The [Horribly Unpopular] Soccer Thread
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Seems Villa might stay up. More importantly, North London remains ours.
Happy Arseover/Arsenholes Day, whichever you prefer.
As long as I don't each shoe and finish seventh and Woolwich Wanderers win the FA Cup.
Not that i could actually root for the one team I hate more than Arsenal. But absent a giant meteor or other hand-of-god smiting, that'd be the preferential result.
Happy Arseover/Arsenholes Day, whichever you prefer.
As long as I don't each shoe and finish seventh and Woolwich Wanderers win the FA Cup.
Not that i could actually root for the one team I hate more than Arsenal. But absent a giant meteor or other hand-of-god smiting, that'd be the preferential result.
robdogj
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You might as well go up to the mountains for a few days at the end of the month. Just to let you know, The Final will be on August 1st.
Reportedly the one and only Ledley King will be taking an assistant (and defense-oriented) coaching position at Spurs.
Perhaps when Jose inevitably burns the house down and gets sacked, Ledley can take the head spot. He was a hell of a captain.
Perhaps when Jose inevitably burns the house down and gets sacked, Ledley can take the head spot. He was a hell of a captain.
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Gonna resurrect this one for a minute to vent.
I didn't think anything could make me abandon Tottenham Hotspur after 30 odd years of support. Jose Mourinho football is bad (so so f***ing bad) but not enough.
This Super League has me peering over the edge. This is disgusting and if they charge ahead with it as they seem to, unforgivable.
May be supporting my hometown Bristol City full time now I suppose.
I didn't think anything could make me abandon Tottenham Hotspur after 30 odd years of support. Jose Mourinho football is bad (so so f***ing bad) but not enough.
This Super League has me peering over the edge. This is disgusting and if they charge ahead with it as they seem to, unforgivable.
May be supporting my hometown Bristol City full time now I suppose.
This is going to destroy football, worldwide.
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I assume you have no objection to the Mourinho sacking. His whole staff. Will Spurs start to play to their potential with the Boring Boy gone?
That was some good news to wake up to but not in the light of yesterday's announcement.
I made a promise that if Spurs follow through with the Super League they're dead to me. I intend to stand by that. I hope they (and the other clubs involved) listen to their supporters and change course while they still can.
I made a promise that if Spurs follow through with the Super League they're dead to me. I intend to stand by that. I hope they (and the other clubs involved) listen to their supporters and change course while they still can.
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I don't see how they can do the super league. A player (and a coach) on a good team that gets in tournaments like CL, plays maybe 75 games a year, not counting national team play. Have they agreed to play another 10 to 20? And at what price?
It would, in theory, supplant the Champions League. So participating clubs would do this instead of Champions League or Europa. It f***s all the smaller leagues since only 5 additional clubs can qualify for this, so they have no shot and if UEFA continues UCL all the big viewership clubs will be gone and the big TV money with it.
I am a Juventus supporter. I am very glad of this news, although I have no idea how much success it will have. Great clubs like PSV or Bayern will not accept to enter the competition on a qualification basis, while the others are guaranteed a place in the league forever. I think it will end up in a 20-25 close tournament, or even a 15 close tournament. After a few years, IF the formula has success, then it will be possible to open to entrants on a qualification basis.
I don't see anything wrong in this. A football club can adhere to a federation, or not adhere, or adhere to another federation, and it can also play in two federations, or in a federation and in a private tournament. People are born free.
At the moment nor FIGC nor UEFA have exclusivity clauses. Nowhere it is written that a club cannot engage in competitions outside the federal ones. Rules can change, but with due procedure, and not overnight by the decision of a couple persons. The 15 clubs have already sent a letter to UEFA intimating to abstain from illegal decisions.
I suppose that, if really UEFA goes on with their attitude, the Superleague will become a round-robin tournament. If the UEFA steps back, as it is likely, then the Superleague will possibly be a faster tournament, or the 15 clubs will just send the "second team" to the UEFA competitions.
The European Championship and the World Championship will, in theory, see a large part of the best players of the planet missing the competition IF UEFA expels the Superleague players. Not something that FIFA wants, ultimately. Try to explain to football enthusiasts that Ronaldo and Messi cannot play the world championship because they play in a private tournament...
I think there will be a lot of barking and no biting from UEFA and the federations.
This reminds me what happened in the Chess championship. From one organization (and a clear "world champion") to a splitting of federations. Chess remains a wonderful game though.
I don't see anything wrong in this. A football club can adhere to a federation, or not adhere, or adhere to another federation, and it can also play in two federations, or in a federation and in a private tournament. People are born free.
At the moment nor FIGC nor UEFA have exclusivity clauses. Nowhere it is written that a club cannot engage in competitions outside the federal ones. Rules can change, but with due procedure, and not overnight by the decision of a couple persons. The 15 clubs have already sent a letter to UEFA intimating to abstain from illegal decisions.
