Der Spiegel Football Leaks revelations

[Saoirse]

My argument is that, if they are going to have to drop from UEFA anyway, wouldn't it make more sense for the top 5 leagues to join together and form this Super League competition? They wouldn't have to worry about their top teams leaving to form this other league, and the top teams wouldn't have to split their winnings with APOEL.

Super League
4 pots of 4 teams from the top 5 leagues

Better than Europa League
4 pots of 4 teams from the top 5 leagues

The domestic leagues obviously wouldn't agree to that - for instance in the Premier League, 14 clubs have to approve any changes, and everyone not involved would be against. So they'd have to break away from their domestic leagues, which has two main issues. One is the risk - if it fails there could be huge consequences for them being legitimately made to reapply and re-enter their domestic leagues at a lower level, whereas if the competition just replacing UEFA fails UEFA can't use that as an excuse not to let them all back into the Champions League thanks to EU law. The second is a legal issue in Germany because players contracts are tied to the Bundesliga, ergo everybody at Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund would suddenly be available on a free transfer and they'd lose hundreds of millions of Euros.

 

[Tucker]

My argument is that, if they are going to have to drop from UEFA anyway, wouldn't it make more sense for the top 5 leagues to join together and form this Super League competition? They wouldn't have to worry about their top teams leaving to form this other league, and the top teams wouldn't have to split their winnings with APOEL.

Super League
4 pots of 4 teams from the top 5 leagues

Better than Europa League
4 pots of 4 teams from the top 5 leagues

The big sides want to guarantee their involvement. They don’t want to be excluded because of something silly like not being good enough to qualify.

If it were to come to pass, the FA, and Premier League should just refuse to accommodatethe desired weekend fixtures.

 

[Saoirse]

Eventually fans will stop going to games. Who wants to be spunking all that money travelling to foreign lands every week? Not your usual cult-follower type. It'd be too costly

Away fans are just about the least relevent group of all. When we go to a big away game in England, we're actually costing the clubs money - they're selling us 3,000 tickets at £30 each that'd otherwise go to home fans for £50-£60. At best even if you abolish that we're revenue-neutral, and in some of the countries involved e.g. Spain there's barely any away fans to begin with. Why do you need an atmosphere in the stadium when you can just add pre-recorded audio of the Stretford End signing Glory Glory Man United to your international broadcast?

 

[robertgoulet]

The domestic leagues obviously wouldn't agree to that - for instance in the Premier League, 14 clubs have to approve any changes, and everyone not involved would be against. So they'd have to break away from their domestic leagues, which has two main issues. One is the risk - if it fails there could be huge consequences for them being legitimately made to reapply and re-enter their domestic leagues at a lower level, whereas if the competition just replacing UEFA fails UEFA can't use that as an excuse not to let them all back into the Champions League thanks to EU law. The second is a legal issue in Germany because players contracts are tied to the Bundesliga, ergo everybody at Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund would suddenly be available on a free transfer and they'd lose hundreds of millions of Euros.

I don't know why it would matter to the Premier League clubs. They're currently only getting 6 slots, which is what they'd get in the 2 new competitions (they may even get an extra 1 or 2 depending on how the coefficients would work). And they could sell it by saying "you're no longer flying to Cyprus midweek" (sorry to keep ripping on APOEL).

I'm going way too deep into my own idea here.

 

[Saoirse]

The big sides want to guarantee their involvement. They don’t want to be excluded because of something silly like not being good enough to qualify.

If it were to come to pass, the FA, and Premier League should just refuse to accommodatethe desired weekend fixtures.

I assume the counter-plan to that involves pulling out of the domestic cups and using their slots.

There's also the tie-in with the Qatar 2022 World Cup which many of the same charachters are involved in. That being played in Winter means all the big leagues are going to have to drastically alter their schedule. Wouldn't it just be awfully convienient if they ended up with those domestic cup fixtures at the same time across the major European leagues?

