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

[waspish]

But as much as we dislike the champions league IT IS NOT a closed shop. This is. This is a way for big clubs who are massively in debt a way to reduce that.

Why we are anywhere near this is absolutely beyond me

err you seen the new revamped uefa champs league set up! It’s literal is a closed shop!

 

[MarsLlama]

I have no time for heartbreak etc. Lining the shareholders pockets and securing a business' long-term success is the directors' duty. Supporters are no longer shareholders.

People should, IMO, keep an open mind and see how this plays out but be vocal in their opposition to the whole thing.

We were already rich as fuck. More money than the EFL combined, I'm guessing.

United, Barca, Real need this because they're in crippling debt, but we don't.

 

[Steve68]

Assuming this thing goes ahead - what will ‘winning’ it actually mean?

It won’t mean entry into a European competition.

It‘s just going to be money and a fancy piece of tin as far as I can see and that doesn’t excite me at all.

I also don’t care about playing other ’super-clubs’ all this time. Those matches are icing on the cake when they happen. The joy of the open Premiership is playing clubs with a historical and emotional ‘hinterland’. They have a history.

These are clubs and players I know over decades. Playing Leeds or Southampton is to play matches with deep context. It is to play matches with consequences for all, that resonate beyond the 2 teams on the field. For relegation, for European qualification. For the perverse pleasure of seeing a hated rival struggle to get into Europe or avoid relegation.

Now all that is reduced to them getting a reduced position based slice of the prize money pie. All winning means is a bigger slice.

I guess I’m old, I guess I’m ‘Legacy‘ and I guess I’m financially inconsequential but I’d rather we went back to the excitement of our Keegan-era stampede up through the divisions than this soulless proposal.

 

[Chippy_boy]

But as much as we dislike the champions league IT IS NOT a closed shop. This is. This is a way for big clubs who are massively in debt a way to reduce that.

Why we are anywhere near this is absolutely beyond me

Presumably because we figured not being involved in it would be worse? Or maybe we figured we'd have some chance of shaping the rules if we are in, and none if we are not?

 

[KnaresboroughBlue]

But as much as we dislike the champions league IT IS NOT a closed shop. This is. This is a way for big clubs who are massively in debt a way to reduce that.

Why we are anywhere near this is absolutely beyond me

The SL isn't a closed shop but obviously reduced admittance as only 5 would qualify.

 

[Brightwell Bros.]

But as much as we dislike the champions league IT IS NOT a closed shop. This is. This is a way for big clubs who are massively in debt a way to reduce that.

Why we are anywhere near this is absolutely beyond me

I don't get how people don't understand this. No one - NO ONE - thinks UEFA or the Premier League or the Champions League is a paragon of virtue or civic minded charity. But at it's very core it's a competition that West Ham or Leicester or Everton or Man City, through good management, investment, good luck or a mixture of the three, can work towards. Yes, the scales or rigged, yes that's easier said than done, but it's clear to everyone how you do that. This breaks that, and it breaks it in a way where there is no going back. The CL can always be rejigged or reformed, for better or worse, but this shatters 70 years of national football's relationship to European football and is just deeply, grossly unfair. Of all the fans, you'd hope City fans understand this. They've used a pandemic to pull a trigger on something that if it happened 10 years ago would have killed us dead.

We aren't bigger or more important than Newcastle, Derby, West Ham, Everton, Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, Wolves and so on and so on, we are just having a good run. We don't deserve a good run forever, no one does.

 

[Tricky_Trev]

But as much as we dislike the champions league IT IS NOT a closed shop. This is. This is a way for big clubs who are massively in debt a way to reduce that.

Why we are anywhere near this is absolutely beyond me

The new CL format allows elite clubs that don’t qualify for it to just be invited into it anyway. Both are shite.

 

[BlueAnorak]

Interesting. The key word is rights though. If no-one pays them to screen the matches, then they have only match-day revenues and the business model fails.

Think production company that uses a well known streaming organisation to publish content. I believe it will be Amazon Prime.

 

[Cobwebcat]

The SL isn't a closed shop but obviously reduced admittance as only 5 would qualify.

Based on what?

 

[Chippy_boy]

We were already rich as fuck. More money than the EFL combined, I'm guessing.

United, Barca, Real need this because they're in crippling debt, but we don't.

Yes but we need global recognition as being one of, if not the most successful clubs in world football. Which is not possible if the top 10 clubs play in a competition we are not in.