European Super League (Indefinitely Suspended)

[Jack Dempsey]

Football (or Soccer if you want so) is the most popular sports in the whole world FOR A REASON!!!

Just to be clear, I have nothing against the american system. It works well for the NFL, partly even for the NBA and NHL (no clue about Baseball). BUT I hate the american way for european teams and competitions. It just doesn't work. We are talking about almost 150 years of professional Football, 90 years of World Cup, 65 years of official club competition on the international level. Why are those american/asian billionaires buying european clubs? Why not just buy MLS teams and spent money on them, get the best players in the world and sell the product? Is it because nobody cares about them? Even when the NY Cosmos got Pele and Beckenbauer, nobody outside the States cared about it. They are buying european brands that are created over the past +100 years of football in Europe.

You guys talk about the lack of competition in Europe and you are right. But the competitiveness got lost when the UEFA changed the CL format in 1997 (they are no Angels by themselves but I'm sure they got blackmailed by the biggest clubs at that moment) and especially when all those billionaires started buying european clubs. Before that we were fine. In the timespan between '87 and '97 the English Football/Premier league and the French Ligue1 had 6 different champions, the German Bundesliga and the Italian Serie A 5 and the Spanish La Liga had "only" 3. The Champions Cup/League has been won by 8 different teams from 6 different Nations, the UEFA Cup and the Cup Winners Cup (btw, that was a great competition, such a shame they got rid of it) by 9 different teams. THAT IS PARITY!!!! Football in Europe took a huge hit in the mid 90s and is facing it's hardest moments right now.

About the Super League. I would like that to happen to be honest. I mean, there's no way I would watch a single minute of it but I think it would be a good thing for the European football in the long term. To be honest, I haven't watched the Champions League for years now, especially not the knockout phases where the same couple of teams play every year against each other again and again. I've seen it a couple of years ago and I have no intention to watch the same matches all over again. It's boring. And many of my football-excited friends feel the same.
But back to the SuperLeague... I just hope the FIFA/UEFA play hard ball and kick them out of every FIFA/UEFA based competition. Let them create their own League. And I hope their fans will show the same dignity they are showing right now and boycott the new competition along with all the european gouverments and media. I've heard on some british TV channel that an american or asian Pay TV channel will buy the rights for the games. I'm fine with it as long as Europe stays away from it. Let them play against each other with no fans in the stadiums. Friends of mine here in central Europe prefer games from the australian and even belarus football league right now because because they have no fan restrictions due to covid. It's a whole different game with and without fans. Who's going to get excited watching that?

And what about the Champions League and the Premier League? At first they will certainly take a big hit but in the long run they will be more than fine. I'm sure many fans would enjoy watching Napoli vs West Ham in the Champions League in a true typical european atmosphere at the Sao Paolo Stadium. Or Celtic vs Ajax, let alone Bayern vs Olympique (either one). All those teams would emerge and become big names in their national competitions. The UEFA didn't collapse in the 80s after banning english clubs for 5 years. And 20 years ago, a Chelsea vs Tottenham game wasn't that big of a deal outside of England anyway despite their rivalry. City and Atletico were even in the 2nd division. Things change. The sport of Tennis won't go extict after the Djokovic and Nadal as the two greatest players in history retire. New players will emerge. People kept playing Tennis after Borg and Lendl retired too. Same will happen with football.

My only concern is that the UEFA, FIFA, the gouverments, the media and the fans back down in the end and accept the situation. That would be a complete disaster for european football. We have to be united now more than ever and fight for our sports. Don't let those greedy bastards take it away from us.

[rapstarter]

That was an admirable job by Florentino Perez to announce himself the biggest **** in sports.

[Mamba81p]

Are you serious?


I've been increasingly falling out of love with American sports: first, baseball; then, football; and now, slowly basketball.

I hate the commercialization of most American sports, especially football. One of the things I love about real "football" has nothing to do with the game itself and that is there are no TV/commercial timeouts during the two halves.

And as far as this proposed league is concerned, I think it's an absolutely dreadful idea. FIFA and UEFA are no saints, but these owners are financial vampires and are taking the 100+ years of tradition, passion, blood, sweat, and tears of these clubs and even more importantly the communities that built them and selling all of that for money.

