"Man Utd and Liverpool driving 'Project Big Picture' - football’s biggest shake-up in a generation"

[Saoirse]

Can they get rid of international friendlies please, completely pointless

They've already got rid of 80% of them in Europe. The only ones left are when other European nations have games (because of major tournaments, playoffs or unequally sized qualifying groups), and pre-tournament warm-ups.

 

[Saoirse]

Let's be honest about our position here. Somebody has phoned up Daniel and said "Hi, this is the plan, we're going to entrench your clubs' status in an all-powerful 'Big 6' despite not being champions in 60 years and pay you £125m, are you with us or out in the cold?" I have a fair idea what his answer will have been.

 

[rez9000]

For all the duplicitous ****ery at play, there are some good ideas in there and something clearly needs to be done.

Rather than just passing it off at complete rubbish couldn't we just use this proposal as a blueprint? We cut out all of the 'sell your souls to Beelzebub' stuff while keeping some of the good ideas about the Premier League, and the parts that would save all of the EFL clubs. Suddenly the bottom 13 EPL clubs aren't all being screwed and there's actually a chance of the majority vote passing.

Not necessarily brilliant for Spurs but good for English football as a whole and more in line with the more fair model of the Bundesliga (where I think the Americans got a lot of their inspiration).

100% Timberwolf. Yes, it should be done like that. But it won’t. There’ll be just enough resistance - all it would need is the Big Six plus one solitary vote to scupper any package.

It’s obvious that this package of proposals is nothing to do with the health of the game, the health of the players, fairness for the fans, or anything that benefits anyone except the Big Six owners.

I would be willing to bet real money that if the package you suggested, or something if its ilk, properly de-Beelzebubbed, were to be put on the table the first, loudest and most strident voices arguing against it would be John Henry, the Glazers and the rest of the Big-Six pack (Levy very much included). And then all it would take would be for one of the non-Big Six to break ranks and that’ll be all she wrote.

Bastards.

 

[Saoirse]

Saying that seeing as Leicester and Leeds have both won the PL as previous champions should they not be part of the majority vote? Wasn’t that how the old ‘big 6’ was made up...

Oh they probably should be, but this is blatantly just a supposedly objective mechanism that gets the Big 6 in while also pretending to have some power-sharing and meritocracy.

 

[buckley]

Someone said the £25 million is for every year not just a one off . Well you are forgetting that the so called big 6 can vote to withdraw that cash offer any time after this deal is accepted and nothing can be done this deal is for " the big Six " and f,,,k everybody else the whole thing has " turkeys voting for Christmas " wrote all over it . Surely it must be obvious that this whole thing is American lead and they have no real idea about football in any case .
I am sure their ultimate aim is to franchise Man Unt and Liverpool and move it on to the big two rather than the big six .
I would hope that Levy would not be tempted by the £125 million bribe on offer for accepting this crap .

 

[popstar7]

Let's be honest about our position here. Somebody has phoned up Daniel and said "Hi, this is the plan, we're going to entrench your clubs' status in an all-powerful 'Big 6' despite not being champions in 60 years and pay you £125m, are you with us or out in the cold?" I have a fair idea what his answer will have been.

He'd be very foolish and short-sighted if he went for it. How does this proposal benefit us in any way 5 or 10 years down the road.

Jeff Bezos wants to buy us (or Leeds or Newcastle or Everton) and invest a couple of billion? United, Arse, Chelsea etc veto it for whatever cobbled together reasons. It's a way for United and Liverpool in particular to leverage their international reach to generate revenue no one else can compete with and stop unwelcome billionaire outsiders from coming in to threaten that domination the way Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour did.

 

[buckley]

I should have said £250 million and not £25 million every year sorry

 

[Lilbaz]

He'd be very foolish and short-sighted if he went for it. How does this proposal benefit us in any way 5 or 10 years down the road.

Jeff Bezos wants to buy us (or Leeds or Newcastle or Everton) and invest a couple of billion? United, Arse, Chelsea etc veto it for whatever cobbled together reasons. It's a way for United and Liverpool in particular to leverage their international reach to generate revenue no one else can compete with and stop unwelcome billionaire outsiders from coming in to threaten that domination the way Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour did.

As i said earlier in the thread. He would probably turn that down but. They are looking at revamping the cl in 2024 and add more teams. If the offer is that and (almost) guaranteed cl every year i can't see him turn it down.

 

[nailsy]

One thing that would be very good is giving the established PL clubs a vote on the potential takeover of one of them. That would prevent another Abramovich or Mansour from ever happening again. I'd even extend that scheme to the EFL.
Ideally there'd be a drive to stamp out dodgy owners of football clubs altogether. The present "fit-and-proper" criteria are a joke and have resulted in a vale of tears for many once respectable clubs and their fans who've fallen into the wrong hands...

That would be a terrible idea. It would allow the other owners to veto any new owner who could come in and threaten their position.

 

[mill]

Project Big Picture: Supporter Groups' Joint Statement

The fans we represent are fortunate to support clubs that regularly secure the largest financial revenues in the Premier League. But all of us understand that football doesn’t work in isolation....

www.thstofficial.com

 

[McArchibald]

In theory, you’re absolutely right, Archie - unfortunately, the types of people who would be given that ability aren’t the types that worry about the suitability of the buyers as long as they have money.

The other problem is that we already have the likes of Abramovich and the Al-Nahyans entrenched in the PL. It’s already corrupted by their asset-stripping / inhumane money. Add Henry and the Glazers to that mix and I can’t see them putting up any resistance, even token, to the likes of the Saudi royal family or the Qataris and their pursuit of a PL sportswashing machine, can you?

