The Super League (41 Viewers)

[Badass J Elkann]

I still do believe that this is a big fuck you we don't need you ploy to get UEFA to stop being corrupt dirty cunts

Hopefully we push on with the SL and give UEFA the big fuck you anyways.

 

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[Inglip]

I still do believe that this is a big fuck you we don't need you ploy to get UEFA to stop being corrupt dirty cunts

I think that

 

[Osman]

So you prefer current CL over ESL? Because neither from a sporting perspective, nor from the wellbeing of Juventus I prefer current CL over proposed ESL format.

Financially speaking, this would be good for Juve, but ask yourself, do you support Juve for their balance sheet or to see them compete on the pitch? Because, help me understand, how is this consistently competing on merit?

CL with all its glaring flaws, give every team the chance to compete (despite the severe limitations for small nations to qualify to it). You do well in league, you get to compete in CL. You get the chance to beat teams with 10s of times more revenue then you. The ones with most money generally win and waters down the edge of it, but anyone who does well in their league can compete in it. Its a meritocracy at its core, despite how lop-sided it can be.


How is SL gonna even be a real competition that consistently holds its viewers interest, when its completely closed off permanently? And your inclusion has nothing to do with your current performances on the pitch? At its very essence, it would be an embarrassment to have a competition where membership is permanently rigged and guaranteed based on revenue + marketing power. Not football performance.

It is no longer a competition, just an advert.


This is fine to do with national leagues like in america, no matter how silly I find no relegation aspect of it, but to do it for a continent like Europe? With century long traditions and leagues? This has severe risk to completely back fire (in both sides).


Especially if the domestic leagues go through with the threat of kicking out the SL teams from their leagues. Then that's severe game changer, since its much more liveable notion if SL simply replaces mid week CL games. But Juventus without Serie A football is hardly Juventus anymore.

 

[DS8_Montero]

Two questions:

1. Have the media and pundits already started to compare Agnelli to Mussolini and Perez to Franco or we are not there yet?

2. Have they also started to softly encourage Bayern to join the Super League so that they could use even stronger metaphor?

 

[Vlad]

why is it so awful that everyone just freaks out and sells is as the end of football? do you have a suggestion for a solution for those problems, or do you agree that uefa's cl reform would be a better idea?

Have u seen their proposal? 36 clubs. Absolute travesty. There would have been even more meaningless games. Over the last few years Ive watched maybe few games that didnt feature Juve in CL. No interest whatsoever to tune in before late stages if we are out.

 

[Dostoevsky]

Benfica and not Porto. lol

 

[s4tch]

People are afraid of change. It's like Brexit in the UK half the population freaked out and thought this was the end of the UK economy blah blah.

that's different. brexit already hit the uk economy, and i do think it's a bad decision made by the less intelligent half of a country.

 

[Powis]

This made me laugh

 

[Vlad]

Financially speaking, this would be good for Juve, but ask yourself, do you support Juve for their balance sheet or to see them compete on the pitch? Because, help me understand, how is this consistently competing on merit?

CL with all its glaring flaws, give every team the chance to compete (despite the severe limitations for small nations to qualify to it). You do well in league, you get to compete in CL. You get the chance to beat teams with 10s of times more revenue then you. The ones with most money generally win and waters down the edge of it, but anyone who does well in their league can compete in it. Its a meritocracy at its core, despite how lop-sided it can be.


How is SL gonna even be a real competition that consistently holds its viewers interest, when its completely closed off permanently? And your inclusion has nothing to do with your current performances on the pitch? At its very essence, it would be an embarrassment to have a competition where membership is permanently rigged and guaranteed based on revenue + marketing power. Not football performance.

It is no longer a competition, just an advert.


This is fine to do with national leagues like in america, no matter how silly I find no relegation aspect of it, but to do it for a continent like Europe? With century long traditions and leagues? This has severe risk to completely back fire (in both sides).


Especially if the domestic leagues go through with the threat of kicking out the SL teams from their leagues. Then that's severe game changer, since its much more liveable notion if SL simply replaces mid week CL games. But Juventus without Serie A football is hardly Juventus anymore.

Balance sheet and results on the pitch go hand in hand. We need to be strong financially, reduce our debt, keep our star players in order to compete with top teams. Otherwise you are counting on one off season where everything falls into place and we might go all the way. You cant separate the two. This is why Ajax, although a great club, didnt reach semis for more than 20 years.