It's sickening.

I wish there was a way that teams could be forced to operate like clubs in the Bundesliga where only 49% of a club can be privately owned. It would inhibit foolishness like this from happening.

Yes.

The NFL is the most entertaining & successful ($$) sports league on the planet. No, I'm not gonna debate that with you.

European Football would benefit greatly by adopting some of the NFL's rules (Salary cap). Now, that's obviously a biased take. But it's a real one.

What‘s so entertaining about a game that is stopped like every few seconds?

Guess it takes the teams more time to get in position than the actual game action!
I fall asleep whenever I watch NFL tbh.

Everyone has it's own taste and values. Someone can say the same thing about soccer. "The most boring sport in the world that makes fell asleep. Watching something for 90 mins where nothing happens" and to be honest, there a lot of soccer games that are insanely boring.
Judging someone else's opinions/taste/preferences and values is not cool, and that goes beyond sport

[wco81]

Some of the founding members of the SL are setting themselves to be perennial doormats for a few years at least.

If they weren't going to qualify for CL next year or the next few years, they won't be that good in the SL, where they don't have a dozen games vs. bottom of the table clubs.

What is that going to do to ticket and merchandise sales if a club like Arsenal or Tottenha are like #15 or #16 in the SL table?

[NyCeEvO]

Some of the founding members of the SL are setting themselves to be perennial doormats for a few years at least.

If they weren't going to qualify for CL next year or the next few years, they won't be that good in the SL, where they don't have a dozen games vs. bottom of the table clubs.

What is that going to do to ticket and merchandise sales if a club like Arsenal or Tottenha are like #15 or #16 in the SL table?

We need to be clear. The owners of the clubs (not the clubs themselves) have made these decisions as Klopp said.

The owners don’t give a rats ass about their team’s place in the Super League as long as they are in it getting their slice of the €3.5Bn pot and most other clubs aren’t.

As far as fans are concerned, I’d venture to guess that some youth will tout “Well, at least my club is a permanent fixture in the Super League unlike yours” as bragging rights against every other supporter not in the League....smh

[NyCeEvO]

Yes.

The NFL is the most entertaining & successful ($$) sports league on the planet. No, I'm not gonna debate that with you.

European Football would benefit greatly by adopting some of the NFL's rules (Salary cap). Now, that's obviously a biased take. But it's a real one.

What‘s so entertaining about a game that is stopped like every few seconds?

Guess it takes the teams more time to get in position than the actual game action!
I fall asleep whenever I watch NFL tbh.

Everyone has it's own taste and values. Someone can say the same thing about soccer. "The most boring sport in the world that makes fell asleep. Watching something for 90 mins where nothing happens" and to be honest, there a lot of soccer games that are insanely boring.
Judging someone else's opinions/taste/preferences and values is not cool, and that goes beyond sport

But they’re not even talking about the sport. They’re saying that the sport is so beholden to ad revenue that they’ve sacrificed pacing and a quick flow to the game for countless commercial breaks.

Right now, a lot of people are attributing the decline American football ratings to politicization. While I do agree that it has impacted it to a certain degree, our attention spans (especially for the younger generations) have become shorter and shorter. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the attachment rate for the younger generation is lower than Boomers, Gen X, & Millenials.

For me, it is hard to watch an American football game with all of the unnecessary breaks for ads. I used to be an avid NFL (Broncos) fan, but my love has been waning for a while. I have only watched a few series of the last 2 Super Bowls. My younger self couldn’t imagine missing a few snaps, let alone whole halves of games. For me, the ‘entertainment per minute’ value of international football is much higher than it is for American football.

[Mamba81p]

Some of the founding members of the SL are setting themselves to be perennial doormats for a few years at least.

If they weren't going to qualify for CL next year or the next few years, they won't be that good in the SL, where they don't have a dozen games vs. bottom of the table clubs.

What is that going to do to ticket and merchandise sales if a club like Arsenal or Tottenha are like #15 or #16 in the SL table?

