Greg Clarke involved in talks proposing Premier League 2 and B teams Document is from early talks over Project Big Picture FA chairman says Premier League was not at the meeting The Football Association chairman, Greg Clarke, has admitted he was involved in formulating a document that advocated the introduction of Premier League B teams to the lower leagues and the creation of a Premier League 2 in early talks over Project Big Picture. https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ier-league-2-and-b-teams-project-big-picture?
Please show where this was an English Football League proposal from your link below. This says the EFL was invited but I am struggling to see where it says it was their proposal. Last I looked Greg Clarke wasn't the original CEO of the Premier League and he was the one who invited The Football League before withdrawing. It also says Greg Clarke proposed B teams and a Premier League 2 before walking away Are you making you things up again to suit your agenda ?
You really think that a Scunthorpe v Liverpool battle is a level one? The lower leagues clubs, who 100 percent rely on gate revenue for survival, have been losing ground for decades now, even in their own communities. It's true, they have tradition and warm fuzzies on their side, but banks don't much value such things. To once again quote It's a Wonderful life, "money comes in pretty handy down here, bub." As you have noted, the big clubs need some smaller clubs. But they don't need 90 of them. They don't need 45 of them. The cynic might suggest that there is method in proposing what is seen as madness by the prems desginated non-elite. The problems facing the lower leagues will not go away in the coming months, they will intensify. We know this to be true. There is no gate revenue and they survive on gate revenue. If, say, two huge and storied clubs made a proposal that, at the very least, offered a clumsy powergrab that did however contain the lifeline necessary to save these drowning clubs, then said huge and stories clubs could not be blamed when some, many of said smaller clubs went under for the third time. Huge and storied did, after all, try to help. If only others would have grabbed the rope! The clubs now in the water know they can't stay afloat forever. There is a reason many of them supported the proposal.This will cause fractures in any sense of united front the EFL would like to take in dealing with United and Liverpool (and the other Giants and giant lites). The math on the proposal is pretty simple.£250m "donated" to the little people. balanced by reducing the prem from 20 to 18. The current and streaming contracts pay out at £110m per season per club, but lop off 2 and it's now £122.5m per, so the prem bigwigs are actually 'donating" £5m a year. Except that it also ends parachute payments.Parachute payments last up to three years, and represent, at the very least, £225m a year in payments and up to £270 (55 percent of the per club tv revenue in year on, 45 percent in year two and 20 percent in year 3, clubs that just barely peaked inthe prem only get 2 years, stay for 2 years and more, though, and it's the full three. So if we balance that amount, the kindness of Pool and ManU nets the powerful at least £220m and up to £265m a year above what they now get (divided evenly among 18 and that's an additional £12m to £15 m per club, per year. I realize it's hard to imagine professional clubs prying the fingers of the drowning off the hull of the liferaft, but we should consider that leaking this report might have been, in part, to get greedy men salivating, and that the real behind the scenes fight going on is about whether those top man slots can be expanded by just one more (a case being made by every club not on the list). I mean, is it a coincidence that the top club list stopped just shy of a voting majority in the Prem? This is called negotiation. Beinging this back to pro/rel in the US. If there was a movement towards it, I think we can see in what is happening now over here because of the pandemic that turning that into reality is becoming more difficult. The real fight in the world of footie is over the future of streaming revenue.
Im not sure that's a bet UEFA and FIFA are willing to take. Assuming at some point COVID is under control.... Imagine the big 9 english clubs bolt, taking 2-3 German clubs, 2-5 Spanish, 2-3 French, 2-5 Italians. Maybe 1-3 of the big in Portugal, the Old Firm from Scotland, throw cash at Gala/Fener - enough to get a 20 team superleague. I'm sure there will be diehards who refuse to attend games but...I think there's a lot of modern fans who will go. COrporate boxes. And worldwide media rights will be highly prized. Surely people will watch, because people want to see the best play the best. UEFA doesn't let them play in the CL anymore ? Oh well. FIFA doesn't let them play for national teams? DOes FIFA want to put the WC up against a summer event held by this breakaway entity with the best players in the world? Maybe it's based on national origin of the players, maybe they form teams based on the league the players are in. Azzurri Duo rolls out the best Italians from Juve/Inter/Milan supplemented with C.Ron and all those Croatians who seem to thrive in Serie A? Look at the talent in the Prem, England might actually make the round of 4 . the US doesn't have enough talent in Europe to participate? Like FIFA and USSF have never worked out deals to allow one of the largets markets in the world to do what it wants. FIFA might be a rottweiler when dealing with host nations, but put a big plate of steak out there and they're gonna put that belly up for scritches... It might actually restore some sense of balance to the domestic leagues. One of the arguments we make here is, I want local, or I want elite - MLS provides neither. Imagine being able to pop in to a major metro - by euro definitions - to see a fixture of the best in the world, and still support your local team. I think a lot of "fans" might find that attractive after the initial shock.
