Fawkes Cat: But the ESL companies weren't looking to exit.
The point is that exit is an important bargaining chip. "We both need each other, but if push comes to shove we are prepared to leave." UEFA needs the popularly-supported clubs to retain the credibility of its major money-spinner and to attract world-wide TV revenues. The major clubs, however, have no interest in an ever-increasing number of games to accommodate more and more participating clubs. If they think being out of the European Cup is in their interest, why not? If they and other clubs want a private competition amongst themselves, why not? The cartel is UEFA not the putative participants in the ESL
Without actually saying it, the whole tone was that these 'important' clubs didn't want to have to go through the process of playing clubs from Hungary or Denmark or Cyprus that they considered beneath them.
Clubs that, by contrast, had worked bloody hard for the right to pit themselves against the elites of Europe.
I still find @Kwesi 's previous notion that Superleague would somehow benefit clubs like Celtic or Rangers quite mystifying. There was no sign of any intent to benefit such clubs from Europe's 20th best league (that ranking being based on the results of Scottish clubs in European club competitions).
The goal was to lock in the existing order of things that tells you there are only a handful of countries that you really have to pay attention to, and preventing any new club from upsetting that. Which roundly ignores the fact that some of these supposedly elite clubs only became elite in relatively recent history when resources were injected into them.
And then sure, a few spots would be reserved for additional teams, and to give the appearance of greater diversity. But that would still be a calculated move as to where the market would be. I suppose Scottish teams might be invited, on account of how an English-speaking audience would find that to be ever so slightly exotic. But you can bet a whole host of European countries would be waiting years and years for a spot just because they weren't seen as commercially attractive. Fans of the superclubs have no interest in Azerbaijan, so you'd never see Qarabag being invited (even though they drew with Inter Milan the first year they made the Europa League).
The major clubs, however, have no interest in an ever-increasing number of games to accommodate more and more participating clubs.
See above. The idea that the 'major' clubs actually should get to decide who they play against is the entire problem.
Since when does a competitor in a competition get to vet the list of other competitors? The discussion about how many games ought to be in a competition/the format of a competition is a matter for all the clubs, not just the 'major' ones.
Some of these 'major' clubs struggle to even qualify for the competitions they're supposedly attempting to regulate!
The notion that government should intervene in the organisation of football clubs, especially those which a demonstrably successful, is bizarre. One notes a suggestion that legislation should bar clubs from entering competitions only approved by UEFA, recently headed by a crook, Platini, in collusion with FIFA's super crook, Blatter, and whose European Cup is sponsored by Gazprom, is to surrender to a Mafia. Removing the option of exit is crazy.
I agree that that particular legislative suggestion, and indeed anything that gives Uefa any kind of inherent status in UK law, is a nonsense, but that doesn't make legislation as a whole unreasonable.
ISTM there are two reasons for allowing government to legislate on elite football:
1. Tit-for-tat: elite football already makes significant demands on government, particularly with regards to policing and logistics, so it's not unreasonable to say 'If you want our support on this, you have to abide by our terms'.
2. Clubs as community assets (as alluded to by @Doublethink earlier) - ISTM not dissimilar to legislation (say) aimed to protect local pubs from rapacious Pubcos - on the one hand, a pub is ultimately a profit-making business whose freehold is probably owned by venture capitalists in the Bahamas, but it's also part of a community, and it's not unreasonable for government to want to make sure that community is protected.
Without actually saying it, the whole tone was that these 'important' clubs didn't want to have to go through the process of playing clubs from Hungary or Denmark or Cyprus that they considered beneath them.
Clubs that, by contrast, had worked bloody hard for the right to pit themselves against the elites of Europe.
I'd still be of the opinion that the Champions League should be made up of the actual champions of each European League, and maybe the winner of that country's main domestic cup.
The problem is that then the UEFA cup or whatever it's called now may be more profitable for clubs to be in that the CL?
Without actually saying it, the whole tone was that these 'important' clubs didn't want to have to go through the process of playing clubs from Hungary or Denmark or Cyprus that they considered beneath them.
Clubs that, by contrast, had worked bloody hard for the right to pit themselves against the elites of Europe.
I'd still be of the opinion that the Champions League should be made up of the actual champions of each European League, and maybe the winner of that country's main domestic cup.
The problem is that then the UEFA cup or whatever it's called now may be more profitable for clubs to be in that the CL?
It's a legitimate view. But not one that would remotely be of the interest of the breakaway clubs. As it stands, England, Italy and Spain each get 4 entrants in the Champions League. What would happen if you said it was 1, maybe 2, from each of these countries? It means that more of the 'super' clubs would miss out each year (and miss out on revenue from it).
And the teams from England, Italy and Spain get direct access to the group stage of the Champions League.
By contrast, there are about 40 countries that already only get a single entrant into the Champions League, and that access is to qualifying rounds. They have to fight through that to get to the group stage while 4 teams each from England, Italy and Spain lounge about waiting for them.
EDIT: This season, the Hungarian champions Ferencvaros went through four rounds of qualifying to get drawn into the Champions League against Juventus and Barcelona. I'm sure Ferencvaros would love your proposal to give them equal status with Italian champions Juventus. I doubt that Juventus would love it. Barcelona were only runners-up in Spain so they're out.
IMO American owners have been beneficial to Liverpool, Man U and Arsenal because they have run their clubs on a sound financial basis,
... country's most successful side, is the least-popularly influenced and controlled; and the elections of club presidents in Spain by fans at Real Madrid and Barcelona are largely responsible for their current financial problems.
