Talk of European Super League resurfaces

So now, after failing to get permission in their last power grab, we are being shown what their real ambition was and that is forming a European Super League, and leaving behind a tradition that was established nearly 150 years ago.

My first reaction is: sod them, let them go... but then rationally I wonder what harm if any, leaving will do to the rest of the Premier League clubs? A tradition like the FA will survive, it may struggle at the beginning but it will adapt.

The other question is we have a recognized supposed top 6 but they only want 5? It just made me mad reading this as I have been a supporter of Everton since 1954 but at the same time supported the FA who have tried to support the game of football from the Premier League to the grass roots.

I believe that this is simply a money grab with assistance from certain media outlets, and turning their backs on the FA, whose organization have allowed them to start from nothing to where they are. I definitely will not pay any money to any media outlet to watch these games and firmly believe that the Premier League will be better without these teams.

Like I said to my blues family (3 mates and me son), if 5 teams were to leave the Premier League and were not allowed to play in the domestic league, then it would just be like getting relegated and I would still go to every game I could.

I think the Premier League and FA should fine and deduct points off Liverpool and Man Utd for undermining the integrity and very fabric of English football. It's a fucking joke what these fuckers are getting away with. All in the name of the Dollar.

Let them go I say. There will be a novelty value at first but that will soon fade. In a league with fixed clubs the absence of relegation will kill ambition. Clubs will have no reason to improve because they know their position is secure. Winning this league will no longer be the priority because the priority is money. UEFA are right. It will bore the pants off everybody and it will die a death.

There are two competitions that take place in the EPL every season. Trying to win it and trying to stay in it. Real competition needs both of those elements and that is what keeps standards up because each aspect makes the other harder. Remove one of them and the whole thing becomes meaningless.

Ultimately Perez and John Henry aim to consolidate the league down to two teams: team Messi and team Ronaldo. They will meet four times a year at locations including the Pasadena Rose Bowl, The Sydney Cricket Ground, Beijing' s Birds Nes, and the Maracana. Ronaldo's "villains 11" will have guest players such as Diego Simeone, Vinne Jones, and NBA legend Dennis Rodman. Messi's "Good guys" will have guests such as Brad Pitt and Stephen Naismith. The scripting for the "soccer entertainment" events will be handled by WWE afficiniado Vince MacMahon. Match day tickets will be corporate only starting at $10,000 per match. All games will be available only on Itunes, via a Pay Per View service that only works on whatever happens to be the newst and most expensive Apple phone product available at time of broadcast.

If it does happen, there's no way that it will mean that the chosen few will leave the Premier League either by choice or by the other clubs not wanting them. Every club in the top division is reliant on that TV money and therefore there will be a hybrid of last weeks plan, a smaller league, fewer domestic fixtures and we'll all carry on as before, but clubs such as Everton, Villa, West Ham, and Newcastle will have little or no chance of gaining entry into Europe and zero chance of winning a domestic trophy.

All these so-called bug Clubs in England are about to get gazumped by Little Ol' Everton, so who's definition of "Super" are we talking about?

What are we talking about presently here? Who'd be leaving the EPL for the "Super" League with bullshit American-style no Pro-Rel?

I won't name any names, just their current place in the table:

3rd, 5th, 7th, 8th, 11th, and 15th? Isn't that correct?

This idea is garbage. Utter garbage. Another way to look at this closed shop would be to ask which of these "Big" [Almighty??] teams would like to finish last place in their little pie-in-the-sky league? Could you imagine Real finishing in 15th place in their league? Their glory-hunting fans would go batshit crazy.

I'd guarantee this is those knuckle-dragging Liverpool or Man U folks stirring up the shit pot with their media contacts because their Project Big Britches got shot to flames.

This season I'm a fan of Everton, Villa, Wolves and Leicester. Why? Because that's what I want the top 4 to look like at season's end, and in that exact order.

If they leave, any return is to the bottom of England's Football Pyramid. No rolling out a red carpet for Judas, thank you very much.

Screw 'em.

It's time for the Big Boys to fall. Important in their own minds, self-righteous pricks.

big Clubs. Or bug Clubs if you prefer. Cockroaches.

Surely any such plan would be seen as bringing the game into disrepute? UEFA should instruct the various national FAs to nip this in the bud now and warn those responsible that they face demotion and possibly expulsion if they continue to pursue this route.

As much as I dislike the RS and Manure, the premier league is a better league with them. Having said that it will survive without them. Hopefully this story isn't true though.

What would be the criteria for joining this league? As quoted there can't be any team relegated as they would have nowhere to go. They cant return to their previous leagues as they will have been upgraded to overcome the teams have left.

