Football Discussion

Alolan Diglett said:

Wow Jose Mourinho just been sacked. Didn’t expect that just yet. End of season maybe but not now

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As poor as Jose has been at Tottenham recently, it seems crazy they would sack him just before a League Cup final. I take it he must have made Daniel Levy pretty mad...

I don't even follow football but as an outsider I can see how ridiculous this is. The idea that those with the most money can buy themselves a place even if their performance is woeful? And what's the point of even "competing" if you can never lose?

Interesting Word of the Day from Countdown's Susie Dent:

I don't really have anything to add regarding The Super League. Football is dead.

I'm hearing rumours Jose has been sacked due to refusing to hold training due to Spurs' intentions to join this Super League. Rumours, but it wouldn't surprise me if Jose is very against this and took a stand, and you would not sack your manager the week of a cup final, regardless of how recent results have been.

José may be a bit of a prat, but he did win the CL in 2004 with Porto, which is worth remembering here.

If Mourinho took a stand and has been sacked for it, well, good on him I say.

Yeah Jose was on his way out regardless, but I don't think it's a hard to imagine that exit was expedited after last night's announcement based on the timing. A league where 75% of the participants have no chance of being removed from the competition even if they lose every match is beyond a joke.

If the details that came out back in January are true, then if a club came into the league as a qualifier rather than a founder member and won, they'd earn less than some founder clubs who come in and just play the group stages.

The Premier League need to hold their nerve on this. I'm sure some clubs are doing this for leverage for the Champions League changes, but there's also a couple who are just plainly obsessed with making European football like the US franchise system. They saw one of their "guaranteed" places disappear with Leicester and clearly just want to force the status quo of a limited number of clubs at the top.

I am impressed that fans across all teams are united in condemning this though, I just hope the threats from those running the leagues along with UEFA etc are followed through with actions. With DAZN rumoured to be the broadcasting partner, it's clear why BT and Sky are letting their pundits run crazy about it as they don't want to see their revenues drop. We also all know that when you have the likes of JP Morgan involved that it's going to be even more money having to be forked out by fans to watch it. Be that on a hideously expensive new streaming service/TV channel, higher merchandise/shirt prices or through completely over inflated and inaccessible ticket prices to watch the match in person.

Removing all that money from the top of the football pyramid is a death sentence for many clubs. I'm ignoring the mooted "solidarity payments" as that's nothing but an effort to appease people rather than any sort of meaningful effort to fund the lower leagues. Using Covid as an excuse for starting this up and trying to say it'll make things sustainable for everyone is an outright disgusting lie too, and the last thing many clubs and the PL need is a massive upheaval like this. There's one reason for this - protectionism. Those 6 clubs want to guarantee their revenue despite mediocre performances for many, and balls to anyone else.

I saw an article at lunch that stated that the Government could change employment laws to make it hard(er) for players in the European Super League and some analyst suggested that the Glaziers could finally then justify moving the team abroad (e.g. to Dubai) and no longer have to worry about the expenditure on modernising Old Trafford.

That would make the Wimbledon vs MK Dons move look trivial in comparison.

We're not talking about VAR anymore

There's a petition to stop the formation of the European Super League. I've just signed it and the link is below.

http://chng.it/QL4y9G5Tsc

Judging by the outrage on Twitter, other clubs, ex footballers, fan supporters groups, UEFA, national leagues, politicians and from fans placing banners up directly on the gates of the likes of Anfield - a change.org petition really isn't needed in this case!

Like everyone I am completely opposed to the European Super League and I think it is the death of football as we know it. It is a bit rich of Sky and BT to be complaining when they charge upwards of £50 for sport channels, they can't say this is the death of football when they contributed to it in the 90s.

I would say there will be a stalemate between FIFA/UEFA and the ESL. FIFA/UEFA aren't going to want to see the best players not represented at a world stage. Messi, Ronaldo etc are the money makers

It's all about money, which is why I find the faux-outrage of many pundits and senior football figures highly amusing. Gary Neville for example, who teamed up with a billionaire to pump millions into a non-league club, abandon their history and pay their players extortionate wages relative to their league. All to get them into the EFL where the club can benefit from increased revenue from TV money which will directly benefit the owners. Then he stands there on TV ranting about "the soul being sucked out of football." How about the souls of those clubs Salford demolished in their "meteoric" rise to the Football League via their players being paid 5-10x as much as the competition?

Skyscraper said:

There's a petition to stop the formation of the European Super League. I've just signed it and the link is below.

http://chng.it/QL4y9G5Tsc

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Football has all been about money ever since $ky bought most of the rights. Other sports too.

If the current super league goes ahead then its just a natural progression from the greed that started in the 90s

And although the current crop of $ky pundits are up in arms about it, I wonder how much $ky will pay for the rights to show this new superleague ?