All of those named are losing money - one of the benefits to the owners of the Super League was the proposals for a salary cap.
Orfeo: Since when does a competitor in a competition get to vet the list of other competitors? The discussion about how many games ought to be in a competition/the format of a competition is a matter for all the clubs, not just the 'major' ones.
The problem is when the competitors who attract the sponsorship and paying customers get fed-up of having to participate in an increasing number of heats and decide enough is enough. That is what is happening to the European Cup/ Champions League. Originally it was limited to league champions, plus, I think, the holder, and was a knockout competition with two legs- we are far from that. The World Cup final competition in 1966 was contested by 16 teams, which has now risen to 36. Think of the consequences for top players in the most successful clubs. As the fan of a successful club one hopes and prays that one's players in an international squad are not picked, especially when they are friendlies and against weak opponents.
Kwesi: The point is that exit is an important bargaining chip. "We both need each other, but if push comes to shove we are prepared to leave."
Orfeo: Which wasn't true. Push came to shove and they all revealed they weren't prepared to leave.
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I wasn't specifically referring to the ESL, but a general principle that having the option of leaving an organisation or any relationship is an important component of the power relationships within it. It's the difference between voluntary and compulsion. UEFA is bad enough without giving it the powers of greater dictation. Respecting the ESL, the bargaining chip proved weak because of divisions within the clubs concerned, but there may be other contexts and circumstances in which it might prove more influential. Indeed, I'm sure that UEFA will have taken note.
Chrisstiles: All of those named are losing money - one of the benefits to the owners of the Super League was the proposals for a salary cap.
I'm not sure what your point is. Your info does not challenge my point that the American run their clubs on a sensible financial basis. As far as I'm aware Liverpool, Man U and Arsenal are better placed than others to ride out the consequences of covid, excluding those with funny money like Man City. Perhaps, however, you were suggesting they were more likely to address the dangerous growth in wages. (Man U, for example, spends a lower proportion of its income on wages). Lesser clubs may fear that a cap on wages will make it more difficult for them to aspire to greater things.
Orfeo: Since when does a competitor in a competition get to vet the list of other competitors? The discussion about how many games ought to be in a competition/the format of a competition is a matter for all the clubs, not just the 'major' ones.
The problem is when the competitors who attract the sponsorship and paying customers get fed-up of having to participate in an increasing number of heats and decide enough is enough.
The big clubs attract more sponsorship and also come out of the Champions League with a bigger pot of money (because they last longer). I don't see the injustice here. You make it sound like they're entering the competition at a loss in order to subsidise the rest.
Originally it was limited to league champions, plus, I think, the holder, and was a knockout competition with two legs- we are far from that.
Pretty sure none of the ESL clubs want to return to that, either ...
Orfeo: Since when does a competitor in a competition get to vet the list of other competitors? The discussion about how many games ought to be in a competition/the format of a competition is a matter for all the clubs, not just the 'major' ones.
The problem is when the competitors who attract the sponsorship and paying customers get fed-up of having to participate in an increasing number of heats and decide enough is enough. That is what is happening to the European Cup/ Champions League. Originally it was limited to league champions, plus, I think, the holder, and was a knockout competition with two legs- we are far from that.
I've dealt with this already. These clubs aren't competing in the heats. They are given a direct pass into the group stage of the Champions League, bypassing all the rounds of qualifying. AND they're from countries where they can all potentially go through instead of fighting for one spot.
Do you seriously think these 12 clubs are banging their fists in meetings and demanding that at most 3 of them get to compete in the Champions League, on an equal footing with Ferencvaros and Midtjylland? Do you think the English Big Six got together and then went to UEFA demanding that instead of having 6 spots available to them between the Champions League and Europa League, each year only 1 of them, perhaps 2, ought to be allowed to compete in Europe?
You genuinely don't seem to realise that if these European competitions were cut back as suggested, it would have to be these Superleague clubs that would be cut out. THEY are the clubs that have benefited for years from the expansion of the competition. The extra competitors have come from countries like England, Spain and Italy, precisely because they had enough strong clubs.
If the complaint is that hey, now other countries might have extra competitors too, well that's just pure bias coming through.
Ricardus: The big clubs attract more sponsorship and also come out of the Champions League with a bigger pot of money (because they last longer). I don't see the injustice here. You make it sound like they're entering the competition at a loss in order to subsidise the rest.
I'm not sure what you are arguing. The issue, however, is not a matter of justice but self-interest, and there are a number of self-interests to consider. Regarding the Champions League there is little serious competition until the last 16, and is the point where the television rights become profitable. The proponents of the ESL believe the television companies would prefer more games between the best supported teams, proving particularly more attractive to the non-European market, especially in Asia. Consequently, the revenues would be greater and shared between few clubs.
I wasn't specifically referring to the ESL, but a general principle that having the option of leaving an organisation or any relationship is an important component of the power relationships within it. It's the difference between voluntary and compulsion.
And I dealt with this as well. As a general principle, you are free to leave your employer and go work for someone else.
What you're not free to do is go take another job on the assumption that your existing employer will have no opinion on the subject, especially not when your 2nd job is in the exact same industry, with a competitor, and comes with you casually announcing that you're no longer available to take some of your scheduled shifts.