I agree that if Juve leaves Serie A a lot of appeal would be gone. But I cant see this happening. Expelling 3 major club would have been a major setback for remaining clubs. Sponsors would move away, TV deals would be far less lucrative. Its simply not feasable.

Concerning CL competitivity, which teams have won it over the last 20 years? Its really rinse and repeat, same few teams all over again so I dont see that big of a change.

 

[Bianconero_Aus]

Michael Cox (The Athletic) absolutely nails it:

It was difficult not to react to Sunday night’s European Super League news with horror — not merely the details of the announcement but the manner of it.

Those taking the decisions appear too cowardly to show their faces and explain their reasoning, and managers and players will be placed in the difficult situation of having to either defend a concept their club’s supporters abhor or admonish the people who pay their wages. Or, more likely, explain that their understanding of the situation is limited and it’s nothing to do with them.

The barefaced greed of the big clubs involved comes as little surprise. The relevant owners believe they can earn more money through a European Super League because the current situation is no longer working for them.

But in truth, it isn’t really working for anyone, at least in terms of creating competitive sport.

There have always been big clubs and small clubs. Real Madrid and Barcelona have often dominated Spain; Juventus, Inter Milan and AC Milan have traditionally done the same in Italy. You can say the same for almost every European country. Never before, though, have the inequalities within — and between — major European leagues been so stark.

Use any measure you like — points totals, goal difference, titles, wage bills — and inspect the trajectory of major European leagues over the past two decades, and it becomes clear we are experiencing staggering, rampant inequality completely off the scale.

Juventus have won nine Serie A titles in a row. Bayern Munich will shortly match that achievement in the Bundesliga. Paris Saint-Germain are facing a rare battle this year in France but will probably make it eight in nine years. The exception was in 2016-17, when Monaco beat them to the title; PSG reacted by immediately signing Monaco’s best player. Bayern habitually do the same to anyone in Germany who starts to challenge them. If you can’t beat ’em, tear ’em apart.

Anyone other than the dominant side now wins each of these leagues roughly once a decade. It’s a pathetic situation.

There are a host of wonderful, grand old clubs across European football who, in previous decades, would enjoy being on the fringes of the title race every few years, maybe even getting to lift the trophy once in a while. Now they might be consigned to mid-table obscurity for eternity.

The concept of a European Super League has arisen around twice every decade since the 1960s.

You can find a When Saturday Comes editorial on the subject from the 1980s or a tabloid front page from the late ’90s, but the precise concept of a European Super League has regularly changed.

At times, it’s been a Champions League equivalent, with the relevant clubs returning home to play domestic rivals at the weekends. At other times, it’s been a completely separate division: those clubs’ primary — perhaps only — competition.

That first format, which is what is now being proposed, would make little sense and evidently increase inequalities throughout domestic leagues. The latter, which would involve the big clubs either resigning or being kicked out of their domestic leagues, is sadly starting to make sense from the perspective of competitive sport.

The purpose of a league is to bring together sides of roughly equal standing to play genuinely competitive matches against one another — that’s why the system of promotion and relegation works so well. The Championship, and every division down from there, “loses” its best few teams and worst few teams every year, so the level of competitiveness is automatically high, which is why the concept of the pyramid is so sacrosanct across English football.

But the obvious problem is at the very top, where the relevant clubs are becoming richer and richer, inevitably becoming more dominant and ensuring less competition than ever. The concept of promotion doesn’t apply. They have nowhere to go. Unless, of course, you create somewhere for them to go.

Maybe permanently.

Some Premier League matches don’t even feel like competitive sport. They feel like a freak show; lambs to the slaughter. There are occasional shock results, certainly, but when you assess Burnley’s last four trips to play Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium and realise they’ve lost 5-0, 5-0, 5-0 and 5-0, you start to wonder about the point of it all.

Genuine title battles were once an annual event — these days, they are an occasional novelty.

The league system no longer works at the top. A nine-month, 38-game competition where all sides face the others home and away is perfect if you are trying to separate 20 clubs of vaguely equal standing. With such stark inequalities, we have become accustomed to the division being decided by Christmas. We have accepted this disastrous situation because it’s been a gradual process over years, rather than a sudden development.

In the European Cup, too, we have reluctantly accepted the outright dominance of “superclubs”.