What right would Tottenham have in joining, they have never won the Premier League. Leicester and Blackburn Rovers have won it more than them. It simply stinks of more money for the top European teams and though it will not be impossible it will be difficult attracting top players to the Premier League as they will want to go into this Super League.

It seems the Premier League teams that are for this are fed up in not winning the European Cup in its present format, and are looking for an excuse to get out.

Bill #10, regarding your last paragraph, I think you make a good point and perhaps one solution would be a restructuring of the Champions League? However, do Spurs really think they would be capable of winning the Super League?

Ironic then that a few short years ago Liverpool wouldn't have figured in the county's elite and after a few more years like the last couple, United's elite status will be forgotten too.

Drew

Correct and Leipzig suddenly in the mix on the back of 3 years of being pretty good. PSG are there whereas, before their takeover, Lyon won the league 7 years in a row due to their cash flow from the Champions League when they happened to win the French League for the first time ever the season before the Champions League started.

All the established teams like Nantes, Bordeaux and St Etienne really screwed up by not winning it that one seemingly all important season. The other thing is that this has no room for Ajax, Benfica, Porto all of whom periodically win or make the last four of the European trophies.

There's also no room for AC Milan who are, I believe, second only to Real Madrid for winning the European Cup. Again bad, timing I guess on their part. The rest of history means nothing apparently.

In the story presented by Sky News this latest move has the approval of FIFA. If true this appears to be an attempt by the World Governing Body to usurp UEFA in its governance of European club football. For the big European clubs such as Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern they have long been peeved at the success of the Premier League and the financial strength of our half dozen ‘big clubs' who dominate Europe at their expense. Playing one governing body off against another suits their purpose.

For FIFA in the long run this will not stop with Europe. Ultimately a much bigger World Club competition involving the USA and Asia will be the big prize for them. It is all about maximising financial advantage from club football.

They can all go and get stuffed.

The proposal apparently includes a guarantee of no relegation for the ‘founder clubs' for 20 years! Nice!

Financial side of this shows it to be meaningless conjecture. JP Morgan Chase will “facilitate 6 billion dollars of debt financing.” Which means Chase make money by selling bonds to investors to finance it. The bond holders make a return on its financial success.

First, you have to find prospective bond holders will to invest. They won't invest unless they know they'll make a return. Which means you need more than 6 billion dollars worth of interest from other parties, tv companies, gate receipts. But 6 billion would be break even for the bond holders so you need a lot more.

In this Covid economy, who the fuck as a TV company or Ticketmaster type is going say “we will definitely bring in 6 plus billion as we have such faith in consumers to cough up that sum.” No one. The TV companies have already clawed back TV money paid for the current TV deals. They are hardly likely to roll the dice and pay even more for a fledgling league being widely derided by fans.

This proposal is a joke. At least Alan Stanford had the cash to start his equally ill-conceived cricket gig. No-one has the money or appetite for this shit. Go back to selling shitty cars, Angelli.

I doubt whether any club 'invited' to join a new European league would leave the Premier League.

The proposal to reduce the Premier League to 18 clubs and not enter the Carabao League Cup, allied to abolishing replays in the FA Cup, would leave the required spaces in the fixture list.

I bet the RS fans can't wait for RS v Lille on a cold, wet, December night! Van Dijk may even be fit by then!!

They say there's never any smoke without fire, The Big Picture Project has been met with disdain and derision from most sane thinking Clubs, so this is now aired to 'test the water'?

What a despicable greedy bunch of self centred turds they are, hopefully the rest of the Footballing World will see them exposed for what they really are.

All European competitions that English clubs enter have to be sanctioned by the FA. That is why this won't happen.

But I welcome Liverpool's ongoing attempts to portray themselves as greedy, self-serving, whinging arseholes.

Derek Knox

Like him or loathe him, Carraghers response on Twitter was " oh f*** off". His demeanour over the past week towards his former employers has definitely changed somewhat.

I don't particularly like the guy but he went up slightly in my estimations (particularly when he called out Souness' hypocrisy on the Pickford tackle)

Peter @20, he grew up in Bootle, Liverpool as a kid, and I must hasten to add as a supporter of Everton, he must still have realised the error of his ways when he joined the ranks of Liverpool, and reflects on that even now.

Once a Blue, sometimes a Red and all that.

I note that one of the prime financial movers in this proposal is the US financial institution, J P Morgan. To those considering signing up for this deal, just a little cautionary tale:

Don't forget that John Pierpont (J P) Morgan was the actual owner of the RMS Titanic, and we all know how that ended up. He owned the White Star Line, so though Titanic was registered as a British shop it was actually American-owned.