What happens to the players for one of these clubs that's signed up for the ESL? If they don't like the idea of being disqualified from the Euros or World Cup (or even don't like the idea of it simply because it's a reprehensible money grab), can they walk away or are they contractually forced to stay and be at the whim of what the club decide?

Alsty said:

What happens to the players for one of these clubs that's signed up for the ESL? If they don't like the idea of being disqualified from the Euros or World Cup (or even don't like the idea of it simply because it's a reprehensible money grab), can they walk away or are they contractually forced to stay and be at the whim of what the club decide?

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I guess it would be based on their contract, if they solely specify game time then probably not. If they specify game time in certain leagues/competitions (which is pretty likely at that level), then they'd likely have something to be able to walk away. From the looks of how things seem to be going, I'm guessing the whole situation is going to head to the courts before any games are even played anyway. The ESL are already saying they're ready to file legal cases against organisations who kick clubs out of leagues and competitions. On the other side, some of the UEFA countries like Denmark are already calling for clubs to be kicked out of the CL. They're well aware their own clubs have little to no chance of getting anywhere near the 5 spots in the ESL, so its essential the CL and the revenue it brings is still available to them.

All eyes are on the Premier League tomorrow. They have a meeting with the remaining 14 clubs to decide on what action to take (if any). Likewise with UEFA, we await to see what they do this week as well.

Whatever happens, even if the whole thing is ditched, the face of football has been changed forever. The ESL clubs have already left the European Club Association, ManU's Ed Woodward has quit his UEFA posts and UEFA's president Aleksander Ceferin has made comments which pretty much threw a grenade under any sort of reconciliation with those involved. Top that off with the UK government coming out with some very strong statements and finally the fan-led inquiry everyone has been asking for, and things are going to get very interesting.

It's just a damn shame everyone couldn't move as quickly and as forcefully on the racism front...

I'm sure many of the arguments being made now would be familiar to anyone that could remember the 1992 creation of another breakaway, mercenary, greedy, selfish vendetta that was destined to destroy all the clubs below it - the Premier League.

Money talks and business wins out. Even if this doesn't up up happening, it will be due to a calculation of profit. It will be very interesting to see what happens. Someone is going to have to back down, because the Premier League - also being driven by profit in mind - cannot withstand the loss of the 'Big' 6. Nor, dare I say, can UEFA or even FIFA tolerate the loss of those star clubs and players from the Champions League, Euros and World Cups.

These Super League clubs know what they are doing. They have have slightly miscalculated the backlash, but the idea could easily prevail if *some* of the fans have their arms twisted. The reiteration that the Premier League would continue with them involved, more on the mechanism of how others can be promoted into the league and how the promised billions will be feed into the smaller clubs. These are are all things that will bring *some* fans on board, or at least enable them to get used to the idea. The model suggests that the building of international fanbases and revenues would 'fill the gap' as it were.

Sorry Tom, every team in English football can aspire to getting into the Premiership, through proper promotion and relegation.
This idea is simple closed shop protectionism...nothing like the Premier League.

Comparing this to 1992 is quite simply deluded. Of course there are similarities, but the differences are far more substantial. I won't pretend to know what the public mood was back in 1992; it was the year I was born so I have no idea! But the Premier League was not and is not a closed shop. If Manchester United have a terrible season they can get relegated. A non-league team can make their way all the way up to the Premier League. A team can get promoted from the Championship to the Premier League, be bottom of the table at Christmas, perform a great escape and then win the damn thing the year after with a 10 point cushion.

No doubt people will come out and try to pick holes in what Gary Neville has been saying purely because they do not like him. But he is spot on, and you have to put allegiances aside if we as football fans want to fight against this. There is no point getting annoyed because Neville owns a football club himself and money is being pumped in. Of course he wants to make money, that is business. But it is all through competition where each week 11 players play against each other and at the end of the season the most successful teams get promoted and the least successful teams get relegated. Pumping money in does not guarantee success (I'm looking at you Sven for your time at Leicester).

Going back to 1992, there were excellent points made on Monday Night Football about the differences. Look at how facilities have improved in English football since 1992, and that is not just facilities of the top clubs. Many clubs up and down the country have wonderful modern stadiums. The Premier League itself is a great competition. It's not like other European leagues where the same team is winning it every single year, it is a truly competitive league.

And that is the main point in all of this - it is a competitive league. This so called super league is not meant to be competitive. It would not matter if a team won the compeitive or finished bottom of their group of 10. It doesn't mean anything. It would basically be a competition of glorified friendlies whereby every team gets a huge prize come the end of it. The same. Every. Single. Year.

This has to be stopped. We cannot let football be turned in to some franchise NFL model sport.

One thing that was being said on Facebook is it appears to be spearheaded by the Spanish and Italian teams.

- Barcelona are in 1B debt
- AC Milan, Juve and Inter are all struggling finanically
- Real are building a new stadium so are looking to get money back.

"It makes economic sense!" say the owners who spent over £100m on an ageing Hazard and Ronaldo respectively.