Tottenham just fixed their problem: Mourinho. I think they will be fine.
Arsenal need to get their act together and fix their recruiting and probably a better manager. The player recruitment will be a bit easier since they will always play in the top competition.
For Arsenal in particular I think it's better to be 15th in SL, than to be in Europa League every year.
In the long run they will need a salary cap and a CBA similar to NBA, but for now the 12-15 founding members are in similar size markets(except for London and Paris).

[Mamba81p]

What‘s so entertaining about a game that is stopped like every few seconds?

Guess it takes the teams more time to get in position than the actual game action!
I fall asleep whenever I watch NFL tbh.

Everyone has it's own taste and values. Someone can say the same thing about soccer. "The most boring sport in the world that makes fell asleep. Watching something for 90 mins where nothing happens" and to be honest, there a lot of soccer games that are insanely boring.
Judging someone else's opinions/taste/preferences and values is not cool, and that goes beyond sport

But they’re not even talking about the sport. They’re saying that the sport is so beholden to ad revenue that they’ve sacrificed pacing and a quick flow to the game for countless commercial breaks.

Right now, a lot of people are attributing the decline American football ratings to politicization. While I do agree that it has impacted it to a certain degree, our attention spans (especially for the younger generations) have become shorter and shorter. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the attachment rate for the younger generation is lower than Boomers, Gen X, & Millenials.

For me, it is hard to watch an American football game with all of the unnecessary breaks for ads. I used to be an avid NFL (Broncos) fan, but my love has been waning for a while. I have only watched a few series of the last 2 Super Bowls. My younger self couldn’t imagine missing a few snaps, let alone whole halves of games. For me, the ‘entertainment per minute’ value of international football is much higher than it is for American football.

Ironically I find NFL better when the attention span is shorter. In NFL at least you know when to pay attention. I always do something else when I watch a single game(not in redzone), and I can easily do both. With a soccer game it's harder to do that, because you have to pay attention for 90 minutes, if you really want to watch the whole game.

As for declining ratings, that's BS from the right wing. Their ratings are so bad that they just doubled the TV money, and got 100 billion dollars for their bad ratings. They will probably get an additional 30-40 billions for Sunday Ticket.

[Cactus Jack]

For me, it is hard to watch an American football game with all of the unnecessary breaks for ads. I used to be an avid NFL (Broncos) fan, but my love has been waning for a while. I have only watched a few series of the last 2 Super Bowls. My younger self couldn’t imagine missing a few snaps, let alone whole halves of games. For me, the ‘entertainment per minute’ value of international football is much higher than it is for American football.

That's why God invented the Redzone channel.

[Raps in 4]

What‘s so entertaining about a game that is stopped like every few seconds?

Guess it takes the teams more time to get in position than the actual game action!
I fall asleep whenever I watch NFL tbh.

Everyone has it's own taste and values. Someone can say the same thing about soccer. "The most boring sport in the world that makes fell asleep. Watching something for 90 mins where nothing happens" and to be honest, there a lot of soccer games that are insanely boring.
Judging someone else's opinions/taste/preferences and values is not cool, and that goes beyond sport

But they’re not even talking about the sport. They’re saying that the sport is so beholden to ad revenue that they’ve sacrificed pacing and a quick flow to the game for countless commercial breaks.

Right now, a lot of people are attributing the decline American football ratings to politicization. While I do agree that it has impacted it to a certain degree, our attention spans (especially for the younger generations) have become shorter and shorter. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the attachment rate for the younger generation is lower than Boomers, Gen X, & Millenials.

For me, it is hard to watch an American football game with all of the unnecessary breaks for ads. I used to be an avid NFL (Broncos) fan, but my love has been waning for a while. I have only watched a few series of the last 2 Super Bowls. My younger self couldn’t imagine missing a few snaps, let alone whole halves of games. For me, the ‘entertainment per minute’ value of international football is much higher than it is for American football.

American football, as a game, is designed around pausing play frequently. It's a very easy sport to commercialize.

European football wasn't designed with pauses in mind. But everything that could be monetized about the sport was monetized. There are sponsors on jerseys, there are sponsors around the field, there are sponsors behind players/coaches at press conferences, etc. European football teams are just as much about making money as their American counterparts.