He was supposed to be on board for the maiden Voyage but was taken ill and didn't join the ship. He died in Rome in March 1913, so didn't outlive his ship by much. I wonder if this proposed Super League would end up being football's version of the Titanic?

I find FIFA being involved in this very strange as according to all reports this only involves European teams. Funny how these teams were selected I mean 1 team although having an excellent European CV have only just won their own domestic league for the first time in 32 years. Spurs another team supposedly involved well you have to go back 60 years since they last won the domestic league, and have struggled to make top 4. Yet Ajax who have won the Champions league 4 times which is 4 times more than Arsenal and 3 times more than Chelsea are not included.

I would imagine UEFA will oppose this and have all the power to make sure this doesnt happen. Whenever you hear players talk they all say what an honour it is to be picked for your country, so if all European FAs stated anybody signing or playing in this league will never play for their national teams again will be a great deterrent.

Finally I think it will be interesting to see the reaction from the fans of these clubs to this proposed new league. Lets remember that it was only the fans reaction that made Liverpool and Spurs change their minds about furloughing their staff. So if the supporters reject this idea then it will be a non starter. Seeing that both Man Utd and liverpool seem intent to get a bigger slice of the football cake, I can see both clubs not agreeing to the next Sky deal and will want to sell their own games to their fans rather than the system that is in place at the moment.

Fine. Couldn't care less. A league season without Liverpool and Manchester United. Sounds bliss. But they get no Premier League money, no TV money, and are expelled from all domestic competitions. See ya! 👋

A European super league only made sense before the Premier League / European Champions League came into being, because it is all about increasing revenue not the likelihood of winning silverware.

This isn't what the RS and United want anymore. This is the decoy proposal designed to make you think that their plan to get the best of both worlds by shoring up their positions in the Prem and increasing the glamour Euro ties.
For many of the European giants however, ditching their domestic leagues would probably make them much more wealthy.

I see that Petr Cech has been registered for Chelsea's PL squad in case of any emergencies.
Perhaps we could register Unsworth on the same basis if our fullbacks / centre half's keep dropping as they are?!! (Cat amongst pigeons..)

Who cares? I rarely watch Champions League games and can't see I'd have much interest in teams that won't be winning much if anything, certainly nothing with any history behind it.

Let's just make sure that if they make this bed for themselves that they are left to lie in it and sell themselves to people who won't have teams playing in it.

The fans? That is those who watch it on TV as far as these money grubbers are interested.

Now we know why they were trying to reduce the Premier league to 18 teams And scrap the efl cup with the previous bigger picture they had, to slot fixtures in Those freed up Days, for the doomed project.

Now they are moving on to phase two of trying to form a European super league, if that goes ahead it will fail within around 5 years max.

All good and well winning your own league, but when you are faced with only the so called best of Europe, only one team will be able to dominate, other also rans will soon get fed up, supporters every away game travelling abroad would soon wear out, not that the clubs would be bothered, due to tv revenue and sponsorship covering it.

The fans will revolt on this, you can have a pop at Utd and our neighbours, but I can assure you, they will not want this, it will be the nail in the coffin for football without fans is nothing.

As others have said, if this goes ahead, then those teams need to be removed from any of our leagues, or competitions.

If not then you have a very huge unfair advantage of ffp.

This is like the piece of shit that just won't flush.

All the teams involved have owners who have invested heavily in them and now have excellent revenue streams. Playing in Europe every season, preferably in the Champions League is essential to these revenue streams. However I reckon Leicester winning the EPL, the arrival of Citeh and the fact that some are struggling to qualify for these elite competitions, now that the likes of Leicester, Wolves and dare I say us are making great strides to be up at the top of the table come May, is leaving them very very nervous. Therefore to protect their investment, they need a Euro League in which they will compete every season and be guaranteed so many home matches, no matter how they perform. Competition without the chance of dire financial consequences for a poor season(s) is what they want. The time as far as they are concerned is to do it now. Personally I wish they would do it and as Jesus said to Judas do it quickly.

They should not be allowed to continue in the EPL as they can't have their cake and eat it. A schism in Football has been coming ever since the huge TV deals came to fruition. The sooner it happens the better. It has nothing to do with football just money and plain, plain greed and of course no risk taking either.

I meant to add, don't I always ! That when attendances drop off for the teams who regularly struggle in a competition such as this, the Club will up sticks and move a new city, country where a warm welcome and generous financial terms are being offered by the powers that be in those locations. Can't wait to see the faces of these teams fans, when Liverpool Vikings take on the Baghdad Red Devils in Oslo, Chelski Cossacks v Guinness Hotspurs in Dublin and the Arsenal AK47s play Real Madrid ( they won't change their name - heritage don't you know ) in Paris, Texas.

