Platini manifesto about to ruin the face of football - could even lead to a g14 euro league!

[Dark Savante]

The pressure on us to deliver every season will grow now - youth development and so forth will be the fall-guy.

Wenger and his sacrificing of entire seasons to blood kids will end.

The division between the haves and have nots will reach a new level of finncial disparity - imagine if the same 3 teams qualify for Europe for 3yrs straight. The 4th and 5th placed teams simply won't be able to afford to constantly front the cash to cope/compete.

This is bad news. The Euro super league is one step nearer... as the big clubs in the G14 who are most affected by the likelyhood of not qualifying, simply will not stand for it.

TV revenue for the CL will drop... the product won't be as marketable - no offense to the champions of Lichtenstien, but nobody will be interested in watching them play - certainly not the same level a big 3 4th vs 4th CL tie would generate.

We aren't goiing to be able to blood any kids when Platini's plans are implimented. IF you think it's bad now, just wait to see what it's like when there's only 3 CL places to play for!

[sdotsom]

I just posted about this in the "Run-in Thread", and I agree wholeheartedly. Fighting only for 3 spots not only automatically leaves out one of the English Big 4, but also completely destroys any chance of an Everton or Spurs sneaking into the CL. Platini is really screwing things up. He may think that he's opening up the CL for smaller leagues, but does anyone think the Belgian league's new opening is going to win the CL? Absolultely not! If you want to distribute money, the current existing model does it very well, based on TV revenues and progress in the tournament.

In fact, there is nothing wrong with the CL as it stands, but Platini will screw it up. And when Liverpool or Arsenal start missing out from the CL, as well as other big G14 teams, that Superleague will start to be a real possibility.

[Vermont Red]

Platini clearly pandered towards the smaller federations in order to win the election. He is also considering expanding the European Championships to 24 teams. Bring on the Super League.

[Dark Savante]

I wouldn't be too quick to say 'Liverpool/Arsenal' it could well include us and even the toy team. All it takes is one bad transitional year and any of the 4 could be in the mire.

Essentially, it means we need a very young and settled team by 2010, one which won't 'do an Arsneal' in which they've tried to intergrate so many kids at the same time as new signings.

What I worry about is that the changes will literally force an abandonment of a lot of kids. They will not get chances to play here. If it's tough on the Rossi's, Jones' and Piques now - it'll be 10x worse by the time the club is fearful of not hitting top 3 every single season. If you include our debt, it is absolutely imperative we qualify every single season, the same goes for Arsenal to a lesser extent.

Platini is an idiot with delusional romantiscm of this, the modern game. Money rules eerything moreso than it ever did and the simple fact is no one cares to watch minnow champions over a big game between a 4th placed side in Spain and England for example.

I mean, Liverpool vs. Valencia or.. Shelbourne getting raped by Real Madrid? It's not a hard choice to make for most neutrals. The European Cup (a Cup of champions) and it's ideologies are well gone. Platini doesn't seem to understand that, moreover, he doesn't seem to care.

Hey! 4 linesmen! :rolleyes: genius.

[Achtung]

I doubt the big leagues will see their CL entrants reduced, for one simple reason: money. Right now, the clubs benefit from the CL, as do the sponsors. It's tough to see either side wanting to make changes to the format at this point.

Regardless of what Platini says, he'd need the support of all sides to get things done. Just think of all the crazy things Sepp Blatter has said, almost none of which came to fruition.

[biro]

If it does happen it will bring The super League one stop closer. IF. UEFA would lose a lot of TV money if the CL is diluted, Platini will be told this if he tries anything. Sooner or later those in charge of the federations will realise it's the clubs that ultimately have the power, not the pen-pushers and bean-counters.

[sdotsom]

I wouldn't be adverse to a superleague. F**k it, it would let us develop our teams, we'd always be in the competition, and we'd still be playing the top competition of Europe. The the CL feature games like Bolton vs Villareal in their knockout rounds....what a stupid idiot Platini is.

EDIT: The clubs have the power. Platini shouldn't forget that. Does he think anyone will watch his product when United, Madrid, Barca, AC Milan, etc are not in the competition?..F**k no.