We treat Ajax making the semi-finals or Porto reaching the last eight as remarkable achievements, as if these are non-League clubs getting to the latter stages of the FA Cup. This is absurd — Porto won the Champions League in 2004, Ajax did it nine years earlier. They have now desperately fallen behind, while simultaneously enjoying huge financial advantages over domestic rivals, with their own divisions often as uncompetitive as the major leagues.

The ideal solution would be reeling in the big clubs through salary caps, stricter limits on squad sizes and greater redistribution of television income.

If anything like that is on the table, then let’s go.

But realistically, it’s not.

Through football’s globalisation, power has become so concentrated in the hands of the big clubs that every reform, from those involving broadcasting contracts to those regarding European qualification, increases the hegemony of the elite.

The alternative is to set them free, to let continental giants face continental giants every week in their own fantasy land, and for domestic leagues to regain some level of unpredictability and excitement.

If this Super League plan is abandoned tomorrow, we will still be left with the similarly distasteful reformatting of the Champions League, with elite sides seemingly guaranteed entry and more meaningless group stage (or “Swiss model”) matches to guarantee revenue, so those clubs can sign even more of the world’s best players, fly home and start thrashing Burnley 6-0 instead of 5-0.

The inequalities will become even greater. The dominance of the elite will become even more tedious.

How many times on the bounce do Bayern have to win the title before we realise the Bundesliga — once heralded as the model for others to follow, let’s not forget — is fundamentally no longer a competitive division? Ten? Fifteen? Twenty? When do you get bored? This isn’t individual genius. This isn’t Rafael Nadal winning the French Open 13 years out of 16 because he’s so brilliant. It is structural inequality manifesting itself on the pitch.

European football leagues desperately require more competitive balance and if greater redistribution of revenue is unlikely, the nuclear option may be the only choice.

It’s difficult to find anyone genuinely enthusiastic about a European Super League but some of the rhetoric, particularly from supporters of clubs who enjoy drastic advantages over teams in the same division, feels misplaced considering European football’s current state.

Oppose a Super League in whatever way you can but let’s avoid glorification of the deeply uncompetitive status quo, which would have horrified us had we been introduced to it overnight.

 

[swag]

Benfica and not Porto. lol

That is pretty damn funny.

 

[s4tch]

Michael Cox (The Athletic) absolutely nails it:

just wanted to post it. athletic has a good coverage anyway, but this one by cox stands out for me.

 

[mondo1]

Eventhough I am not a big fan of a super league in general, the path taken by fifa and uefa is so bad that I hope they really start the SL.

The only solution (fifa and uefa have) to the problems football has is to have more matches and more competitions.
Cl with 36 Teams which means even more meaningless games no one cares about. Club World Cup, World Cup, european championship, nations league, conference league all with more teams or newly formed and let’s be honest no one gives a fuck about it.

When they suspended football cause of Covid, I really missed it for a few weeks. But after the restart I haven’t really enjoyed it anymore. To many games in a short timespan. If you miss juve - Cagliari there will be juve - Parma 2 days later so who cares ? The quality has been poor too.

And fuck uefa for telling the dirty dozen to be greedy.... lol uefa of all people.... why do you create more competitions and games ??? Cause you are the greedy fucks


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[kappa96]

Balance sheet and results on the pitch go hand in hand. We need to be strong financially, reduce our debt, keep our star players in order to compete with top teams. Otherwise you are counting on one off season where everything falls into place and we might go all the way. You cant separate the two. This is why Ajax, although a great club, didnt reach semis for more than 20 years.

I agree that if Juve leaves Serie A a lot of appeal would be gone. But I cant see this happening. Expelling 3 major club would have been a major setback for remaining clubs. Sponsors would move away, TV deals would be far less lucrative. Its simply not feasable.

Concerning CL competitivity, which teams have won it over the last 20 years? Its really rinse and repeat, same few teams all over again so I dont see that big of a change.

Bro it was said before. That would breach anti-trust EU legislation. It can't happen or UEFA would be liable for damages, for acting like a cartel/monopoly.
Competitiveness is encouraged not stomped based on current rules.

 

[Badass J Elkann]

This made me laugh

I hope Agnelli told him to go fuck himself. Barely won half a dozen trophies in 30 years and suddenly they want to mix it up with the big boys

 

[Strickland]

Financially speaking, this would be good for Juve, but ask yourself, do you support Juve for their balance sheet or to see them compete on the pitch? Because, help me understand, how is this consistently competing on merit?

