I totally understand your point as it applies well to EPL. It is different in UPL (Ukrainian Premier League) as it is already somewhat of a two-tiered critter: there is 2-4 top clubs and there is everyone else. And not a single club from the "everyone else" category has even finished in top 3 in a VERY LONG TIME. These guys are there to make up the numbers. You take 1 or 2 top clubs out of the UPL and you have a death knell to the league.
Hmm. I see what you mean. I've often wondered though, if similar leagues like La Liga in Spain would be better off if the top clubs left for a Euro league. It would give the smaller clubs a chance to win titles in the domestic league. But I could see it going the other way and having adverse economic effects as well. Oh well, it's an interesting concept to think about.
I think there are definitely points both for and against. It goes against transition, so it's not something I'd really like to see, but also the wealthier clubs are never going to agree to an sort of fairer distribution of income so perhaps the smaller clubs would be better of rid of them?
They're not slim. They're non-existent. I know that and so do you. Come on, be honest. There is probably a greater probability/likelihood of Spurs being relegated in the next decade than winning the league - and this is the club who finished 5th in England last season. If FFP was a fairer system, which gave more clubs the chances of realistically winning anything worth winning, then the bigger clubs wouldn't have voted to introduce it. Mentioning these players who've played for us. Even at a club like Spurs they only want to stay for two or three seasons nowadays. Gazza and Lineker was during a different era, but Klinsmann went after a season, Berbatov after two. Modric went out on striker. Carrick left for United as did Sheringham. None, not really. Finishing 5th is okay, but it's not something to celebrate is it? It's a monotonous existence, and FFP only cements this in place forever. Where will finish for the next ten years? ...5th, 6th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 6th, 5th.... What about in ten, twenty or fifty years? Probably not too different , because the top four will be barred as Chelsea and City have higher revenue than us, as do MUFC, AFC, LFC. Random finises, but you understand my point? And this is for the club who finished fifth, for the rest - Liverpool aside - they'll exist but that's all.
Look, my point all along has been that a Superleague would be disasterous for domestic football. I find your position confusing: You talk about the health of the game, the concept of smaller clubs competing and a more competitve set-up in general. Yet your proposed solutions are one or both of the following: 1) Allow billionaires to come in and bankroll clubs to success 2) Throw in the towel and allow the big clubs to go and play in a superleague. My issues respectively are as follows: 1) Couple of points on this one: - There are only so many billionaires in the world, only so many who are interested in bankrolling a club and likely very few who are interested in blowing vast fortunes in making a club competitive. Only so many teams can benefit from them, FFP or not. For this reason, this whole concept is very uncompetitive and at best just adds another team above the "glass ceiling" making it even harder for the rest of the clubs to compete and indeed to progress. - How can you be FOR this but AGAINST powerful big clubs? You say that if the possibility of this kind of investment is taken away you will have no reason to keep watching the Premier League as Spurs will lose it's only hope of competing. So what you're effectively saying is that if FFP gets scuppered somehow and a billionaire drops a title-winning, European-challenging wad of cash on Spurs, that you'll actually continue watching this terrible, uncompetitive, money-driven league. The only difference will be that Spurs will be challenging for trophies. 2) So you don't like the fact that the big clubs prevent Tottenham from winning the best trophies, being competitive or retaining it's best players. Yet your big solution is to throw in towel and have the other clubs get it over with and form a Superleague. Which in practice would categorically prevent Spurs from winning the best trophies, being competitive or retaining it's players, while also shrinking attendances for the rest of the league pyramid, dramatically reducing revenues from television and sponsorship, massively reducing the opportunity to attract gifted players and quite probably, sending a number of clubs out existence. But the important thing is that Spurs will be challenging for trophies. Notice a theme? You talk about the good of football and making smaller clubs competitive, yet you advocate measures that would actually make matters worse. Except it superficially improves Tottenham's chances of winning silverware.
Neither what you are arguing for, or what I am arguing for are a perfect solution. You do realise that, don't you? You are in favour of a system, whereby every domestic league in Europe will be dominated by the same 1 or 2 clubs. Where a handful of European Superclubs have a monopoly on all the best trophies and all the best players, whilst 'the rest' get to enjoy these players (your Berbatovs and Modrics) for one or two seasons if they're lucky. Without FFP, with billionaire owners, you will get clubs challenging, moving above well-run smaller clubs by being given wads of money. That isn't right for the game either. Both are as bad as one another, but one is slightly better because at least there is hope that one day a smaller club can challenge. What is the prefect solution? Probably to go back to the 1970s or 1980s, before hordes of overseas fans, and enormous TV contracts. At the very least a more even distribution of revenue would be a fair start? Is that likely to happen? Not a chance in hell my friend. United. Real Madrid. Barca. Bayern et al aren't about to give up their seat at the top table for anybody. ******** the rest. The bigger clubs don't want to share their money. They aren't interested in competitiveness whilst the smaller clubs simply can't grow and compete under this 'organic' system. It is for this reason, that I think it is inevitable that there will be a Super League. The marriage between TV, G14, UEFA, the superclubs, minnows, oligarchs and Saudi princes won't last. Don't blame supporters like me for being fed up with what the G14 have inflicted upon us. If I could turn the clock back I would. But that ain't going to happen.