Why is this hard to understand? And not just in this context. I'm regularly fascinated by people who seem to think that freedom to do something ought to mean freedom to do it without any consequences, in a vacuum. Having the option to leave an organisation never translates into "I can leave while retaining all of the benefits and still coming to all the activities and keeping all the gear etc etc etc".
Regarding the Champions League there is little serious competition until the last 16
That would be the last 16 that Inter Milan and Manchester United didn't reach this year?
EDIT: Inter Milan got knocked out before the last 16 last year as well. And I'm just talking about the Superleague teams that actually got into the Champions League in the first place.
....sure, but from the perspective of not only the disappointed clubs, but also an undesired outcome for the television companies selling advertising and commercial sponsors. I share your irony.
Orfeo: And I dealt with this as well. As a general principle, you are free to leave your employer and go work for someone else.
What you're not free to do is go take another job on the assumption that your existing employer will have no opinion on the subject, especially not when your 2nd job is in the exact same industry, with a competitor, and comes with you casually announcing that you're no longer available to take some of your scheduled shifts.
Why is this hard to understand?
I fail to see where I don't understand this point. I never assumed that freedom to walk away is freedom to walk away without consequences that could be severe to the point of deterrence.
Orfeo: And I dealt with this as well. As a general principle, you are free to leave your employer and go work for someone else.
What you're not free to do is go take another job on the assumption that your existing employer will have no opinion on the subject, especially not when your 2nd job is in the exact same industry, with a competitor, and comes with you casually announcing that you're no longer available to take some of your scheduled shifts.
Why is this hard to understand?
I fail to see where I don't understand this point. I never assumed that freedom to walk away is freedom to walk away without consequences that could be severe to the point of deterrence.
The entire little discussion about freedom to exit was brought about by you, for the purpose of saying how bad it was to prevent freedom of exit, when no-one actually directly involved in the current dispute was actually proposing either to exit or to directly prevent exit from happening.
Maybe you were 'noting' it because someone, somewhere like a politician floated a proposal. But why bring it up for discussion? All you did was give credence to a notion that no-one else thinks is a good idea, and more than one of us pointed out wasn't relevant, and your response was to keep arguing with us about "the general principle".
You persisted with saying how exit was an important bargaining chip. In a discussion about circumstances where no-one used that "important" bargaining chip.
Large parts of this thread seem to consist of people pointing out to you that you keep making statements divorced from reality. If you want to go and create a separate thread about what would happen if a bunch of clubs announced they were leaving, feel free, but around here I think most of us would prefer to discuss the actual Superleague proposal as well as the actual Champions League etc.
Ricardus: The big clubs attract more sponsorship and also come out of the Champions League with a bigger pot of money (because they last longer). I don't see the injustice here. You make it sound like they're entering the competition at a loss in order to subsidise the rest.
I'm not sure what you are arguing. The issue, however, is not a matter of justice but self-interest, and there are a number of self-interests to consider. Regarding the Champions League there is little serious competition until the last 16, and is the point where the television rights become profitable. The proponents of the ESL believe the television companies would prefer more games between the best supported teams, proving particularly more attractive to the non-European market, especially in Asia. Consequently, the revenues would be greater and shared between few clubs.
I'm not sure what you're arguing either to be honest. I don't think anyone is disuputing a.) that the big clubs are run as profit-making businesses, and b.) profit-making businesses seek to maximise their profits. The argument is about a.) whether this is a bad thing for the wider community, and b.) if so, what we should do about it.
Given a.)='Yes', the options are then i.) stop running clubs as profit-making businesses (e.g., by imposing the 50+1 rule), or ii.) heavily regulate them.
Well, the final of the Super League is upon us. And as predicted, it's Barcelona vs Real Madrid, and you have to admire the speed with which the teams got through the early rounds. Why, it almost feels like yesterday that it all began, time is a funny thing, isn't it? See you next time.
....sure, but from the perspective of not only the disappointed clubs, but also an undesired outcome for the television companies selling advertising and commercial sponsors. I share your irony.
As for this, perhaps we should arrange the Grand Slam tennis tournaments so that only the most popular players play against each other?
We could probably dispense with several rounds where they risk upset losses.
I get why these clubs and television companies want certainty. It's the same reason why film studios want to release a million sequels. It's the same reason why record companies want to either re-release the same music repeatedly or find "new" performers who are virtual clones of existing successful ones.
But that isn't sport. It's not even why people watch sport. Any number of people actually involved in the sport of football have pointed out in the last couple of days that the business vision of sport is fundamentally boring.
Just chatting with Man Utd fans, most relieved that the Super league failed, but no hope that the Glazers will go. As they say at Old Trafford, the roof still leaks, and has been for yonks.
The most interesting news piece for me was from Kenya. How impoverished young people bet on these games as their jobs because there is no work. That the uncertainty made them nervous about making income. -- what a world, where impoverished in the Third World use internet proxies to bet on European games to eat (in one case, he paid university tuition with winnings).
Orfeo's post above makes the succinct point, jeopardy unnerves the bankers and accountants, but for the fan it is the life-blood. The fact that Liverpool lost six on the bounce this season, there is the energy and dynamism of football, bad for the accounts, no doubt. I am old enough to remember Man Utd being relegated.
There are times when I think many of the bankers and accountants involved in sport and the arts should be made to watch The Incredibles and then required to take a questionnaire to see if they understood the point of the villain’s evil scheme...