CL with all its glaring flaws, give every team the chance to compete (despite the severe limitations for small nations to qualify to it). You do well in league, you get to compete in CL. You get the chance to beat teams with 10s of times more revenue then you. The ones with most money generally win and waters down the edge of it, but anyone who does well in their league can compete in it. Its a meritocracy at its core, despite how lop-sided it can be.

How is SL gonna even be a real competition that consistently holds its viewers interest, when its completely closed off permanently? And your inclusion has nothing to do with your current performances on the pitch? At its very essence, it would be an embarrassment to have a competition where membership is permanently rigged and guaranteed based on revenue + marketing power. Not football performance.

It is no longer a competition, just an advert.

This is fine to do with national leagues like in america, no matter how silly I find no relegation aspect of it, but to do it for a continent like Europe? With century long traditions and leagues? This has severe risk to completely back fire (in both sides).

Especially if the domestic leagues go through with the threat of kicking out the SL teams from their leagues. Then that's severe game changer, since its much more liveable notion if SL simply replaces mid week CL games. But Juventus without Serie A football is hardly Juventus anymore.

I support Juventus as a club and financial performance is an important part of doing well on the pitch which obviously matters the most. Besides in the current CL 80-85% of the participants are in it mostly for the money and prestige, there are 79 teams competing and at least 59 of those teams have 0 shot whatsoever at winning.

Euroleague basketball for 2 decades has had long-term contract thing with 11 teams out of 18 competing, as those 11 essentially make up the organization that runs continental basketball cups, very similar to the proposed format.

Formula 1, which is mainly a European sport as well, also has had set 10 teams for decades without teams getting relegated to formula 2.

Don't know enough about other team sports in Europe (although those two are arguably the most lucrative team sports in Europe bar maybe hokey and the KHL), but obviously there are examples all over the world that the competition remains "real" if part or all of the teams have long term contracts guaranteeing their participation.

 

[Amer]

But I though De Laurentis is an honest paladin, who would never betray his principals.

 

[Badass J Elkann]

that's different. brexit already hit the uk economy, and i do think it's a bad decision made by the less intelligent half of a country.

Short term it was always going to impact it, long term I think it's good still. The idea that the UK regulates itself again is far better than paying hundreds of millions into the EU only to be told we have to give up large portions of our fishing rights and tell us what we can and can't do because of EU laws, it's like we have no means to self govern without intervention. Same with the SL let the clubs self govern, UEFA clearly can't because their interests are only in themselves whilst using the clubs as a means to financially benefit.

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I support Juventus as a club and financial performance is an important part of doing well on the pitch which obviously matters the most.

Euroleague basketball for 2 decades has had long-term contract thing with 11 teams out of 18 competing, as those 11 essentially make up the organization that runs continental basketball cups, very similar to the proposed format.

Formula 1, which is mainly a European sport as well, also has had set 10 teams for decades without teams getting relegated to formula 2.

Don't know enough about other team sports in Europe (although those two are arguably the most lucrative team sports in Europe bar maybe hokey and the KHL), but obviously there are examples all over the world that the competition remains "real" if part or all of the teams have long term contracts guaranteeing their participation.

Tbh Cricket and their super league and IPL springs to mind through all this.

 

[mondo1]

Short term it was always going to impact it, long term I think it's good still. The idea that the UK regulates itself again is far better than paying hundreds of millions into the EU only to be told we have to give up large portions of our fishing rights and tell us what we can and can't do because of EU laws, it's like we have no means to self govern without intervention. Same with the SL let the clubs self govern, UEFA clearly can't because their interests are only in themselves whilst using the clubs as a means to financially benefit.

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Tbh Cricket and their super league and IPL springs to mind through all this.

I am not going to start talking about the Brexit cause that’s another topic but that is a lot of bullshit.
The UK received way more from the EU than just paying hundreds of millions to the EU. You should think about it before stating such bullshit.
Cause that’s all Johnson’s propaganda talk and not even half the truth


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[kappa96]

I hope Agnelli told him to go fuck himself. Barely won half a dozen trophies in 30 years and suddenly they want to mix it up with the big boys

AA to ADL : "Nah were good. The ASL banned you for traveling to the Super League anyway."

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https://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/05/...mpetitive-spirit-european-hijackers-have.html

There were talks back in 1998