 

[Saoirse]

I don't know why it would matter to the Premier League clubs. They're currently only getting 6 slots, which is what they'd get in the 2 new competitions (they may even get an extra 1 or 2 depending on how the coefficients would work). And they could sell it by saying "you're no longer flying to Cyprus midweek" (sorry to keep ripping on APOEL).

I'm going way too deep into my own idea here.

Because everyone and their dog knows this is just a precursor to the big sides abandoing the PL entirely as soon as they figure out how to do so and are confident it'll work, which means financial and sporting ruin for everyone else. Plus it'd be a closed house - Man Utd for instance would obviously be in no matter how low they finish, so it's a defined 5-7 teams rather than the top 5-7 which others can at least aim for.

 

[Seafordian Spurs]

I assume the counter-plan to that involves pulling out of the domestic cups and using their slots.

There's also the tie-in with the Qatar 2022 World Cup which many of the same charachters are involved in. That being played in Winter means all the big leagues are going to have to drastically alter their schedule. Wouldn't it just be awfully convienient if they ended up with those domestic cup fixtures at the same time across the major European leagues?

The skulduggery going on..... Whodathunk it...?!

 

[TheChosenOne]

The skulduggery going on..... Whodathunk it...?!

You can bet your bottom Euro that the skullduggery included 'leaking' the info.

Being surveyed as we speak by the movers and shakers throughout Euroland - arm in arm with the broadcasting companies.

 

[buckley]

For me I would say once you leave there will be no coming back and except for the starting couple of years the remaining clubs would recover and I will lead the campaign to say you lot are getting none of my cash.The greed knows no bounds .I also believe that some players believe it or not are proud to play for there country and if I were FIFA I would say that any player that plays for this rogue league cannot play in a FIFA or EUFA competition .But as always I expect money will out and the game we love will be lost forever

 

[Ben1]

I hope they go, I hope it goes wrong.

 

[absolute bobbins]

I’m surprised the premier league clubs would be up for this, it is as clear as the dick on your head that the non English teams see an opportunity to leaverage the popularity of the Premier League to feather their own nests

 

[Saoirse]

For me I would say once you leave there will be no coming back and except for the starting couple of years the remaining clubs would recover and I will lead the campaign to say you lot are getting none of my cash.The greed knows no bounds .I also believe that some players believe it or not are proud to play for there country and if I were FIFA I would say that any player that plays for this rogue league cannot play in a FIFA or EUFA competition .But as always I expect money will out and the game we love will be lost forever

I've heard that a few times but it seems to fundamentally break EU laws protecting competitions. It almost certainly would not be legal for a national association to refuse to pick players just because they played for a private organisation competing with one affilliated to the association - they aren't allowed to use their power protect the domestic leagues from the competition of the "free market" that allows people to set up competition. Similarly it wouldn't be legal for UEFA to ban these clubs from the Champions League if the breakaway failed, they changed their minds and met the ordinary criteria to qualify. Don't get me wrong, I'm hugely opposed to the free-market-must-always-prosper dogma and especially think trying to apply it to sports is pretty batshit, but unfortunately in legal terms football doesn't have any kind of exemption.

 

[buckley]

These clubs if they left would be in no time at all be playing a different brand of football to what they play now as they would adjust there style of play to the opposition they face every week which would be figureatvily speaking killing the goose that lays the golden egg namely the style of play of the premiership

 

[buckley]

I don't know the law but I would guess that the premiership is is not a national association but nearer to an exclusive club therefore not subject to the rules you suggest please correct me if I have misread the situation

 

[Rocksuperstar]

I don't know the law but I would guess that the premiership is is not a national association but nearer to an exclusive club therefore not subject to the rules you suggest please correct me if I have misread the situation

I was thinking the same thing, but even if it's not, they will simply tie up any legal questions in so much red tape that by the time it gets anywhere near sorted then Infantino will be gone, so he doesn't give a shit.

FIFA is there for making a select group of people very rich and laundering dirty money.