Possibly followed by watching Ratatouille, which takes a slightly different angle on the same basic issue. If you pay proper attention to those films it’s obvious that director Brad Bird has a serious bee in his bonnet about merit and the achievement of success.
quetzalcoatlI am old enough to remember Man Utd being relegated.
It was thoroughly deserved. I seem to think that Denis Law, then back at City, administered the coup de grace with a back-heeler. It did United a lot of good, and certainly Division II takings for a season! Of course, you and everyone else, including myself, particularly deprecated the absence of promotion and relegation in the recent proposals.
As for this, perhaps we should arrange the Grand Slam tennis tournaments so that only the most popular players play against each other?
We could probably dispense with several rounds where they risk upset losses.
Is it not the case that the better players do not have to participate in
qualifying rounds, and the entry requirements are regulated to guarantee, if not require, the participation of certain players? Furthermore, seeding ensures that the top two players can only meet each other in the final etc.etc., thereby minimising jeopardy. Fans don't seem to complain.
I saw a picture on Twitter yesterday that someone took of a business school textbook review question. Students were given information about television revenue and revenue sharing rules for the Premier League and the Champion’s League, and were ultimately asked if it would make more sense to form a European Super League.
No mention in the assignment whatsoever of culture, fan base, or competition. Just money.
FFS, these people are trained to be this short sighted.
Michael Davies, a very good TV producer and co-host of the Men in Blazers podcast (popular among American soccer fans) told a similar story in response to the Super League. He was once in a meeting at Disney with a numbers guy, discussing costs and profits associated with making a flop, a marginally successful tv show, and a hit. The numbers guy, after examining the numbers, demanded to know why any sane person would ever bother making anything other than a hit TV show.
There’s another American social media stock character: Billionaires Are Billionaires Because They’re Smart guy. I used to be that guy from time to time, TBH. It’s shocking how wrong this perception is.
Yes, Og, but this model will presumably satisfy the viewer who wants to watch big games, not Brighton vs West Brom, and doesn't care about promotion, relegation, local communities, etc. Some people predict that these viewers will supersede the "legacy fan". I have no idea if this is true. But the big clubs sell merchandise in Shangai and Taipei, and want to sell screen time there as well. It's the future, like garlic bread.
The most interesting news piece for me was from Kenya. How impoverished young people bet on these games as their jobs because there is no work. That the uncertainty made them nervous about making income. -- what a world, where impoverished in the Third World use internet proxies to bet on European games to eat (in one case, he paid university tuition with winnings).
In the States, at least, the stereotypical fans who watch European football desperately want to be part of the “authentic” culture. Our soccer bars serve Fullers and English breakfast on Saturday morning. There’s a quixotic fan movement to create an open pyramid system involving MLS. MLS club fans create their own supporters groups with flags and drums. And while we all do tend to pick big clubs (given free choice, who wouldn’t?), there’s still a bit of cosplay involved. You quickly learn to call out your rivals, and try to absorb the club culture. There’s intangible value that the American fan appreciated was at stake here.
Is Brighton v. West Bromwich a big eyeball grabber in the UK, outside of their respective markets? In the NFL, games between struggling small market teams only get a regional broadcast, because the only audience they would get outside of their markets would be degenerate gamblers.
Yes, my wife made the comment that teams like Liverpool and Man Utd have great vibrancy, in part because of history, community, etc. You pasteurize this at your peril, I mean it will become flavourless.
I was on a flight from Berlin to Liverpool two years ago. It was full of Liverpool fans flying over for the match. All German and kitted out with all the gear.
I suppose the German Liverpool manager has a bearing too.
Yes, Og, but this model will presumably satisfy the viewer who wants to watch big games, not Brighton vs West Brom, and doesn't care about promotion, relegation, local communities, etc. Some people predict that these viewers will supersede the "legacy fan". I have no idea if this is true. But the big clubs sell merchandise in Shangai and Taipei, and want to sell screen time there as well. It's the future, like garlic bread.
The whole point though is you have to ask yourself what makes a big game into a big game.
It’s a bit like arguing that because far more people come to church at Christmas and Easter, we should have them every week.
It’s a complete failure in logic when they reason that people who watch a big game will continue to watch every “big” game when there are far more of these fixtures.
As for this, perhaps we should arrange the Grand Slam tennis tournaments so that only the most popular players play against each other?
We could probably dispense with several rounds where they risk upset losses.
Is it not the case that the better players do not have to participate in
qualifying rounds, and the entry requirements are regulated to guarantee, if not require, the participation of certain players? Furthermore, seeding ensures that the top two players can only meet each other in the final etc.etc., thereby minimising jeopardy. Fans don't seem to complain.
Two responses need to be made to your response, and they are so fundamentally important to this conversation that I suggest you think about them very, very carefully.
The first response is that there is a significant difference between advantages and guarantees.
The second response - and this is the one you REALLY need to think about - is that those advantages are based on merit, not popularity. I said "the most popular players". You came back with a response about "the better players".
Do not, on any account, confuse those as being the same thing.
The fact is that being a good player tends to generate popularity. But the 2 things are not synonymous. Anna Kournikova was quite a good player, who in her day was extremely popular with young men. I was at the Australian Open one year and you basically couldn't get a seat at her matches on the general courts. But Anna Kournikova's position in the draw was based on her seeding (when she had a seeding), which was not at the very top because she had never actually won a tournament.
If Roger Federer continues doing the occasional rounds on the circuit when he's 47 years old I'm sure he will be an extremely popular drawcard. But the professional tournaments ought not give him special treatment if his ranking slides. The advantages you're referring to are based on ranking, not popularity, and that makes all the difference in the world.
