems haven't gone away and will require imagination and integrity to resolve. Personally I hope it's a catalyst towards the end of Football being used as a venture capital industry and one that strikes a better balance between entertainment, community and recognising the supporters.
 
KiNgPiN83 said:
Exactly. I wouldn't be surprised if this was partly to test the waters/see how big of a turd in a swimming pool it was.
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For a group of owners who don't give a **** about the fans to suddenly make this u turn seems to me like another deal has been done with UEFA.

The reason Barca, Real and Juve haven't pulled out is because they are still negotiating with UEFA for more money.
 
the motivation was based on a few big clubs having handled their finances poorly and entering an arms race regarding transfer fees and wage bills. They deserve to be put into administration as their debts massively outstrip their assets and their ability to pay their debts down, they are basically bankrupt. If it were any other typ of business the receivers would already be doing their work.
 
Richarlison said:
870mil but most is the stadium i imagine.
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Just got the total. 830 is just the long term stadium debt.

As per the report, Tottenham’s gross debt is £831 million. They also have £140 million transfer debt, £96 million tax debts, £9 million in trade creditors, and £102 million in others. The total debts of the club are £1.177 billion.
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LeMson said:
This'll come back, they just need a better plan, competition etc
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IMO There wasn't a lot wrong with it other than the lack of promotion/relegation and the fact the teams were chosen based on popularity rather than performance this season. If you had promotion/relegation and the teams in it were picked based on league performance this season I don't think there'd be much anger?
 
mmj_uk said:
IMO There wasn't a lot wrong with it other than the lack of promotion/relegation and the fact the teams were chosen based on popularity rather than performance this season. If you had promotion/relegation and the teams in it were picked based on league performance this season I don't think there'd be much anger?
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I think you are missing quite a fundamental point. The clubs basically wanted exclusivity over distribution rights so they could leverage much greater incomes from the global audience. That would have marginalised the other clubs who aspired to be in the Champions League and prevented any redistribution of income. It would have pooled income amongst the elite more than now and driven less competition in domestic leagues. The reason the EPL is so popular globally is because Sheff United can beat Man United. It's also likely that matches would be played around the world vs only in Europe depriving the local support of spectacle.
 
I for one welcome the idea of some sort of champions league reform that makes it more bloated and guarantees the biggest clubs a very good chance of getting in year in, year out regardless of league position. More games added to an already packed schedule is also a great idea. We should just think ourselves lucky that we didn't get the SL because that would have just been awful and this new CL is just great...

I'm sure this is purely for football fans though and not to try and make more money for the football governing bodies.
 
Imagine a Champions League where you actually had to be champions to get in it. That would be something... :D Didn't Liverpool win it after finishing 5th in the league once?
 
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