The main thing that makes me mad is the World Cup - they choose a country who are then required to upgrade/renovate their entire infrastructure to accomodate a few weeks extra tourism, possibly build new stadiums or make significant improvements to the ones that are already there, all of this causing months of building work and disruption, and all funded by the host country and the people who live there. It absolutely butt rapes the balance of labour and finances in the local areas, causes huge upheavel. Then in waltz FIFA who pay zero taxes to the host country on anything they do for the duration, which mostly includes taking money away from the tourists with extortionately priced merchandise and refreshments, then all jump back in their jets, the tourists leave and the host country is stranded with all of these over-sized stadiums, massive white elephant locations, and their pockets barely any fuller for the experience.

It's a lot like the Olympics, but at least the Olympics are a bit more globally inclusive and the money can be seen going back into the various sports, rather than just into the pockets of a handful of FIFAs top European brass.

 

[freeeki]

I, for one, am delighted we’re not on that list. Happy to not be invited and hope it stays that way.

That said, I would be really sad and disappointed to see Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and especially Arsenal leave the Premier League. They’re essential parts of our league, and as much as we obviously loathe Arsenal, we love our rivalry with them.

Manchester City are an exception. They’re a money laundering project masquerading as a football team at this stage and I’d be quite glad to see them fuck off and never return.

 

[ajspurs]

I, for one, am delighted we’re not on that list. Happy to not be invited and hope it stays that way.

That said, I would be really sad and disappointed to see Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and especially Arsenal leave the Premier League. They’re essential parts of our league, and as much as we obviously loathe Arsenal, we love our rivalry with them.

Manchester City are an exception. They’re a money laundering project masquerading as a football team at this stage and I’d be quite glad to see them fuck off and never return.

Was thinking exactly the same. The thought of the Premier League being somewhat dismounted is quite frankly terrible, but Man City with their ridiculous spending can definitely fuck off.

 

[RichieS]

I've heard that a few times but it seems to fundamentally break EU laws protecting competitions. It almost certainly would not be legal for a national association to refuse to pick players just because they played for a private organisation competing with one affilliated to the association - they aren't allowed to use their power protect the domestic leagues from the competition of the "free market" that allows people to set up competition. Similarly it wouldn't be legal for UEFA to ban these clubs from the Champions League if the breakaway failed, they changed their minds and met the ordinary criteria to qualify. Don't get me wrong, I'm hugely opposed to the free-market-must-always-prosper dogma and especially think trying to apply it to sports is pretty batshit, but unfortunately in legal terms football doesn't have any kind of exemption.

The RFU don't select players who play abroad for England - surely that's a similar idea?

 

[Deleted member 27995]

Fork and done if true.

 

[Saoirse]

The RFU don't select players who play abroad for England - surely that's a similar idea?

I'm not a rugby expert so had to double check but this article aligns with what I thought:

http://blogs.ntu.ac.uk/nlsblog/englands-home-based-player-policy-is-open-to-legal-threat/

Summary is that firstly, it quite possibly is illegal and certainly is in a grey area, but like many such cases needs to be challenged, which would be expensive, arduous and risky for some of the potential litigants. More pertinently though, there isn't any international agreement in rugby on the release of players from club duty for internationals. The RFU have an agreement with Premiership clubs on this but not with those abroad. Therefore in calling up a player based abroad, they'd be risking him not being able to accept it, or having to follow some detrimental condition to do so, or effectively being blackmailed into unfavourable future terms should he make an impact on the team. Therefore, while the rule would ordinarily breach rules on competition and free movement, they can argue that this very substantial practical difficulty in calling up foreign based players justifies it as an exceptional cause.

That wouldn't apply to this hypothetical breakaway unless the Super League in some way made it more difficult for the various FAs to call up their players e.g. by resisting their release or by deliberately scheduling matches during the agreed international breaks and obliging or pressuring players to prioritise them. If they know what they're doing, and sadly they do, they can avoid this.