The same goes of course for the football. Entry to the Champions League? Based on results. Number of slots each country gets in the Champions League in the first place? Based on results. Popularity might well be based on results as well, but you're confusing a correlation with a causation, and so are the superleague clubs.
“Back in the days of the Soviet Union, it was common to hear people on the left criticise the Kremlin for pursuing the wrong kind of socialism. There was nothing wrong with the theory, they said, rather the warped form of it conducted behind the iron curtain.
The same argument has surfaced this week amid the furious response to the now-aborted plans to form a European Super League for 20 football clubs, only this time from the right. Free-market purists say they hate the idea because it is the wrong form of capitalism.
...
By presenting their half-baked idea in the way they did, the ESL clubs committed one of capitalism’s cardinal sins: they damaged their own brand. Companies – especially those that rely on loyalty to their product – do that at their peril, not least because it forces politicians to respond. Supporters have power and so do governments, if they choose to exercise it.
The ESL has demonstrated that global capitalism operates on the basis of rigged markets not free markets, and those running the show are only interested in entrenching existing inequalities. It was a truly bad idea, but by providing a lesson in economics to millions of fans it may have performed a public service.”
I think football fans are both naive and insightful. Naive because rich men are going to home in on football, as they do on most things. But there are a surprising number of articulate fans on TV, who are aware of this, and can talk about it. Whether alternatives are realistic, such as 51%, doubtful.
But I agree that ESL was half-baked, and actually, idiotic. Some people are arguing that it wasn't serious, but a negotiating ploy.
Some people are arguing that it wasn't serious, but a negotiating ploy.
If it was merely a ploy, that doesn't lessen the degree to which it backfired.
For one thing the timing was horrendous. If the aim was to displace the Champions League, the time for that conversation was not when several of them had been key participants in discussions about the new CL format that UEFA was going to sign off within hours. That fact alone pretty much guaranteed that UEFA's President was going to react with fury.
It's beyond me how Agnelli from Juventus believed he could participate in that process, as head of the association representing over 200 clubs, and then reveal that he effectively didn't intend his own club to be in the Champions League and was resigning that position.
My sense is that a lot of the “it was just a ploy and they got everything they wanted out of UEFA” argument is coming from the “billionaires are smarter than you” crowd. It’s the only way some folks can make sense of this mess-up; must have been the plan all along.
The problem is that the plan failed so spectacularly that the biggest clubs’ biggest threat is off the table. It would be like Israel finally announcing that it had nuclear weapons with a public test and having it fail. The deterrent value is dead.
Sometimes monumental arrogance is the simplest answer.
Meanwhile the president of Real Madrid has literally run the “people watch Federer v Nadal so therefore we should have Federer v Nadal every week” argument.
I honestly wonder how someone in a position like that can be so stupid as to not understand that a special event ceases to be special if you make it recur too often. But then there are plenty of examples of the same inability to consider context.
Happy non-birthday everyone, except if you happen to have been born on this date. You get a break from the festivities.
This is the guy who’s policy for years was to sign the biggest star every summer. Already have Figo on the right but David Beckham is a hot commercial property? Sign him anyway. Defense is in shambles? Sign Michael Owen.
Apparently it’s the big clubs that are losing money right now, not the small ones.
If this means the big clubs are forced to sell some of the players they bought for huge sums of money, and those talents go elsewhere and the overall price of players goes down a little... yeah, as a neutral fan I’m completely failing to see the downside.
I was on a flight from Berlin to Liverpool two years ago. It was full of Liverpool fans flying over for the match. All German and kitted out with all the gear.
I suppose the German Liverpool manager has a bearing too.
You live close enough to Manchester. Even here, at twice the distance, I will heat Manchester United fans who live in Manchester complaining they cannot get a seat in the stadium (even in non-Civid times) because large areas of the Stadiums are given over to the coachloads of fans from Southampton who for one week will make the 500 mile round trip to see Manchester United play one of the less fashionable teams. The reason being fans from outside making a once a season visit will spend in the stadium shop when a regular fan may spend once a season.
It is as if the big clubs are actively trying to break the link with the local fans.
The root of the problem is that 'certain clubs' have persuaded themselves that they are so massive they are effectively subsidising the rest of football, and they don't see why they should.
This is very much in step with the general attitude in our country that people have voted in favour of for 40-odd years. 'Why should I pay my taxes for -- '
'There is no such thing as society.' A bit late to get all cuddly and cooperative now just because football is impacted.
Looking back, when I saw fans gathering outside Chelsea on Tuesday evening, about a mile from where I live, I thought the energy is changing. Of course, at first everyone was stunned, angry, disappointed. But fans groups were quick to organize, and of course, various people began to condemn it, including Boris, William, Gary Neville.
But if the six had carried on, I think every home game would have involved a riot. Can you imagine Anfield besieged by crowds every week? This would be unpalatable to owners. Of course, there were many factors, but the fans done good. Whether they can do more, dunno.
Comments
The point is that exit is an important bargaining chip. "We both need each other, but if push comes to shove we are prepared to leave." UEFA needs the popularly-supported clubs to retain the credibility of its major money-spinner and to attract world-wide TV revenues. The major clubs, however, have no interest in an ever-increasing number of games to accommodate more and more participating clubs. If they think being out of the European Cup is in their interest, why not? If they and other clubs want a private competition amongst themselves, why not? The cartel is UEFA not the putative participants in the ESL
Clubs that, by contrast, had worked bloody hard for the right to pit themselves against the elites of Europe.