I'm not a fan of American football either, for what it's worth. But this idea that it's a soulless commercial husk while European football is this bastion of socialist equality is silly. The boring argument is a fruitless one as well. Most Americans think European football is boring. I think American football is boring. There is no objectively right answer. They're two different sports and different people have different tastes.

[Sedale Threatt]

Some of the founding members of the SL are setting themselves to be perennial doormats for a few years at least.

If they weren't going to qualify for CL next year or the next few years, they won't be that good in the SL, where they don't have a dozen games vs. bottom of the table clubs.

What is that going to do to ticket and merchandise sales if a club like Arsenal or Tottenha are like #15 or #16 in the SL table?

Tottenham just fixed their problem: Mourinho. I think they will be fine.
Arsenal need to get their act together and fix their recruiting and probably a better manager. The player recruitment will be a bit easier since they will always play in the top competition.
For Arsenal in particular I think it's better to be 15th in SL, than to be in Europa League every year.
In the long run they will need a salary cap and a CBA similar to NBA, but for now the 12-15 founding members are in similar size markets(except for London and Paris).

As an Arsenal fan, I'm actually looking at it from a totally different perspective. That's just more money for Stan Kroenke (net worth: 8.2 billion) to not spend on players, so why the hell would I care?

[Sedale Threatt]

At any rate, based on what I'm seeing and reading, and I have no idea how to accurately assess this, but the response seems to be overwhelmingly negative so far. If that is indeed the case and it continues, it will be interesting to see if they still push through with this or not, ramifications be damned.

[Hellcrooner]

im completley against it.

and check my team.

if we screw up one year and finsh 10th in la liga we DON NOT DESERVE to play european competition.
If Real Valladolid or Eibar goes on a monster season and finish top 4 then they DO deserve to play CL.

Plain and clear.

No to this b.s

you win your wings on the green you dont buy it with greens.

[ZoLo]

Im in awe of Florentino Perez. The guy knows how to run a propaganda campaign. The whole world can see through this blatant power grab. And he just doesn´t give a ****, son. No, this is actually good for small clubs and the whole world of football if an exclusive club of billionares are doing their thing and getting richer, and that those filthy rich men alone have the power to decide who can join the club.
The profits the SL will generate will massively support clubs like Spielvereinigung Unterhaching. It just does. Believe him. He will make Unterhaching great again.

I should hang a portrait of him at the clubhouse in my town. Just to honor this great man.

[Hellcrooner]

Im in awe of Florentino Perez. The guy knows how to run a propaganda campaign. The whole world can see through this blatant power grab. And he just doesn´t give a ****, son. No, this is actually good for small clubs and the whole world of football if an exclusive club of billionares are doing their thing and getting richer, and that those filthy rich men alone have the power to decide who can join the club.
The profits the SL will generate will massively support clubs like Spielvereinigung Unterhaching. It just does. Believe him. He will make Unterhaching great again.

I should hang a portrait of him at the clubhouse in my town. Just to honor this great man.

someone has to explain me how atletico , bayern or juventus can agree to a league where the PRESIDENT is florentino who has rigged the " draws" and blatantly payed the refs for the last hafl a decade and deprived them of several C.L wins.
like seriously, refs robbed atletico TWICE and Bayern TWICE against them and juventus once.

[wco81]

Im in awe of Florentino Perez. The guy knows how to run a propaganda campaign. The whole world can see through this blatant power grab. And he just doesn´t give a ****, son. No, this is actually good for small clubs and the whole world of football if an exclusive club of billionares are doing their thing and getting richer, and that those filthy rich men alone have the power to decide who can join the club.
The profits the SL will generate will massively support clubs like Spielvereinigung Unterhaching. It just does. Believe him. He will make Unterhaching great again.

I should hang a portrait of him at the clubhouse in my town. Just to honor this great man.

someone has to explain me how atletico , bayern or juventus can agree to a league where the PRESIDENT is florentino who has rigged the " draws" and blatantly payed the refs for the last hafl a decade and deprived them of several C.L wins.
like seriously, refs robbed atletico TWICE and Bayern TWICE against them and juventus once.

I guess in the Serie A, only a couple of teams are making big money. Same is true in the other top leagues.