Firstly, just because I don't agree with your solution, it doesn't mean I support the status quo either. Your suggestions exacerbate the very things you complain about but I've said all I can on the subject. You just can't get past the identities of the elite. You think what happened to Man City was "a smaller club competing" when what it was was a fast-tracked "super team" whose existence makes it even harder for your club to get into Europe, compete for titles or retain players. But because the name at the top of the table wasn't Man United or Arsenal, that's what counts to you. That's all there is to say about it. You seem to think I'm all for what "cements" Man United at the top, yet I've spent multiple pages arguing with you against a Superleague that would make us part of the eternal elite more firmly than FFP ever could. And the hilarious thing is that you lament what's happening to your club as if they had nothing to do with all this. They were very much part of the breakaway group that created the Premier League so they good keep a bigger chunk of TV money. In signing Jurgen Klinsmann, they were a big part in paving the way for expensive, big-name signings. I know a guy who lived in Bahrain for a few years as a kid due to his Dad's work. This was during the 80s. Spurs went there for a pre-season tour - just like when they played my LA Galaxy a few years ago. Your team has been just as involved in forming the status quo as mine. You've also stated much that implies you wouldn't be bitching if your club had made more of it. I don't agree with your ideas. I'm sorry. I've already suggested an alternative to protecting clubs from benefactors who ruin clubs by pulling out before the job is done. You didn't comment on that. The next issue - the one that you're concerned with - is striking a balance between rewarding success and risk, without perpetuating a situation where success allows top teams to build increasingly unassailable positions.
As long as its only played when the clubs would otherwise be playing their pre-season warm up/exhibition matches anyway then it wouldn't bother me.
You really think that all these pampered millionaires will give their summer for a pointless friendly competition? Even if they do, ONCE, that will stop very soon.
No they won't but I think the suggestion is for it to happen preseason when a lot of these clubs are flying around the world for warm up games anyway
'Cos the novelty of a Champions Leagues open to non-champions, playing in monotonous mini-leagues still hasn't worn off yet I suppose.
...they want the money which goes with playing in the Champions League more like. Nothing prestigious about the seeded Group Stages at all though. Doesn't become exciting until the knockouts for most reasonably big clubs.
There is a lot about Group Stages. Strong celebrated opposition (the gate, the sporting component, etc.), possibility of adding to the country's UEFA coefficient, ability to measure your talent against the best talented sides on the continent in-season (not when everyone is still mentally at Ibiza beaches)
...and more importantly MONEY. Because everybody knows that is the real reason they replaced the European Cup with the Champions League in the first place.
Point being, I doubt this would be anything but a set of glorified warm-up games. Which is exactly what the "World Football Challenge" was.
Money is not the most important factor. Starting in 1955 clubs fought for the Champions Cup because it meant so much more.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepag...-clubs-should-form-European-Super-League.html On location with Vinnie Jones: SUNSPORT'S Jim Munro catches up with the Hollywood hard man on the set of the Warrior Gambler launch “For the life of me I don’t know why they don’t just do a European League. “If you think about it now, if a London team is playing a Manchester team or a Liverpool team, they fly up there anyway. “There’s no nine-hour coach drives on a Friday night like we used to do. “By the time they get to Heathrow, or wherever they are going from, and they fly up to Manchester and then they get a coach to the hotel, surely they could go to Spain and play Barcelona on a Sunday. “I was looking at the train fares the other day. To Manchester from Kings Cross is something like three or four hundred quid return. “Surely it’s cheaper to fly? So the fans wouldn’t mind it. “Let’s be honest, the Premiership is six teams really going for the championship. It’s the also rans who are trying to stay in the Premiership and keep their heads above water. “Why not have the Premiership but then the elite Premiership which is the European Premiership. “Let’s open it up to Barcelona and the German sides. Then you’d be talking about the best league in the world. “Ours isn’t the best league in the world. I keep hearing this on the radio from Alan Brazil and people like that, “ours is the best league in the world”. It’s not. “The top six is the best in the world, maybe, but until you start putting in the likes of Celtic, Rangers, Barcelona, Borussia Moenchengladback, Real Madrid and Inter Milan, it’s not going to be the best league in the world. “I know they’ve got the Champions League but I think there should be a regular league.”