I still find @Kwesi 's previous notion that Superleague would somehow benefit clubs like Celtic or Rangers quite mystifying. There was no sign of any intent to benefit such clubs from Europe's 20th best league (that ranking being based on the results of Scottish clubs in European club competitions).
The goal was to lock in the existing order of things that tells you there are only a handful of countries that you really have to pay attention to, and preventing any new club from upsetting that. Which roundly ignores the fact that some of these supposedly elite clubs only became elite in relatively recent history when resources were injected into them.
And then sure, a few spots would be reserved for additional teams, and to give the appearance of greater diversity. But that would still be a calculated move as to where the market would be. I suppose Scottish teams might be invited, on account of how an English-speaking audience would find that to be ever so slightly exotic. But you can bet a whole host of European countries would be waiting years and years for a spot just because they weren't seen as commercially attractive. Fans of the superclubs have no interest in Azerbaijan, so you'd never see Qarabag being invited (even though they drew with Inter Milan the first year they made the Europa League).
See above. The idea that the 'major' clubs actually should get to decide who they play against is the entire problem.
Since when does a competitor in a competition get to vet the list of other competitors? The discussion about how many games ought to be in a competition/the format of a competition is a matter for all the clubs, not just the 'major' ones.
Some of these 'major' clubs struggle to even qualify for the competitions they're supposedly attempting to regulate!
I agree that that particular legislative suggestion, and indeed anything that gives Uefa any kind of inherent status in UK law, is a nonsense, but that doesn't make legislation as a whole unreasonable.
ISTM there are two reasons for allowing government to legislate on elite football:
1. Tit-for-tat: elite football already makes significant demands on government, particularly with regards to policing and logistics, so it's not unreasonable to say 'If you want our support on this, you have to abide by our terms'.
2. Clubs as community assets (as alluded to by @Doublethink earlier) - ISTM not dissimilar to legislation (say) aimed to protect local pubs from rapacious Pubcos - on the one hand, a pub is ultimately a profit-making business whose freehold is probably owned by venture capitalists in the Bahamas, but it's also part of a community, and it's not unreasonable for government to want to make sure that community is protected.
Which wasn't true. Push came to shove and they all revealed they weren't prepared to leave.
I'd still be of the opinion that the Champions League should be made up of the actual champions of each European League, and maybe the winner of that country's main domestic cup.
The problem is that then the UEFA cup or whatever it's called now may be more profitable for clubs to be in that the CL?
It's a legitimate view. But not one that would remotely be of the interest of the breakaway clubs. As it stands, England, Italy and Spain each get 4 entrants in the Champions League. What would happen if you said it was 1, maybe 2, from each of these countries? It means that more of the 'super' clubs would miss out each year (and miss out on revenue from it).
And the teams from England, Italy and Spain get direct access to the group stage of the Champions League.
By contrast, there are about 40 countries that already only get a single entrant into the Champions League, and that access is to qualifying rounds. They have to fight through that to get to the group stage while 4 teams each from England, Italy and Spain lounge about waiting for them.
EDIT: This season, the Hungarian champions Ferencvaros went through four rounds of qualifying to get drawn into the Champions League against Juventus and Barcelona. I'm sure Ferencvaros would love your proposal to give them equal status with Italian champions Juventus. I doubt that Juventus would love it. Barcelona were only runners-up in Spain so they're out.
All of those named are losing money - one of the benefits to the owners of the Super League was the proposals for a salary cap.
The problem is when the competitors who attract the sponsorship and paying customers get fed-up of having to participate in an increasing number of heats and decide enough is enough. That is what is happening to the European Cup/ Champions League. Originally it was limited to league champions, plus, I think, the holder, and was a knockout competition with two legs- we are far from that. The World Cup final competition in 1966 was contested by 16 teams, which has now risen to 36. Think of the consequences for top players in the most successful clubs. As the fan of a successful club one hopes and prays that one's players in an international squad are not picked, especially when they are friendlies and against weak opponents.
I wasn't specifically referring to the ESL, but a general principle that having the option of leaving an organisation or any relationship is an important component of the power relationships within it. It's the difference between voluntary and compulsion. UEFA is bad enough without giving it the powers of greater dictation. Respecting the ESL, the bargaining chip proved weak because of divisions within the clubs concerned, but there may be other contexts and circumstances in which it might prove more influential. Indeed, I'm sure that UEFA will have taken note.
I'm not sure what your point is. Your info does not challenge my point that the American run their clubs on a sensible financial basis. As far as I'm aware Liverpool, Man U and Arsenal are better placed than others to ride out the consequences of covid, excluding those with funny money like Man City. Perhaps, however, you were suggesting they were more likely to address the dangerous growth in wages. (Man U, for example, spends a lower proportion of its income on wages). Lesser clubs may fear that a cap on wages will make it more difficult for them to aspire to greater things.
The big clubs attract more sponsorship and also come out of the Champions League with a bigger pot of money (because they last longer). I don't see the injustice here. You make it sound like they're entering the competition at a loss in order to subsidise the rest.
Pretty sure none of the ESL clubs want to return to that, either ...
I've dealt with this already. These clubs aren't competing in the heats. They are given a direct pass into the group stage of the Champions League, bypassing all the rounds of qualifying. AND they're from countries where they can all potentially go through instead of fighting for one spot.