Good point. I certainly can't see them blocking owners out of the goodness of their hearts or the mere say-so of human rights groups. The only thing that would work in this setup is their own self interest.
In the US, prospective owners are judged by their would-be counterparts. It works over there because they're all cut from the same cloth - they want to make money. Owners like Red Rom and the sheikhs however are anathema to that model of ownership, because they crave status rather than financial gains. They are often prepared to pour in a lot of their (ill-begotten) money to achieve that end.
This un-economic behaviour is what upsets the applecart and that would be a reason for the Glazers, Henry, Kroenke, Levy et al to block new owners of that ilk. So we would indeed be stuck with Abramovich and Mansour for evermore, but at least you'd create a blockade against others.

 

[McArchibald]

That would be a terrible idea. It would allow the other owners to veto any new owner who could come in and threaten their position.

True. It's a case of "better the devil you know". Moreover, letting these free-spending oligarchs in without let or hindrance would send all the wrong messages to clubs that try to get their house in order and operate on a sound financial footing.
That's why I'd reluctantly be in favour of such a measure.

 

[Tucker]

In fairness I think they would have vetoed the Saudi takeover of Newcastle, and pretty much did in the end. It was going to cause massive problems with overseas tv deals and also be a huge PR disaster at home.

It’s a shame more fuss wasn’t made when City got taken over by a brutal regime too.

 

[L-man]

 

[rez9000]

Good point. I certainly can't see them blocking owners out of the goodness of their hearts or the mere say-so of human rights groups. The only thing that would work in this setup is their own self interest.
In the US, prospective owners are judged by their would-be counterparts. It works over there because they're all cut from the same cloth - they want to make money. Owners like Red Rom and the sheikhs however are anathema to that model of ownership, because they crave status rather than financial gains. They are often prepared to pour in a lot of their (ill-begotten) money to achieve that end.
This un-economic behaviour is what upsets the applecart and that would be a reason for the Glazers, Henry, Kroenke, Levy et al to block new owners of that ilk. So we would indeed be stuck with Abramovich and Mansour for evermore, but at least you'd create a blockade against others.

You'd certainly create a blockade against those types, but they'd welcome with open arms their own type - the type that come up with these kinds of proposals in the first place!

I'd put a laughing emoji at the end of that, but it's just so not funny.

 

[buckley]

I have just heard that Liverpool and United representatives threatened Gregg Clark with breaking away from the status quo and he understandably withdrew from the talks with immediate affect .If what matt Slater says is true and this deal goes thru it is the beginning of the end of football as we know it . For myself at 77 years of age I possibly won't be around to witness the demise of the game .
But my sons and grandsons will so its all very depressing and deflating not to say annoying that so many can be sucked into a crap deal by so few IE Man Unt and Liverpool . Then again I will be hanging on to the hope that the other 18 premier clubs see this for what it is a quick fix for a relatively short term problem and surely they will not give this the nod will they ?

 

[rez9000]

Turkeys voting for Christmas...

Fuck it, give it to them. What do I care? My club benefits. And then when they're screaming about not being on TV and not getting any gate receipts long after Covid is over and they have no money because football has turned into a zombified corpse of what it's supposed to be and they pay the price for it, we can show them that Tweet. And then whisper to them to go and tell their Uncle Rick to fix it for them again. And stand back and see how much they love him then.

 

[Trotter]

I have just heard that Liverpool and United representatives threatened Gregg Clark with breaking away from the status quo and he understandably withdrew from the talks with immediate affect .If what matt Slater says is true and this deal goes thru it is the beginning of the end of football as we know it . For myself at 77 years of age I possibly won't be around to witness the demise of the game .
But my sons and grandsons will so its all very depressing and deflating not to say annoying that so many can be sucked into a crap deal by so few IE Man Unt and Liverpool . Then again I will be hanging on to the hope that the other 18 premier clubs see this for what it is a quick fix for a relatively short term problem and surely they will not give this the nod will they ?

What Matt Slater is reporting has absolutely zero relevance whatsoever to whether it goes through or not.
Of course the EFL in the majority want it, these are the clubs that are desperate for cash now, and want/need it now.

However this has absolutely zero chance of passing. Firstly the Premier League won't get anywhere near 14 clubs voting for it (in all likelihood 14 against), and even if it did the FA will use their golden share veto for the first time ever.

Some parts of it may/will/should come back to the table later, but in its present state, it has 0% chance.



The 14 clubs now may well gang up together now, against the Top 6, and could pass rules without Top6 backing them. Wouldn't it be funny if they came up with a rule that said the winners of the League must give £100m to the EFL, Runners-up £75m etc. every year.
Actually a transfer levy of say 25% would do the job. Clubs have just spent a billion on players, if they had to pay 25% rather than a paltry 1% that would resolve the issue, or charge a fee on wages.
Clubs pay out say £5 billion in wages, put a tax on it, similar to employers National Insurance, and that tax (maybe 5%) goes to EFL clubs, that I would support.

 

[Tucker]

From a devils advocate point of view, if I’m chairman of someone like Coventry City and I see the offer of a better financial settlement from the premier league in exchange for the top 6 having more control, what do I care? Coventry are never going to be able to compete on the same level as United or Liverpool under the current set up, so why does them having more power now or in the future effect me?

So I can see why most EFL clubs would be for this.

 

[slartibartfast]

Suggest the other 14 teams get together and say fk you see how well you do just playing each other in a season. We'll take you from 20 teams to 6 you entitled pricks.
Ooh I could crush a grape.
Greed, pure greed.
I said ages ago after the euro super league shit they're gonna kill the golden goose and this is another nail in the coffin for that poor lovely goose.