European Super League Mega Thread

[LSUY]

18 matches in order to get to the final? Player welfare clearly wasn't a high priority when this competition was thought up.

 

[Ghost Hardware]

Perez too

They getting 1 billion each as an entering bonus.

 

[felmani26]

18 matches in order to get to the final? Player welfare clearly wasn't a high priority when this competition was thought up.

What's that versus the proposed format change for the UCL from UEFA?

Undoubtedly domestic cup competitions will take collateral damage from this proposal from A22.

 

[LSUY]

What's that versus the proposed format change for the UCL from UEFA?

Undoubtedly domestic cup competitions will take collateral damage from this proposal from A22.

The propsed format for the UCL is 22.

Domestic cups are going to get hammered regardless of whether it's the new UCL or the ESL.

 

[kd2000]

So who would start in the Star League?
Surely with only 16 places there would be a massive debate/disagreement on this
And by my calculations, those who start in the Star League are guaranteed European football for 3 seasons regardless of their domestic performance. This doesnt seem entirely fair

 

[Nick-TopSpursMan]

If you watch the Sky video on it, it's shocking. You will see that the 'Promotion and Relegation' element is complete fugazi.

20 of the 32 teams in the bottom division get relegated out of the competition and are replaced by teams across europe based on domestic performance. However, that means that if you aren't selected initially you can't qualify for the top division and have to work your way up from the bottom.

As an example, say we aren't picked initially. Even if we won the PL, we'd only qualify for the bottom division of this and would have to spend 2/3 seasons trying to work our up in to the top division. Not only that but teams like Madrid, Barca, Utd etc realistically are never going to get relegated in to the bottom division so will never be at risk of being completely relegated out of it. This means that the likes of Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Madrid, Barcelona etc will be in europe forever and will basically never not be in the competition at either top or second level, thus widening the financial gap even further.

Particularly for us in England, you get seasons where the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Us, Utd have had seasons completely out of european competition. This will never happen again under this format.

All they have done is made very minor tweaks and changed their marketing strategy to try and get fans onboard.

This is essentially the same closed shop it always was and without any regulation, they will eventually try and destroy the domestic game too.

 

[southlondonyiddo]

All boils down to if Premier League clubs can join. If they can’t and don’t, then no one’s gonna watch it.

This will take years if anything does come of it.

It all comes down to how Man City/Newcastle & the American owned clubs see soccer playing out in the coming years

 

[SirHarryHotspur]

Still the matter of a 30 point deduction for English clubs if the PL choose not recognise any new league, for which they would almost certainly get backing from any UK government regardless of who wins the next election through the new football regulator.

European Super League - Six English clubs fined £22m by Premier League over failed breakaway plans - TNT Sports

The Premier League have announced £22m in fines for the six sides who tried to join the controversial European Super League

www.tntsports.co.uk

PS Extract from the Policy paper on the new football regulator proposed by UK Government...

Clubs will only be able to compete in competitions that are approved by the Regulator.
This will allow the Regulator to prevent English clubs from joining breakaway competitions that did not meet predetermined criteria, in consultation with the FA and fans. Crucially, this will safeguard against a future European Super League-style breakaway league.

 

[Oscar22]

Who named those leagues?!

Ooh Gold league!

Ooooooooh Star league!

Proper Mario kart stuff here, but we need one more guys… suggestions? Diamond league? Toad league? Bowsers castle league?

…..nope, errr ‘Blue league’. Oh, ok.

 

[Nick-TopSpursMan]

Spot on basically. This is just a desperate move by Madrid and Barca because they are jealous of the PL and want to bring down the English dominance.

 

[kd2000]

If you watch the Sky video on it, it's shocking. You will see that the 'Promotion and Relegation' element is complete fugazi.

20 of the 32 teams in the bottom division get relegated out of the competition and are replaced by teams across europe based on domestic performance. However, that means that if you aren't selected initially you can't qualify for the top division and have to work your way up from the bottom.

As an example, say we aren't picked initially. Even if we won the PL, we'd only qualify for the bottom division of this and would have to spend 2/3 seasons trying to work our up in to the top division. Not only that but teams like Madrid, Barca, Utd etc realistically are never going to get relegated in to the bottom division so will never be at risk of being completely relegated out of it. This means that the likes of Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Madrid, Barcelona etc will be in europe forever and will basically never not be in the competition at either top or second level, thus widening the financial gap even further.

Particularly for us in England, you get seasons where the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Us, Utd have had seasons completely out of european competition. This will never happen again under this format.

All they have done is made very minor tweaks and changed their marketing strategy to try and get fans onboard.

This is essentially the same closed shop it always was and without any regulation, they will eventually try and destroy the domestic game too.

Couldn't agree more.
This season for instance, as it stands Girona are top in Spain.
They would only make it into the Blue League, whereas Real and Barcelona the Star League.
So Girona, League Champions of Spain are playing in the equivalent of the Europa Conference League and reaping significantly less financial benefits than Real and Barca who would remain in the Star League with the huge sums of money that will provide.
It absolutely stinks

 

[WiganSpur]

If you watch the Sky video on it, it's shocking. You will see that the 'Promotion and Relegation' element is complete fugazi.