Do you seriously think these 12 clubs are banging their fists in meetings and demanding that at most 3 of them get to compete in the Champions League, on an equal footing with Ferencvaros and Midtjylland? Do you think the English Big Six got together and then went to UEFA demanding that instead of having 6 spots available to them between the Champions League and Europa League, each year only 1 of them, perhaps 2, ought to be allowed to compete in Europe?
You genuinely don't seem to realise that if these European competitions were cut back as suggested, it would have to be these Superleague clubs that would be cut out. THEY are the clubs that have benefited for years from the expansion of the competition. The extra competitors have come from countries like England, Spain and Italy, precisely because they had enough strong clubs.
If the complaint is that hey, now other countries might have extra competitors too, well that's just pure bias coming through.
I'm not sure what you are arguing. The issue, however, is not a matter of justice but self-interest, and there are a number of self-interests to consider. Regarding the Champions League there is little serious competition until the last 16, and is the point where the television rights become profitable. The proponents of the ESL believe the television companies would prefer more games between the best supported teams, proving particularly more attractive to the non-European market, especially in Asia. Consequently, the revenues would be greater and shared between few clubs.
And I dealt with this as well. As a general principle, you are free to leave your employer and go work for someone else.
What you're not free to do is go take another job on the assumption that your existing employer will have no opinion on the subject, especially not when your 2nd job is in the exact same industry, with a competitor, and comes with you casually announcing that you're no longer available to take some of your scheduled shifts.
Why is this hard to understand? And not just in this context. I'm regularly fascinated by people who seem to think that freedom to do something ought to mean freedom to do it without any consequences, in a vacuum. Having the option to leave an organisation never translates into "I can leave while retaining all of the benefits and still coming to all the activities and keeping all the gear etc etc etc".
That would be the last 16 that Inter Milan and Manchester United didn't reach this year?
EDIT: Inter Milan got knocked out before the last 16 last year as well. And I'm just talking about the Superleague teams that actually got into the Champions League in the first place.
I fail to see where I don't understand this point. I never assumed that freedom to walk away is freedom to walk away without consequences that could be severe to the point of deterrence.
The entire little discussion about freedom to exit was brought about by you, for the purpose of saying how bad it was to prevent freedom of exit, when no-one actually directly involved in the current dispute was actually proposing either to exit or to directly prevent exit from happening.
Maybe you were 'noting' it because someone, somewhere like a politician floated a proposal. But why bring it up for discussion? All you did was give credence to a notion that no-one else thinks is a good idea, and more than one of us pointed out wasn't relevant, and your response was to keep arguing with us about "the general principle".
You persisted with saying how exit was an important bargaining chip. In a discussion about circumstances where no-one used that "important" bargaining chip.
Large parts of this thread seem to consist of people pointing out to you that you keep making statements divorced from reality. If you want to go and create a separate thread about what would happen if a bunch of clubs announced they were leaving, feel free, but around here I think most of us would prefer to discuss the actual Superleague proposal as well as the actual Champions League etc.
I'm not sure what you're arguing either to be honest. I don't think anyone is disuputing a.) that the big clubs are run as profit-making businesses, and b.) profit-making businesses seek to maximise their profits. The argument is about a.) whether this is a bad thing for the wider community, and b.) if so, what we should do about it.
Given a.)='Yes', the options are then i.) stop running clubs as profit-making businesses (e.g., by imposing the 50+1 rule), or ii.) heavily regulate them.
As for this, perhaps we should arrange the Grand Slam tennis tournaments so that only the most popular players play against each other?
We could probably dispense with several rounds where they risk upset losses.
I get why these clubs and television companies want certainty. It's the same reason why film studios want to release a million sequels. It's the same reason why record companies want to either re-release the same music repeatedly or find "new" performers who are virtual clones of existing successful ones.
But that isn't sport. It's not even why people watch sport. Any number of people actually involved in the sport of football have pointed out in the last couple of days that the business vision of sport is fundamentally boring.
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/32461/12282325/european-super-league-jeopardy-is-a-problem-for-the-big-clubs-but-it-is-what-makes-football-great-and-cannot-be-removed
Okay, so 'sensible' includes 'loses somewhat less money than their rivals'.
Possibly followed by watching Ratatouille, which takes a slightly different angle on the same basic issue. If you pay proper attention to those films it’s obvious that director Brad Bird has a serious bee in his bonnet about merit and the achievement of success.
It was thoroughly deserved. I seem to think that Denis Law, then back at City, administered the coup de grace with a back-heeler. It did United a lot of good, and certainly Division II takings for a season! Of course, you and everyone else, including myself, particularly deprecated the absence of promotion and relegation in the recent proposals.
Is it not the case that the better players do not have to participate in
qualifying rounds, and the entry requirements are regulated to guarantee, if not require, the participation of certain players? Furthermore, seeding ensures that the top two players can only meet each other in the final etc.etc., thereby minimising jeopardy. Fans don't seem to complain.
No mention in the assignment whatsoever of culture, fan base, or competition. Just money.
FFS, these people are trained to be this short sighted.
Michael Davies, a very good TV producer and co-host of the Men in Blazers podcast (popular among American soccer fans) told a similar story in response to the Super League. He was once in a meeting at Disney with a numbers guy, discussing costs and profits associated with making a flop, a marginally successful tv show, and a hit. The numbers guy, after examining the numbers, demanded to know why any sane person would ever bother making anything other than a hit TV show.
