The Super League | FA + PL: New Charter & Fines | UEFA: Settlement

[Roachy]

A salary cap would help a lot I think. Wages have gone mad and if TV money ever goes pop some,ahem, massive clubs would go pop very quickly

Wages are a huge problem and have gone unchecked for far too long. If there's one group of people who need to keep shtum about this whole sorry saga, especially concerning greed, then it's the players.

 

[Coatigan]

There is no way we could have ‘waited until Monday’ as some are suggesting. It wasnt an option. The ESL were in a race against time to get out ahead of UEFA’s vote on CL reforms on the Monday and needed six PL members to avoid domestic sanctions.

Did they really need to beat Uefa's vote on CL reforms? I'm not sure. That is claimed but I dont think it is relevant.

Agree though, they had to rush it through, but possibly not for that.

 

[Northblue]

Haha yesterday, apart from if I'm driving and commentary is on I've not had talkragshite on for must be 2 years now.

I was out in the morning and tuned in re the current shit show, had a couple of callers on talking sense from 'minor' clubs saying that their club would never get involved in a breakaway...year right.

Shouty man blowing smoke up their arses, adverts, news, adverts....thank fuck I wasn't out too long.

I had it on this morning for the first time in god knows how long. They had a text in gimmick thing asking people to send in “things that lasted longer than the super league”, was half tempted to text in saying “definitely not my endurance of listening to this shite”.. quickly put my music back on

 

[GaudinoMotors]

Rick Parry on BBC Radio 4.

"We need to examine the fault lines that lead to this".

Irony at its finest!

Rick Parry, the World's most boring man.

 

[LongsightM13]

Dont know if sarcastic but Gothenburg is a lovely city

I’d rather just watch some interesting new teams and players, not arsed about trips

 

[bluemoon32]

I know people were mentioning it yesterday but i've just watched that John Barnes video.
He's absolutely spot on, i know he hasn't really said anything different to people on here but he's still spot on.

 

[Northblue]

Henry’s apology reminded me of the BP one they did after their oil spill a few years ago.
Self serving and desperate.
Well sorry La, you fucked it and we are all extremely grateful you did because the rest of the football world can see what we’ve known for years.
Now off you fuck.

Maybe already posted but

 

[domalino]

If City had waited another 24 hours, there would have been no announcement to breakaway, it was a rush job, no public distaste could be gauged.

I highly doubt United and Liverpool could be confident City would not vote to expel them!

That I would love to have seen play out!

What I find astounding really is that UEFA is so unpopular, so broken, so greedy, that a competent group could have executed a breakaway IMO quite easily.

The first thing you would do is a media campaign about how wasteful, incompetent, out of date and corrupt UEFA is. There's so many examples of this and it should have been a concerted effort through media and speaking out to establish UEFA is incapable of delivering a top level European Cup anymore. Things like the 30% year on year viewing figures drop should have been front and centre.

Then bring along a lot more clubs. Have a tiered system to replace the CL and Europa. Push the positives for months in the press before officially announcing, win over some support, give information. Do something to appease the fans.

Also have a bit of subtlety. Don't do something as blatantly self serving as saying "Us 15 are here forever, the other 5...whatever they'll come from somewhere". If you're not completely ringfencing yourselves, that had to be the number 1 point you push. There is a world of difference between "no one can get in by merit" and "only 1/3 get in on merit". Instead, we still have no idea what their plan was for the other 5 clubs!

Half the opposition to this superleague was opposition to things they'd never actually said they'd do, but things people were projecting on to a worst case scenario future. All of that could have been calmed down by a few details and promises.

Honestly I've never been less worried by our so called rivals. They only had one shot at this, and it was so half-baked. Now they've created such a backlash they've lost their bargaining position forever and probably brought about to legislation change to stop anything similar happening.

 

[Academica]

You'd hope, although it's not likely to happen, that this move has castrated the big clubs enough for UEFA and the Champions League to start telling them to fuck off with their threats and bullying tactics and actually open the competition back out to clubs across Europe.

I mean we take the piss out of Scottish football, but is it really fair that the club that won the title in the 14th best league in Europe has to go through 3 qualifying rounds to get into a tournament with 32 spaces, while the 4th placed team in England or the 2nd best team in Russia go straight through to the tournament? And people might say that they're shit, but why is that? Is it because they've had extra obstacles put in front of them because they just want the big teams in every year? I still remember not too long ago when Celtic would give the big boys a run for their money at times. And I'm using Celtic, but it could just as easily be Dinamo Zagreb, Red Star Belgrade, Olympiakos, or any other number of teams that were actually champions. And even if they get knocked out in the first round, how is that any different to the rags or automatic qualifiers Rennes and Marseille who went out with 1 and 3 points respectively?

