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.