There’s another American social media stock character: Billionaires Are Billionaires Because They’re Smart guy. I used to be that guy from time to time, TBH. It’s shocking how wrong this perception is.
Although one of the advantages of the internationalisation of European football is that a lot of money does end up flowing back to development projects sponsored by African footballers - e.g. here is Sadio Mané paying for a school and hospital in his Senegalese birthplace.
Is Brighton v. West Bromwich a big eyeball grabber in the UK, outside of their respective markets? In the NFL, games between struggling small market teams only get a regional broadcast, because the only audience they would get outside of their markets would be degenerate gamblers.
I suppose the German Liverpool manager has a bearing too.
The whole point though is you have to ask yourself what makes a big game into a big game.
It’s a bit like arguing that because far more people come to church at Christmas and Easter, we should have them every week.
It’s a complete failure in logic when they reason that people who watch a big game will continue to watch every “big” game when there are far more of these fixtures.
It’s all in The Incredibles. Sigh.
Two responses need to be made to your response, and they are so fundamentally important to this conversation that I suggest you think about them very, very carefully.
The first response is that there is a significant difference between advantages and guarantees.
The second response - and this is the one you REALLY need to think about - is that those advantages are based on merit, not popularity. I said "the most popular players". You came back with a response about "the better players".
Do not, on any account, confuse those as being the same thing.
The fact is that being a good player tends to generate popularity. But the 2 things are not synonymous. Anna Kournikova was quite a good player, who in her day was extremely popular with young men. I was at the Australian Open one year and you basically couldn't get a seat at her matches on the general courts. But Anna Kournikova's position in the draw was based on her seeding (when she had a seeding), which was not at the very top because she had never actually won a tournament.
If Roger Federer continues doing the occasional rounds on the circuit when he's 47 years old I'm sure he will be an extremely popular drawcard. But the professional tournaments ought not give him special treatment if his ranking slides. The advantages you're referring to are based on ranking, not popularity, and that makes all the difference in the world.
The same goes of course for the football. Entry to the Champions League? Based on results. Number of slots each country gets in the Champions League in the first place? Based on results. Popularity might well be based on results as well, but you're confusing a correlation with a causation, and so are the superleague clubs.
“Back in the days of the Soviet Union, it was common to hear people on the left criticise the Kremlin for pursuing the wrong kind of socialism. There was nothing wrong with the theory, they said, rather the warped form of it conducted behind the iron curtain.
The same argument has surfaced this week amid the furious response to the now-aborted plans to form a European Super League for 20 football clubs, only this time from the right. Free-market purists say they hate the idea because it is the wrong form of capitalism.
...
By presenting their half-baked idea in the way they did, the ESL clubs committed one of capitalism’s cardinal sins: they damaged their own brand. Companies – especially those that rely on loyalty to their product – do that at their peril, not least because it forces politicians to respond. Supporters have power and so do governments, if they choose to exercise it.
The ESL has demonstrated that global capitalism operates on the basis of rigged markets not free markets, and those running the show are only interested in entrenching existing inequalities. It was a truly bad idea, but by providing a lesson in economics to millions of fans it may have performed a public service.”
But I agree that ESL was half-baked, and actually, idiotic. Some people are arguing that it wasn't serious, but a negotiating ploy.
If it was merely a ploy, that doesn't lessen the degree to which it backfired.
For one thing the timing was horrendous. If the aim was to displace the Champions League, the time for that conversation was not when several of them had been key participants in discussions about the new CL format that UEFA was going to sign off within hours. That fact alone pretty much guaranteed that UEFA's President was going to react with fury.
It's beyond me how Agnelli from Juventus believed he could participate in that process, as head of the association representing over 200 clubs, and then reveal that he effectively didn't intend his own club to be in the Champions League and was resigning that position.
The problem is that the plan failed so spectacularly that the biggest clubs’ biggest threat is off the table. It would be like Israel finally announcing that it had nuclear weapons with a public test and having it fail. The deterrent value is dead.
Sometimes monumental arrogance is the simplest answer.
I honestly wonder how someone in a position like that can be so stupid as to not understand that a special event ceases to be special if you make it recur too often. But then there are plenty of examples of the same inability to consider context.
Happy non-birthday everyone, except if you happen to have been born on this date. You get a break from the festivities.
It’s entirely in character.
If this means the big clubs are forced to sell some of the players they bought for huge sums of money, and those talents go elsewhere and the overall price of players goes down a little... yeah, as a neutral fan I’m completely failing to see the downside.
You live close enough to Manchester. Even here, at twice the distance, I will heat Manchester United fans who live in Manchester complaining they cannot get a seat in the stadium (even in non-Civid times) because large areas of the Stadiums are given over to the coachloads of fans from Southampton who for one week will make the 500 mile round trip to see Manchester United play one of the less fashionable teams. The reason being fans from outside making a once a season visit will spend in the stadium shop when a regular fan may spend once a season.
It is as if the big clubs are actively trying to break the link with the local fans.
This is very much in step with the general attitude in our country that people have voted in favour of for 40-odd years. 'Why should I pay my taxes for -- '
'There is no such thing as society.' A bit late to get all cuddly and cooperative now just because football is impacted.
But if the six had carried on, I think every home game would have involved a riot. Can you imagine Anfield besieged by crowds every week? This would be unpalatable to owners. Of course, there were many factors, but the fans done good. Whether they can do more, dunno.