I suppose that, if really UEFA goes on with their attitude, the Superleague will become a round-robin tournament. If the UEFA steps back, as it is likely, then the Superleague will possibly be a faster tournament, or the 15 clubs will just send the "second team" to the UEFA competitions.
The European Championship and the World Championship will, in theory, see a large part of the best players of the planet missing the competition IF UEFA expels the Superleague players. Not something that FIFA wants, ultimately. Try to explain to football enthusiasts that Ronaldo and Messi cannot play the world championship because they play in a private tournament...
I think there will be a lot of barking and no biting from UEFA and the federations.
This reminds me what happened in the Chess championship. From one organization (and a clear "world champion") to a splitting of federations. Chess remains a wonderful game though.
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Let's call it what it is. It's a Coup D'Etat.
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A coup against FIFA isn't a bad thing. FIFA blows. But tournaments where you merely buy your way in will not cut it.
Oh FIFA and UEFA are far from innocent victims. It's the small clubs, including in England Spain and Italy, and the supporters everywhere who are the victims.
and chelsea and city are already trying to leave, the backlash is huge from supporters and national league associations, this is dead in the water.
Oh the collapse is glorious.
Sounds like Woodward and Agnelli have resigned over it. Hopefully Levy does the same.
Sounds like Woodward and Agnelli have resigned over it. Hopefully Levy does the same.
(the Agnelli resignation disputed for the record)
City the first to officially confirm they've withdrawn
Andrea Agnelli resigned from his post at UEFA and at ECA before the announcement of the Superleague. He did not resign from his post at Juventus!
Barcelona confirms they remain. All Italian and Spanish teams so far stand their ground. We'll see what happens in the UK.
The menace by Boris Johnson to deny visas to play the matches could be an idea taken from Stalin. Don't you have freedom of movement in the UK? Do you need a permission to expatriate?
Interference of politics into sport matters is worrying from a freedom point of view.
Manchester City might have made this "decision" due to the bullying by the UEFA. They still have to play the semifinals of Champions League and they fear the (illegal) sanctions by UEFA with immediate expulsion from the competition. We will know only this summer who is in, and who is out.
Chelsea is also said to be considering withdrawing, possibly for the same reasons as Manchester City.
At 22:50 Italian time, the meeting of the Superleague teams is over. Only Manchester City is officially out. All other 5 British teams are in. Chelsea will probably withdraw if UEFA menaces continue, but the door remains open.
Club Olimpia (Paraguay), Boca Juniors (Argentina) and River Plate (Argentina) seem to have posed a candidature to participate.
Perez says that PSG and Bayern will enter the league, when the time is mature (he might be right).
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And that's it. All English clubs out. It's dead.
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Has Boris Johnson upstaged Donald Trump? It took Trump 2 seasons to kill the US (American) Football League.
AC Milan is out as well.
BoJo is a boob in his own right but let's keep politics out of the thread.
I hope that this leads in England to the implementation of the German 50%+1 system.
The project will probably fail.
I suppose it will be resuscitated, in one or two years time, possibly not contacting the clubs which withdrew today.
I would not entirely rule out that the clubs want to end the season, get the money from UEFA, and reconsider, although I don't consider it very likely. I consider the attitude of the British clubs perfidious (as in treacherous).
UEFA as it is now is a disaster in any case: too many matches, most matches totally uninteresting for the Chinese viewers (yes, that's where the money comes from), too little money produced. This is business, is not only sport. Agnelli is right: those who put the money, and those who put the legs, have no part in decisions. UEFA decides all, and does nothing.
Euroleague in basket was a success, and I think it doesn't end here.
The final solution might be a new federation, with several layers of competition (to have promotions and retrocessions) but managed by clubs and players, not by "bureaucrats".
I suppose it will be resuscitated, in one or two years time, possibly not contacting the clubs which withdrew today.
I would not entirely rule out that the clubs want to end the season, get the money from UEFA, and reconsider, although I don't consider it very likely. I consider the attitude of the British clubs perfidious (as in treacherous).
UEFA as it is now is a disaster in any case: too many matches, most matches totally uninteresting for the Chinese viewers (yes, that's where the money comes from), too little money produced. This is business, is not only sport. Agnelli is right: those who put the money, and those who put the legs, have no part in decisions. UEFA decides all, and does nothing.
Euroleague in basket was a success, and I think it doesn't end here.
The final solution might be a new federation, with several layers of competition (to have promotions and retrocessions) but managed by clubs and players, not by "bureaucrats".
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According to a news published by Mundo Deportivo, the reason why the British clubs withdrew is that the UEFA offered them money to remain. This is very questionable legally, and if true, although we don't know the exact amount, we can count them as thirty dinar.
