Bill
Well-Known Member
Forget power, closed shop,TV deals or anything else. This is being mooted purely because the rags are on a very big decline. It's all about protecting them. Not AC,Juve and Co, the rags.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
Champions league revamp? (Merged)
- Thread starter waspish
- Start date
BluessinceHydeRoad
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 26 Mar 2012
- Messages
- 2,562
At the moment the scheme amounts to little more than wishy washy ideas of a European super league being chewed over by the ECA. It's no surprise that Herr Rumeniggeis involved somewhere, but I suspect his target is the PL's TV deal rather than anything else. The problem facing him and any other of his allies is how to frame regulations for entry to the competition which would not fall foul of the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the commercial courts. The aims of the "big" (but no longer competitive) clubs are so transparently self-interested that automatic entry would be anti-competitive and would give them unfair access to markets denied fully or in part to other clubs.
A second complication would be the size of the competition. A competition just for sides who cannot qualify for a truly competitive tournament is unlikely to appeal to the TV companies, but one which allowed Europe's real best teams to compete would be so large that the implications for fixture congestion (with UEFA's insistence on the priority given to "European" games and for a (for example) PL in which perhaps 5 clubs were not concerned about finishing in the top four would arouse hostility. It is hard to see the TV companies paying what they do now to screen matches.
So, it's easy to see the attraction for Liverpool and...but do Real and Barca want a row with the Spanish league or Bayern with the Bundesliga to take part in a worthless competition. And one can ask what UEFA's attitude really is. Infantino has already stated that a European league already exists - the CL. This is hardly a other than scarcely veiled hostility, and UEFA really will not want more controversy to add to that of the suspended officials (for corruption), of a series of financial regulations dreamed up by a Manchester United director so obviously in the interests of Manchester United, of regulations that will be destroyed by the courts and now of a competition that exposes UEFA to legal action just to do the bidding of a handful of has beens.
UEFA will have to grow a pair and tell whoever it is who backs whatever idea it is that if they want such a competition they will have to organize it themselves outside "the football family". And they can have no part in PL etc, CL, Euros or world cups. Unless Platini's successors are so arrogant they don't believe the courts will put a real dead stop to their gravy train.
A second complication would be the size of the competition. A competition just for sides who cannot qualify for a truly competitive tournament is unlikely to appeal to the TV companies, but one which allowed Europe's real best teams to compete would be so large that the implications for fixture congestion (with UEFA's insistence on the priority given to "European" games and for a (for example) PL in which perhaps 5 clubs were not concerned about finishing in the top four would arouse hostility. It is hard to see the TV companies paying what they do now to screen matches.
So, it's easy to see the attraction for Liverpool and...but do Real and Barca want a row with the Spanish league or Bayern with the Bundesliga to take part in a worthless competition. And one can ask what UEFA's attitude really is. Infantino has already stated that a European league already exists - the CL. This is hardly a other than scarcely veiled hostility, and UEFA really will not want more controversy to add to that of the suspended officials (for corruption), of a series of financial regulations dreamed up by a Manchester United director so obviously in the interests of Manchester United, of regulations that will be destroyed by the courts and now of a competition that exposes UEFA to legal action just to do the bidding of a handful of has beens.
UEFA will have to grow a pair and tell whoever it is who backs whatever idea it is that if they want such a competition they will have to organize it themselves outside "the football family". And they can have no part in PL etc, CL, Euros or world cups. Unless Platini's successors are so arrogant they don't believe the courts will put a real dead stop to their gravy train.