In the EPL though they have a huge TV contract where the bottom of the table clubs are getting tens of million of quids a year. So the 6 biggest EPL clubs may think that they should be getting more money, not having to share with a Sheffield or Burnley.

Meanwhile, Barca and Real get huge revenues but their TV money is nothing like the EPL so they want a more TV money. Same probably for Juve and the Milan clubs.

I wonder if SL games will only be available on paid TV, like Sky and maybe ESPN or Paramount + in the US.

[ZoLo]

Im in awe of Florentino Perez. The guy knows how to run a propaganda campaign. The whole world can see through this blatant power grab. And he just doesn´t give a ****, son. No, this is actually good for small clubs and the whole world of football if an exclusive club of billionares are doing their thing and getting richer, and that those filthy rich men alone have the power to decide who can join the club.
The profits the SL will generate will massively support clubs like Spielvereinigung Unterhaching. It just does. Believe him. He will make Unterhaching great again.

I should hang a portrait of him at the clubhouse in my town. Just to honor this great man.

someone has to explain me how atletico , bayern or juventus can agree to a league where the PRESIDENT is florentino who has rigged the " draws" and blatantly payed the refs for the last hafl a decade and deprived them of several C.L wins.
like seriously, refs robbed atletico TWICE and Bayern TWICE against them and juventus once.

I don´t know. They are business partners, it seems thats all that matters. And they don´t want to be left behind.
And yes Perez is a special kind of bastard.

[Speadge]

The NBA represents the interests of 30 franchises whereas UEFA represents 37 member associations with each of them organizing football for their respective nations.

We are talking about a governing body whose intent it is to represent the interests of in excess of 1000 professional football clubs divided over 59 divisions, and each association member represents and organizes thousands of domestic clubs on their own.

There are 26000 football clubs in Germany alone and each of them benefits by the structure put in place by the professional clubs and UEFA.

We're talking about a scale here that's so massive that it's laughable to draw comparisons to US professional sports league and to chastise UEFA for being slow to adopt changes.

Without this structure there would be no Manchester United, nobody around the world would give a flying **** about Anfield, or any of the plastic clubs in Premier League that now have the audacity to act as if they're a step above.

Chelsea and Manchester City for **** sake, those clubs wouldn't even be around if it wasn't for revenue sharing with the lower divisions that's been the lifeline for a lot of lower tier clubs for decades upon decades.

This split has nothing to do with UEFA failure to innovate, it's a cash grab by greedy know nothings that think that their inherited wealth entitles them to play by a different set of rules.

Disgusting and shameful, I hope they all burn in hell.

That's very good post for those who try compare soccer with those few NBA franchises thinking that Europe is one country without grasp how big this thing is and how separation of those teams hurt whole european soccer perspective.
UEFA provides financial support to develop and foster football at all levels - that's the biggest problem some people here does not understand.

I think the people you disagree with you understand very well. You should not assume that if someone doesn't agree with you, doesn't understand something. Here in US we like to debate a lot, which is very healthy.
What UEFA does in Europe, the high schools and colleges are doing it in US. UEFA and FIFA are being chastised for being corrupt, with well known and unknown scandals around that

That's exactly the answer which telling me that you're missing the main point what peope try to tell you.
I don't doubt that someone finance sports on a micro level also in States, hower this does not change the fact that it's UEFA who does this with soccer in Europe.
UEFA is not saint, but it's beyond my understanding how someone can't see how bad idea is a separating of richer part of association from UEFA for whole European soccer.
Unless you believe that all the other european soccer, development of young talents included, apart from those few clubs for us don't matter.

[Stribor]

I wonder what will happen if the uefa stands opposed and banishes clubs. All the transfers depend on the European laws which promote free quitting. That would probably mean that legally you could just offer better money to player and he could go to any direction without club compensation, which would be completely in line with European judicial system, Big 12 have more money than others, but others are many and if they do not need to compensate, a lot of teams could just offer a better salary to one player, if they can avoid compensation. This fight could be really interesting, but it depends on the proposition that UEFA really expels those clubs completely, and there is a question if italian or spanish leagues will have guts to stand out to big three of their countries.

[Young Stapler]

"Our primary job is to maximise our revenues and profits. The wider good of the game is a secondary concern"

Wow