Ever since the advent of the PL, and maybe before this old chestnut has been run up the flag pole to see who salutes and every time it's pulled back down again just as quick. This is just sabre rattling. As others have already pointed out. Plenty of clubs with rich owners, including Everton are bubbling under and the "big six" don't like the competition. Especially since only four of them can get into the CL and the other two have to settle for the Europa which doesn't offer enough cash and that's assuming they don't get pushed out by another club and end up with no European football at all.
Why would anyone want to see a league that has no relegation? Once the season was half way through and it was obvious which teams were the also rans all those games would be dead rubbers because nobody is getting relegated. Fans want to see competitive football not pointless games just playing out the fixtures.
Then there is the ticket and travelling costs and time. How many fans can afford cost and time off work to go to away matches 17 times a year when they are in another country and how much would they charge to get in to watch a bunch of millionaires kick a ball around?
Finally there is just the rich club snobbery of it. We are in because we are considerably richer than yow.
Well let them go. But they can't come back if it flops. I'm sure there are five good clubs eager to take their place in the PL. As for the five that left. Out of sight is out of mind. They'd soon be forgotten.

Relegate them to the championship. Then they can go on and create their super league or whatever they will call it. Keep EPL and FA cup. The super league idea is so fucking stupid! Same 18 teams competing year in year out with no inferior league to be related to!!! Whats the point? Unless they create a "2nd division" too lol.

Good shout Soren. Relegate the so called big six teams to the championship, and let this season's top six in the championship get automatic promotion. No need for the play offs then. Then when the so called big six teams are playing in the championship, they can press ahead and sort their European premier league out.

I say big six teams, even though Spurs will probably not be included in any European premier league, they can be relegated anyway, just for thinking they are one of the so called big six teams!!

I'm a bit late on here, but for what it's worth, even though I don't see this happening, if it did...
I would say that the FA and UEFA should say that any club playing in this competition would not be eligible for any of their competitions for 5 years after taking part. In addition, any player who takes part would be banned from official competition. This would include internationals.
So players who say that representing their country is the peak of their career would have to choose between the money and the glory.
Announce that now, and if this story rumbles on it would be interesting to see how many young players wanted to join clubs that were mooted to be leaving the official structure.

Looks like Utd are looking for a way to pay off their huge debts ?

Martin, United would be getting pumped in that competition every single week - their 'recent' fans would tire of that very quickly!

Won't blame Henry or the Glazers for this.

There's a fellow over in American soccer here been pushing this fantasy league for a number of years now. I might look his name up again. But this league has been his dream for a while.

ManU is basically a bottomless platinum mine for the Glazers. They pull a fortune out of that money pit year after year. Give that up to compete with Barca and Royal Madrid for top players? I don't think so.

Barca and RM leaving their current positions in Spain to take a flyer on the unknown? Why? Same with Bayern Munich.

Henry and Levy wanting to fight those clubs for players? I don't think so.

It's a fantasy that pops up every now and again, driven by a handful (a real small one) of individuals. That's it.

Tony Everan at 29. Brilliant, still giggling at the thought.

Until a few minutes ago, the top of the Premiership was:

1. Everton
2. Aston Villa
3. West Ham
4. Leeds United

If that is how the season finished, I - and I suspect the vast majority of English and Welsh football supporters - shall be delighted.

If Manchester United and Liverpool are deducted 100 points each for bringing the game into disrepute with their approach to FIFA... doubly so.

Barca President resigns and announces he has signed Barca up to a Euro League in resignation speech.

Jack, I think the whole board has gone.

So... lies, deception, and contempt. The truth comes out, it was planned, conceived and enacted with the intent to pull a fast one over the rest of the league. The league executives should resign immediately, the clubs concerned be excluded from the league immediately without the option of return as they have undermined the integrity of the Premier League. Full Stop.

Every one of those 6 showed utter contempt for the other 14. There is no going back. Lines have been crossed, trust irrecoverably damaged. The very core basis of the foundation of the Premier League has been fatally undermined.

They should be expelled at the end of the season, with 6 teams being promoted. A transfer embargo on players transferring into those 6 clubs from the rest of the Premier League should be set in place for a minimum of 5 years. (Players can come the other way, why should the players or the Premier League suffer?)

No funds from current Premier League TV rights should be given from the end of the season. Let them see how they get on without money.