That's it. FIFA and UEFA are corrupt no doubt. Any change has to come in cooperation with clubs and their supporters, not rich owners (as the THST said in a statement to ENIC about this "you're merely caretakers of 139 years of history").
It's telling that players and managers knew nothing about this, let alone supporters.
It's telling that players and managers knew nothing about this, let alone supporters.
The reason British clubs pulled is because there are already protests by their own supporters as well as their opponents as even their own players.
Supporters don't seem to be glad to put the money. Screaming and drinking beer is not enough. A system like they have in Barcelona, where supporters put the money, gives them the right to make decisions, else the supporters have no place in making decisions, and they never had one. The attitude by the teams is political posturing. The British clubs withdrew IMHO for very different reasons than a few hundreds supporters not liking the decision, but they played the "democratic football club" once the decision to withdraw was taken.
This happens any time a club sells a valuable player, some people will go in front of the seat of the club and "demonstrate". Who cares.
Players and financiers are the stakeholders to be taken into consideration. If you manage a theatre, you don't ask the public how do you want to organize the season.
This is serious business, also for the 5 British clubs. They have the same problems that the other great teams have. Problems which could be have been solved by a salary cap, if UEFA was not so corrupted as to allow some to break the rules and some not.
Participation in the Champions League brings the level of investment to "another level", and can be nullified by a bad day.
In Italy, Inter Milan and Juventus have 70% of the audience, and bring 70% of the money to the FIGC. The reason why the FIGC is so opposed to these three teams leaving (the same for Britain) is that the Italian Championship, without them, would lose 70% of its value, actually much more, as the foreign audience mostly only cares for these three teams. The teams wanted to play the national championships though, and the menace by FIGC to ban them was never credible.
The Champions League, which is becoming more and more absurd, together with the Europa League and the third league which is going to start next year, would lose a lot of money in TV contracts if the Superleague is born. That's why UEFA is pissed. Sport values have nothing to do with UEFA "indignation".
Regarding the financing of the "pyramid" (amateurs clubs, local stadions, schools, in short "the movement") the Superleague would have generated 4x the money the Champions League generates for the "pyramid", so it's not solidarity at all the problem.
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- you said to keep politics out. The process which begun in this day is, in reality, irreversible.
The NFL has 300 millions supporters in the world and is worth in rights twice what the entire world football generates, with 3 billions supporters.
The traditional formulas, which were born when the "movement" was immensely smaller, do not hold any more. We are just multiplying matches with little spectacular interest (they can be exceptionally good for the fan, but boring for the foreign viewer who sees the match because it is spectacular) and this multiplication appears to be unending. National Championships have more and more matches, teams engaged in the UEFA competitions are more and more.
When the Champions League was born, it deserved its name. It was a competition between Championship winners. Now it's a salad with most games which are interesting only for the fans.
UEFA and FIFA do not "valorize" the "show" side of the sport. This is the big problem. The big guys make great investments and take great risks. The players are overstressed and we see a continuous list of unavailable players for various injuries. UEFA is pursuing a direction which is 100 years old. World change. He who hesitates is lost. High-level Football must change.
The NFL has 300 millions supporters in the world and is worth in rights twice what the entire world football generates, with 3 billions supporters.
The traditional formulas, which were born when the "movement" was immensely smaller, do not hold any more. We are just multiplying matches with little spectacular interest (they can be exceptionally good for the fan, but boring for the foreign viewer who sees the match because it is spectacular) and this multiplication appears to be unending. National Championships have more and more matches, teams engaged in the UEFA competitions are more and more.
When the Champions League was born, it deserved its name. It was a competition between Championship winners. Now it's a salad with most games which are interesting only for the fans.
UEFA and FIFA do not "valorize" the "show" side of the sport. This is the big problem. The big guys make great investments and take great risks. The players are overstressed and we see a continuous list of unavailable players for various injuries. UEFA is pursuing a direction which is 100 years old. World change. He who hesitates is lost. High-level Football must change.
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In many ways, the stupor league tried to emulate the US pro sports system where the ridiculously rich own teams and get ridiculously richer from all revenues including gate receipts and broadcast rights. No one is ever relegated. It works for bigger cities and regional hubs like Green Bay, but smaller cities are left out entirely. There are no B leagues to move into or back out of with hopes for glory. Even the minor league system in baseball is constantly on shaky ground. Better for EPL, Serie A and La Liga to work on improvements to their systems than throw out the proverbial bathwater. And when the Americans who own 3% of the club start preaching how to fix it .....
The model for the Superleague was the Euroleague in basket.
I don't follow basket but for what I know there are already three layers. It takes time.
Anyway if this is show, you don't need retrocessions necessarily. Take Formula 1. Each stable is in the competition without retrocession. Even after awful seasons, a stable is not excluded from the competition. Formula 1 is overall to be correctly defined as a sport competition. This is true for many sport disciplines. Football is the exception, not the normality.
