European Super league

Its nothing to do with that. I didn't particularly like the whole thing and didn't want it to go ahead (and didn't think it would) but football as a general has just given UEFA a free ride to do whatever the feck they want to do, and they do enough of that as it is

The compromise changes they forced through AGAINST the ECA recommendations are bad enough but their initial plan was pretty much just as closed system as this one, just with significantly worse teams being almost locked in the top level. And with so many games needing to be played and them wanting some of them played on weekends it was going to destroy the English game. There is very little now stopping them forcing it through at some point because no club is now going to go against them

 

The thing is though changes can't happen without either UEFA being forced into them or football breaking away from UEFA and FIFA. As I've said before the ESL was never going to happen, there is too much red tape BUT if they had been able to stick it out longer it might have made them have to start listening to the ECA's opinion more. And if football had maybe got behind the idea of breaking away, especially the like of the PL and English FA but not supporting the ESL structure and pushing for something fairer maybe we could have had football break UEFA's hold completely for the better. We need a governing body that anything made goes back into football, not into the governing bodies pockets because when that happening it becomes about what makes the governing body the most money not what makes the best product

And again if you think nothing bad comes from giving UEFA more power then you need to get a clue and do some research about what their vision of European football is and how national leagues fit in to that (and that's by playing second fiddle)

 

What else were they meant to do. The FA's and the League's are basically in UEFA's pocket and won't stand against them. They all tried as part of the ECA to get CL reforms that produced a better product rather than just adding more matches that people don't care about and basically the only people who benefit from making the value of the competition worse is UEFA because even if the price per match goes down more matches mean more in UEFA's pocket, But UEFA ignored almost everything

And if the ESL idea hadn't been leaked last year as a possibility they would have passed the reform changes which basically created the UEFA sanctioned Super League which as I've detailed before was worse. And UEFA while they adjusted it a bit didn't fix most of the issues if anything they came up with an even worse system thats confusing and its just going to soften fans up to accept a change thats easier to understand and is closer to what the initially wanted.

Again there is a reason the clubs rushed the announcement and thats because everything else had failed and despite UEFA being told to delay the reform announcement so more discussions could be had they announced they were going to ratify it on Monday which is why the clubs announced this on Sunday to try and force UEFA not to ratify the changes

The only card those twelve had to play was pulling a power play like this because most of the TV money is tied on having those teams as part of it. Tv companies aren't paying that much for games like Zenit vs Olympiacos

 

Why was no-one kicking up a fuss about it when it was revealed last year? We had pretty good details of it in the press and no-one batted an eyelid but when it was these 12 clubs and it wasn’t even officially announced everyone lost the plot.

And with UEFA I’m just not sure they will really care what the fans say tbh. There is a lack of accountability across the board with them despite the fact they are basically the self appointed governing body in Europe, there is nothing that says football has to be run through them after all. They especially lack accountability to the fans. It would need a bigger movement than just the fans but the biggest thing and that’s clubs leaving and doing something outside of UEFA is now off the table.

It's why I wish people hadn’t lost their minds as much, it needed a responce of 'we get why you are doing it and support that but not how you are doing it’ because that nuclear option needed protected. They will make ten changes, perhaps one towards it in a step by step basis so people don’t really realise, have the first year decide by league finishes but by that point everything will be too late to stop

 

If the big teams are so against UEFA why continue to take part in the Champions League like they do? Treat it like the League Cup and stick the kids and reserves in, devalue the competition that way.

The ESL was a terrible idea thought up as a power grab to get what they want. They underestimated the reaction of the football world and as a result they now find themselves in a worse position and deeply embarrassed.

 

The voting structure was to be changed to stop the yo-yo clubs sabotaging every attempt to make changes for the better of the game. As I’ve mentioned before there have been multiple proposals made by the top clubs to INCREASE solidarity payments to the EFL and they have either been voted down or have been scaled back with parachute payments being increase by more.

Right now you could put a vote to triple solidarity payments and I can guarantee you Sheffield United, Fulham, West Brom, Brighton and Newcastle would vote it down. Plus atleast 2 of Burnley, Palace, Southampton, Leeds or Villa would join in and kill it. If you reduce it to double and give most of the rest in parachute payments they would agree.

It's just like the plan for the PL was always to reduce to 18. At this point that will never happen as it’s not worth putting it to a vote. And then you have the the 5 sub rule, in Europe United have generally brought on atleast 1, often 2 youngsters who wouldn’t have got on otherwise and that’s good or everyone because the u23 is so pointless getting them some experience helps them develop even if they don’t make it at United but that doesn’t happen in the PL because we have senior players who need some minutes if we are going to make subs. Yes with 5 subs the sub options a top team has will often be better but that’s the same anyway. And even for smaller clubs it gives you more tactical options to make, your CB is looking tired even if it’s a young player maybe you can add some fresh legs to help him out, or put a quick young player up top who can run allowing for the rest of the team to stay more solid. Etc

And sure it wasn’t done overnight but I imagine there are rough plans for a number of things even if they don’t expect to have to call on them. There was clearly a rush here to get it out before UEFA announced the cl changes so they could try and send them back to drawing board and send a clear signal to everyone they don’t support the changes.

And I'm certainly not saying we should remove the chance of a Leicester situation but let’s be honest the CL is already stuffed with too many low appeal games. Russia gets 3 entrants into the CL but in over 20 years they have got out the group stage FOUR times. Ajax who don’t even get automatic entry have done it more than that on their own.

It would be like stacking the FA cup to ensure a quarter of the names being non-league. Right now a non-league team playing in r3 is something people like to watch especially against a prem team it if it happens too often especially in the same season it just lack the appeal. Again using Man Utd I bet the Europa League match against AC Milan had more viewers than all the games in United CL group apart from United vs PSG

 

The things is for the league cup while the money can be pretty decent for teams at your level it’s peanuts for a PL club but that’s not the case in the CL. You get €15mill just for being in the group stages and €2.5m for a win or €900k for a draw. It’s part of the reason why Man City spent so much to fight their champions league ban. Unless you can replace that income it could impact clubs significantly and you would at the very least see see you lose all your prize money. Also without these high level games players might refuse to join or ask to leave. You also have the potential of the PL and FA taking action as they have agreements with UEFA over the CL and EL so they could see the same thing that people were calling for over this happening

 

The groups do largely create a better knockout stage though because despite knockout draws being random they do have this strange habit of drawing the bigger teams against each other in early rounds so when you also get a couple of freak results you get situations where one side of the draw can just open up and you get the finals with the likes of Millwall, Cardiff and the likes. And you also get years where a big team gets an almost walk over all the way through. I think Man City had a year where they didn’t meet a top half PL team throughout and most of their opponents weren’t even PL teams. Which can make things boring

As I said in another reply there is a balance for the most appealing event. Having a couple of teams 'giant killing' is great and produces something appealing but too many and you end up with a fairly uncompetitive season that people aren’t drawn to

 

Because it's worth big bucks for PL clubs to participate in the early stages of the CL and huge bucks for winning it. And as we've just seen, the owners of some PL clubs regard money in their pockets as being of much greater importance than principles.