20 of the 32 teams in the bottom division get relegated out of the competition and are replaced by teams across europe based on domestic performance. However, that means that if you aren't selected initially you can't qualify for the top division and have to work your way up from the bottom.

As an example, say we aren't picked initially. Even if we won the PL, we'd only qualify for the bottom division of this and would have to spend 2/3 seasons trying to work our up in to the top division. Not only that but teams like Madrid, Barca, Utd etc realistically are never going to get relegated in to the bottom division so will never be at risk of being completely relegated out of it. This means that the likes of Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Madrid, Barcelona etc will be in europe forever and will basically never not be in the competition at either top or second level, thus widening the financial gap even further.

Particularly for us in England, you get seasons where the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Us, Utd have had seasons completely out of european competition. This will never happen again under this format.

All they have done is made very minor tweaks and changed their marketing strategy to try and get fans onboard.

This is essentially the same closed shop it always was and without any regulation, they will eventually try and destroy the domestic game too.

Tbf yeah I agree but you can't argue it's not better than the original proposal. And it's not as if the top 6 PL clubs are in any real danger of relegation from the PL anyway. The main sticking point here is how the initial make up of the leagues are determined. If they want a closed shop in all but name they'll fix it so that these clubs pining for the Super League will get 5-10x the money in the Star League than the Gold league which will pretty much keep them in the pyramid forever.

To give my own approval i'd need to see the following:

- What the prize money is for each of the leagues. Imo the smaller the prize money discrepancy the better.
- How many teams go up and down in any final proposal. The more the better.
- How initial places are determined. I actually think a hybrid approach would work better. E.g PL winner automatically enters the star league. So you might have 6 teams go down, 3 are replaced with the winners of gold league and 3 are replaced by league winner of top 3 co-efficients.
- The number of matches
- The number of teams competing. I'd argue there needs to be a 4th level.
- Stringent and enforceable FFP rules

I think most UK fans would agree with me on those points so with the new UK law and the way German clubs are ran it won't get through once the details are examined.

 

[Saoirse]

The huge gambit which nobody's talking much about yet is the idea that all matches will be free to view. That maybe isn't sustainable past the first few years of investment capitalism funding it (depending on how succesful it is!), but still definitely a big deal.

I'd guess the model could be threefold:

1) Advertising would be the main source of funding. As well as traditional ads, it sounds like this will be an online-only platform - meaning they could try to superimpose personalised ads over the in-stadium hoardings. If you're a sterotypical British football fan the adverts around the stadium while watching Spurs home games on the stream might be for beer and gambling, but if you're watching from China they'll be very different and in your native language.
2) Optional premium subscriptions could be made available. These might remove the ads, but also provide extra options - 4k quality, alternative camera angles and commentaries, manual access to replays and highlights while the game's still going on, names superimposed over players, auto-showing a 30s delayed coverage of different games of your choosing in the corner when a goal goes in, etc.
3) They could then seek to buy the TV rights to domestic leagues, put them on this platform, and charge extra to subscribe to them.

So you end up with a model of Super League games free with advertising, £20 a month for no ads and premium features, £30 a month to watch Premier League games too, marketed all across the world.

Biggest downside for me is how meaningless it'd make a lot of PL games. Right now, positions from 1st-8th and 18th-20th all matter, either because they can put you in Europe or relegate you - over half the league. Suddenly, the only things that matter are 1st and bottom 3, with 80% of the league from 2nd-17th being nearly meaningless. There's only one solution to that I could think of, and it won't be popular - an end-of-season playoff system for the title.

 

[Nick-TopSpursMan]

Couldn't agree more.
This season for instance, as it stands Girona are top in Spain.
They would only make it into the Blue League, whereas Real and Barcelona the Star League.
So Girona, League Champions of Spain are playing in the equivalent of the Europa Conference League and reaping significantly less financial benefits than Real and Barca who would remain in the Star League with the huge sums of money that will provide.
It absolutely stinks

Exactly, that's a great example mate.

I don't like UEFA or FIFA and I think there needs to be reform within the game but anyone that thinks this Super League is better or anything other than another money move by Barca and Madrid to keep themselves as the elite is kidding themselves.

 

[Wick3d]

The more this goes on, the more it becomes clear it is just a shakedown by those jealous of the PL riches. Barca and RM are welcome to join the EPL if they want, might take a while though to work through all the leagues.

 

[Tucker]

It will be interesting to see how the big English clubs respond. It was hugely unpopular when it was first suggested and saw mass protests from fans. The clubs apologised and said they wouldn’t upset the applecart again like this.

So what do they do this time. I can’t imagine the American owners of Liverpool, Arsenal, United and Chelsea being opposed to this idea, and I expect they will try and go back on their word.

What do City do? right now they can blow people away financially, will they be able to do that if Real, Barca etc are their peers? I’m not so sure.

Who knows what Levy and Enic will do, I don’t expect them to be the power brokers here.

 

[PCozzie]

 

[Tucker]

Good for them.

 

[PCozzie]

 

[Yiddo100]

Can’t see the PL teams joining anytime soon and without them there will be very little demand for it.
Apart from Juve, Madrid and Barca who are seemingly on their knees for it.