In Formula 1, is not the FIE who decides the rules and who gets the money. It's the team themselves through some organs. All economic and regulatory aspect are decided by the teams, not by some federation deciding "from above".
The second most practised sport in Italy is cycling. There is no such a thing as "retrocession" in professional cycling. For instance in the Giro d'Italia, the most important cycling race in Italy, the organizer invites the teams at its own discretion. It works since more than a century, and I suppose the Tour de France and the Vuelta work the same. The judges themselves are nominated by the organizers, not by the federation.
Those private tournaments coexist peacefully with the competitions organized by the federation belonging to the Italian Olympic Committee.
Wherever you look at, you find competitions without retrocessions and organized by invitation, and nobody thinks they are not sports. And the federations belonging to the Olympic Committee never place exclusivity clauses.
I see no reason for this fuss, besides the arrogance of UEFA and their fear to lose the money.
I don't follow basket but for what I know there are already three layers. It takes time.
Anyway if this is show, you don't need retrocessions necessarily. Take Formula 1. Each stable is in the competition without retrocession. Even after awful seasons, a stable is not excluded from the competition. Formula 1 is overall to be correctly defined as a sport competition. This is true for many sport disciplines. Football is the exception, not the normality.
In Formula 1, is not the FIE who decides the rules and who gets the money. It's the team themselves through some organs. All economic and regulatory aspect are decided by the teams, not by some federation deciding "from above".
The second most practised sport in Italy is cycling. There is no such a thing as "retrocession" in professional cycling. For instance in the Giro d'Italia, the most important cycling race in Italy, the organizer invites the teams at its own discretion. It works since more than a century, and I suppose the Tour de France and the Vuelta work the same. The judges themselves are nominated by the organizers, not by the federation.
Those private tournaments coexist peacefully with the competitions organized by the federation belonging to the Italian Olympic Committee.
Wherever you look at, you find competitions without retrocessions and organized by invitation, and nobody thinks they are not sports. And the federations belonging to the Olympic Committee never place exclusivity clauses.
I see no reason for this fuss, besides the arrogance of UEFA and their fear to lose the money.
I don't have an educated opinion to counter with but from a distance the various leagues don't seem to be on an equal footing. If I were a PSG or a Juve I would be interested in a bigger money more eyeballs scenario. At the moment this doesn't seem to be true for atleast the top half of the Premiership. The slight majority ownership by the fans in the Bundesliga has always struck me as a better business model but the horse is out of the barn.
@toadie
The 50+1 rule in the Bundesliga simply means that a Football Club, which is a firm at all effect, can not sell (for instance by selling shares) more than half (less one) share of the capital. That prevents a club from being acquired in the financial market. This has nothing to do with fans' ownership though.
A club can be owned 100% by a single individual, and that single individual, if he sells shares of the Club, must retain 50% + 1 share.
The only club that I am aware of in the Bundesliga to be owned by fans is Schalke 04 but I could be wrong. It's a sad day for them today, they were relegated mathematically to the second division.
The 50+1 rule in the Bundesliga simply means that a Football Club, which is a firm at all effect, can not sell (for instance by selling shares) more than half (less one) share of the capital. That prevents a club from being acquired in the financial market. This has nothing to do with fans' ownership though.
A club can be owned 100% by a single individual, and that single individual, if he sells shares of the Club, must retain 50% + 1 share.
The only club that I am aware of in the Bundesliga to be owned by fans is Schalke 04 but I could be wrong. It's a sad day for them today, they were relegated mathematically to the second division.
RB Leipzig have certainly tested the limits of Germany's ownership rules.
I think this kind of elitist breakout was inevitable when some clubs have so much depth that their second string players can field a squad that is still competitive for the top 4...
Clubs like MUFC can play 1st team in prem games and 2nd team in super league...
When that much financial disparity is present between some premier league clubs and others, they'll be collusion to figure out how to game the system...
Glad the fans stood up to this and let the clubs know it wasn't the league or it's president they're screwing, or even UEFA or FIFA...it truly would be the fans...
And moreover, the fans are the BOSS! just like any publicly owned corporation...the customer is always right and so is the shareholder.
Clubs like MUFC can play 1st team in prem games and 2nd team in super league...
When that much financial disparity is present between some premier league clubs and others, they'll be collusion to figure out how to game the system...
Glad the fans stood up to this and let the clubs know it wasn't the league or it's president they're screwing, or even UEFA or FIFA...it truly would be the fans...
And moreover, the fans are the BOSS! just like any publicly owned corporation...the customer is always right and so is the shareholder.
The customer never decides which product to produce, at which price to sell etc. The customer never was the boss. Nor the fan. The shareholder is he who puts the money. He should be the boss, but isn't. The boss is UEFA. UEFA doesn't put the capital, doesn't make the work, but makes all decisions.