The losers in this are the clubs' fans. Do you honestly think that any significant number of fans will travel ever other week to Rome, Madrid etc to watch their team? Estimated costs of roughly a grand for each away game?

They are quite prepared to trample on other teams to satisfy their selfish desire for wealth at the expense of fans and tradition (ha – as if).

Let them go, they won't be missed. Scumbags.

According to David Conn in The Guardian, one of the prime instigators behind this is the dullard, Clarke at the FA. Despite his recent protestations about walking away from it.

Interesting read.. .no wonder we demanded an apology:

Premier League kept Project Big Picture plans secret from clubs outside big six

Commercially they have tried to sabotage the income of the other 14 clubs, deceived them and tried to convince the 14 it was just up for discussion.

My contempt for them is only matched by my rubbing of hands at the prospect of showing them the door.

Let's just say for a moment, that Everton were included in that 6 (just who decided the six anyway?) Would we be happy? Me? No.. not at all. Moshiri, on the other hand?? Kenwright??? You can imagine how it would be sold to us.

If it was an open discussion on the table, then fair enough, warts and all... but this is BS of the highest order. Do it properly or cut them out.

I don't think any of us would be happy, Christine, just as I'm not sure the working class fans who follow Liverpool, Man Utd, Chelsea or Arsenal will be either.

Just more confirmation that they think they can move away from the die-hards, because most of the teams who would go into this league have got enough fans around the world who have never even been inside the stadium of the club they follow in the first place.

That's not to discredit these fans, but to despair at something that would probably only work in the short-term, whilst the greed of the beast destroys the game?

I might be wrong, it might turn into something quite fantastic, but let's not be kidded it's even about the game of football because, in the words of Roger Waters, “It all makes perfect sense”.

Christine (#43 and #45) – two good posts.

It would be nice if the 14 clubs convened a meeting with the other 6 and proposed that the two main, greedy bastard clubs, were deducted 12 points each from this season's competition. This would either make them conform to the rest of the clubs or make them more determined to leave.

I would hope it would be the latter, they would not be missed. The only losers would be the genuine fans of both clubs, of which there are plenty, and I think they would have plenty to say to their managements.

Interesting that Christine's link to the Guardian reports that plans were being discussed as early as February (most likely a lot earlier too) – so it isn't a reaction to Covid.

I think that it will happen in one form or another and it is likely that the 'big six' will continue to play in the Premier League, whilst locking out clubs such as Everton from the big money-spinning 'elite' league.

Will supporters continue to flock to the stadiums post-Covid? Many will initially but may stop attending with the realisation that the only attainable objective for the clubs outside the six is to stay in the top-flight, which won't be enough to satisfy many supporters.

I am afraid that, at some point in the future, a European Super League will be formed, simply because the richest and most powerful clubs here and in Europe want it to happen. I think most of these clubs would prefer to stay in their national leagues as well as in this super league; whether national leagues let them stay is another matter.

But, if and when this league is formed, then as sure as night follows day, the money from Sky will be transferred from national leagues to the new super league. That will also mean all the top players will want to play in this league. For those of us left in the national leagues, we will be left with a poorer product to watch, than the one we watch now.

I think the only way this European league might not get off the ground is if the Premier League changed dramatically the way the TV money is divided up, which may upset fans as much. The likes of Liverpool and Man Utd feature a lot in Sky games primarily because they have the biggest worldwide fan bases, and Sky know that they can sell any package with these clubs anywhere in the world. Where a game between say Burnley and Southampton would not have the same appeal nationally never mind trying to sell this game abroad.

In Spain, Real and Barca get the lion's share of the TV money, but they realize the only way they can improve their incomes from TV deals is a European Super League. Again, PSG would benefit enormously from a European Super League.

Let's remember that the format of the old European Cup was changed from an FA Cup style draw and knockout, to a Champions League seeded draw. Again, the rich European clubs argued that Man Utd could draw Juventus so one of them would lose out on a lot of revenue if they met in the first round. So again, the rich clubs decided they wanted a minimum of 4 games in a league structure and these leagues would be seeded to give the rich and powerful clubs the ability to progress further after making substantial money from the early group stage.

I believe a super league in some shape or form will happen in the next couple of years, unless the Premier League make the TV rights so appealing for the top clubs that there would be no incentive to leave.

I'm beginning to think that these unusual results across European leagues are eroding the mighty monocle men's collective confidence. They are making a non-credible threat to attempt to improve their negotiation position and are giving the game away.

This is indeed another attempt to grab TV money distribution now that the big clubs may pay a price for hoarding talent in the form of stranded assets. They just need to get on with more durable organizational strategies.