[Dark Savante]

A super league would be an unmitigated disaster.

The game would be so far away from its roots as to be a new entity privvy only to the rich.

Not to mention travel expenses and so forth. This is one area where the US and Europe differ greatly.

I know your teams travel all over the states.. do home fans travel with them?


Prices for a superleague would also be astronomical.

[GrodZilla]

This won't happend, for the simple reason that UEFA can't afford it. If they exclude the 4th teams in the big leagues the competition there will be less revenue for UEFA. Face it, how many people where interested in the Bucarest games this year for example?

Anything that is bad for the clubs is bad for UEFA as well... Money rules, therefore it doesn't matter if Mr. Platini thinks he's in charge or not.

[GrodZilla]

A super league would be an unmitigated disaster.

The game would be so far away from its roots as to be a new entity privvy only to the rich.

Not to mention travel expenses and so forth. This is one area where the US and Europe differ greatly.

I know your teams travel all over the states.. do home fans travel with them?


Prices for a superleague would also be astronomical.

Not really, you can't compare the entertainment industry that is american sports to the europern counterpart anyway. The difference in how the vast majority sees it is too big... It's more show in the US...

[schafer]

So what exactly is Platini proposing? Is there an article of some sort I can read?

[GrodZilla]

So what exactly is Platini proposing? Is there an article of some sort I can read?

Basically a cap of 3 teams from each nation in the CL, only sources I have are in Swedish...

[listen_up_fergie]

Not only that, but crap teams which top the table in crap leagues will qualify ahead of the fourth best teams from England, Spain and Italy.

[The Jitty Slitter]

A super league would be an unmitigated disaster.

The game would be so far away from its roots as to be a new entity privvy only to the rich.

Not to mention travel expenses and so forth. This is one area where the US and Europe differ greatly.

I know your teams travel all over the states.. do home fans travel with them?


Prices for a superleague would also be astronomical.

This is exactly what Murdoch did to rugby in the southern hemisphere.

[benni...]

So what exactly is Platini proposing? Is there an article of some sort I can read?

I think I read somewhere that he wants to have a cap of 6 home based players in the team. Wether is the first XI or the XI and reserves I dunno.

[sitati_kituyi]

I'm totally against the limitation on international players in the team, but I personally agree that smaller nations need more representation in the Champs League, and if that means the 4th place finishers in England miss out to give champions elsewhere the chance they deserve, so be it.

[sdotsom]

I know that sounds good on paper, but does someone really want to see the winners of the Welsh league/Romanian League/Hungarian league, etc over the likes of Liverpool, Valencia, Roma, Schalke, etc? It lowers the quality of the competition, and no matter how many Cinderella stories you've seen those lower teams will NEVER win the CL.

[dcsundevil2002]

I know that sounds good on paper, but does someone really want to see the winners of the Welsh league/Romanian League/Hungarian league, etc over the likes of Liverpool, Valencia, Roma, Schalke, etc? It lowers the quality of the competition, and no matter how many Cinderella stories you've seen those lower teams will NEVER win the CL.

Probably not, and in the shortterm, we will most likely see matches were Barcelona drop 7 goals on a random Latvian league winner in the group stage. We will also see an even larger arms race in the big leagues, worse than Chelski has been doing for the last three seasons.

However, if this ever went through, hopefully we would see a direct impact of the CL money going to the lesser leagues that raises their level of play. I doubt it will happen, but I think that is one of the "reasons" Platini concocked this idea. Well, that and to buy votes.

[schafer]

I think I read somewhere that he wants to have a cap of 6 home based players in the team. Wether is the first XI or the XI and reserves I dunno.

I'm assuming cap=minimum?

Is there a universal definition of home-grown, btw? How long would a player have to be in a country to be considered homegrown?

Edit: Another question. I'm not too familiar with how the legislative process works at UEFA. Does Platini need to get a certain % of votes from the FA's of each country to put this plan through?

[johno]

No, there's a UEFA committee that has to pass any adjustments to the laws. I believe most FAs have representatives on that committee.