Hell, it was only because of covid fucking up the schedules that Ajax didn't have to qualify. Fucking Ajax! Champions of the Dutch league and semi-finalists two years ago, and they would have had to go through the qualifying rounds. But if West Ham scrape into the top four this season, they'll go straight to the group stages because they're from England despite never having either won the league or competed in the Champions League.

I'm all in favour of making it harder to qualify from the big five leagues (maximum 2 automatic qualifiers and the rest go through qualifying rounds) and have more automatic qualifiers from smaller leagues. But I bet it won't happen because UEFA are more interested in lining their pockets than principles, and big teams from big leagues do that unfortunately.

Brilliant post, whatever power the big boys had has been severely diminished. They have used the threat of a breakaway for years, tried that didn't work. Now is the time to make fundamental change to the structure of football and I hope this opportunity doesn't get wasted.

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

They've nothing to explain. We're no different to where we were on Saturday. It's "As you were ladies & gents".

No, it ain't. It never will be with that attitude. They aren't forgiven for that stunt just because they backtracked. They've dragged us through the mud and must be held to account.

 

[oakiecokie]

showing your age there oakie, using arthur askeys catchphrase

Another comicless Scouser. ;)

 

[AlexWilliamsGloves]

There wont be a big grand statement from City...we dont seem to ever do that, we dont discuss anything in public...i know people WANT an explanation, but i just dont see it happening. Id be surprised.

Khaldoon will likely touch on it in his end of season review...but i think thats all it will be

 

[I'm Blue]

That is a good way of putting it, but we have no way of knowing that it happened without further explanation. As far as I'm concerned, all this "we played a blinder" talk is like a woman who has just been assaulted by the man she loves saying that he did it as an act of love. This can of course be shown to be the situation but we can't just assume that's the case just because we like owners who stick a lot of money into the club. I think we deserve some answers here.

These are the facts:

1) City have never consulted with the fans about a proposed Super League.

2) All we had by way of information was a standard statement put on the club's website very late on a Sunday night.

3) There were no appearances or references made by anyone associated with the club.

4) The club did not put the statement on its Twitter feed. It is unclear why such big news would not appear on all communication mediums.

5) The owner of Manchester United was the person quoted on our club's website in the statement. The reason(s) why nobody from the club commented are unclear.

6) The club resigned from the European Club Association (ECA) along with the 11 other clubs. The reasons for this are unknown.

7) The club had no representation at the ECA's meeting on Monday along with the 11 other clubs.

8) The club were the first to withdraw from the Super League. The reason(s) for this are unknown. It is most likely that the club did not like the backlash but this is still unknown.

Anything else is mere speculation.

So on the basis of the above, I am not inclined to view the club favourably in the absence of any explanation. I am happy to listen to the club but think it's important to hold its custodians to account, whoever they may be. Whether it's Peter Swales or Sheikh Mansour who is the custodian is irrelevant - they should ALWAYS be answerable to the fans and never be given free reign to drag our name through the mud.

No 5 is the worst of the lot.
In the end we did the right thing.
Yesterday morning the realisation hit me that if we pushed ahead with this in its current format, I was done.
40 years of supporting City gone in an instant and hit me like a train.
Something I thought would, could never happen.
So in the end I’m glad we did the right thing.
On the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter why we did it, we did it.
Time as they say is a great healer and it’ll take time.

 

[SWP's back]

In the fucking bin you absolute fucking twat.

 

[CityBlu]

Interesting though about using laws to prevent this. What if City and United decided together to create a Manchester Cup, that only they were in and no one else. They would play four times a year, twice at home and twice away. The winner would be awarded the Manchester Cup. Should UEFA be allowed to throw City out of the CL for doing so, and FIFA not allow our players in the World Cup? Sounds like a cartel to me

 

[Keeper!]

Rick Parry, the World's most boring man.

The fault line is right down the middle of the east lancs road, now fuck off and stay over in your scouse hovel Mr Parry

 

[BertTrautmann'sParachute]

Interesting though about using laws to prevent this. What if City and United decided together to create a Manchester Cup, that only they were in and no one else. They would play four times a year, twice at home and twice away. The winner would be awarded the Manchester Cup. Should UEFA be allowed to throw City out of the CL for doing so, and FIFA not allow our players in the World Cup? Sounds like a cartel to me

Then the rags would have to relocate their stadium.

 

[SWP's back]

So Martin thinks it was the fans and not Boris Johnson? Strange.

 

[Academica]

It would be hollow and wouldn't mean a thing, a total waste of time

Don't want an apology, but I think we deserve an explanation.

 

[LongsightM13]

Did they really need to beat Uefa's vote on CL reforms? I'm not sure. That is claimed but I dont think it is relevant.

Agree though, they had to rush it through, but possibly not for that.

I cant think of any other reason why this came out when it did, the night of the Sunday before. Maybe also the fact UEFA was also holding elections on the Monday and they were all planning to quit the ECA as well