(cont).... Imagine the UCL and Thursday league return to being more evenly matched among domestic champions/runners up, and national cup winners. 2nd&3rd tier fifa coefficient countries suddenly have a chance at continental hardware again. If I were a better programmer I'd hack this up in Football Manager
Rick Parry is the chairman of the Football League. Rick Parry was the original CEO of the Premier League.
@CoachP365 What you suggest in the first lines of your first part post: "Imagine the big 9 english clubs bolt, taking 2-3 German clubs, 2-5 Spanish, 2-3 French, 2-5 Italians. Maybe 1-3 of the big in Portugal, the Old Firm from Scotland, throw cash at Gala/Fener - enough to get a 20 team superleague." Isnot possible. First we have Brexit, making a SL including epl clubs nearly impossible, given tax/permits etc. issues. Second it cuts the non epl clubs from their leagues, which in case of the German clubs means they are not allowed to be member of the German FA and as such are out of the UEFA. Third the European Parliament/European Commission has declared national football leagues part of the cultural heritage and as such a SL will find obstacles thrown on their path. These clubs can't afford to jump out and have a couple of years to establish that SL. They need it to bring in the money from day one it started and probably a couple of years to get it in full swing trying to iron out all legal issues. That supposes the leagues and UEFA do nothing in the mean time, which is not likely. For years on end the big clubs have been talking about the enormous sums of money available from American/Asian investors. If this really was the case and these greedy shitheads did see a very good chance to succeed, they already long ago would have taken the jump. However they know it's not that straightforward and a slight hickup immediately would mean complete failure. The SL has been nothing but hot air blown by people to con easy intimidated clubs and football authorities. But the fact is that in the current domestic league set up those clubs have the superclub status and carry that with them into the CL/EL. In the SL there is no room for clubs to maintain their superclub status as you can't all end up in spot 1 to 4. Just look at the pre covid turnover in money of the clubs you suggest to join. The top 5 cash in about a billion each, which is twice to 10 times the amount of the other clubs. So there's nothing super about that league.
Not being European, I appreciate the perspective. What makes UK sides participating in the current UEFA competitions different than a breakaway league, as it relates to Brexit? I don't see how a breakaway league runs afoul of the cultural heritage issue - I'm saying the domestic FAs continue, with their domestic 1st divisions, domestic cups, league cups, etc. Just some of their traditional teams are no longer included. I'm suggesting something that is truly a breakaway - no straddling, if FIFA/UEFA play hardball the players give up that world for whatever competitions the breakaway entity comes up with.
I'm not even sure that's possible on football manager. That ship has not only sailed, it's over the horizon.
I think you're wrong on this.I know we have very different views on the EU, part of that is Holland v Germany, part of that is that I covered it for 15 years and, IIRC, you've worked with or within it, or you're just a supporter, but it took the EU more than a decade of arguing to come up with a definition of honey, and in the end they failed at the task. The EU wouldn't be capable of stopping a super league, and British club tax status will not be a coup de grace in efforts to stop it. First of all, we don't yet know the new agreement, and it could well address this sort of thing. The SL may not happen, but it won't be the EU stopping it.
The beauty of the cultural heritage thing is that it doesnot require the EU to agree on definitions or anything as it is a country only decision and prerogative to declare something a national cultural heritage. The EU never can decide for a country what is or isnot their cultural heritage. That it is a widely shared feeling is expressed by the decleration of the EU that football is a shared cultural heritage, which means that a fight against it will be impossible to win. Try as a fledgling SL to fight in at least France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal and against the EU legal battles. By the time the dust settles the superclubs are dead. The most important thing is the time slot for the SL to succeed. So they need the weekend as the matchdays but to be able to do so they have to have permission from the local authorities. Not gonna happen. The UEFA iirc tried that for their gunned down proposal to drive out the national leagues out of the weekend in favour of what they intended as a surrogate SL/Cl format. If the UEFA already has to back down, how likely is a rogue SL going to succeed to force that?
The EU donot need to stop it in the first place, as it isnot part of a EU wide tax regime. Individual countries have their own tax legislation and matches that have to take place within their boundaries are their sole jurisdiction. There's no restriction of competition within the EU, because each match isnot going to be played elsewhere in the EU (Bayern isnot going to play their Juventus match in Amsterdam). So the SL has to negotiate with all the countries in which their matches take place the tax and permits conditions. The UK gouvernment is incapable of negotiating an orderly Brexit for essential things for the Brits, but you think they sort out this for a few clubs SL status?
The current UEFA competitions are subject to EU laws, and the UK as a EU member automatically are subject to them too. The Brexit aims to break away from EU laws and as such a SL out of the UEFA is on it's own, not part of the EU/UEFA partnership as it's described in this memorandum: https://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/uefaorg/General/02/56/17/27/2561727_DOWNLOAD.pdf
For those who think Pro/Rel can be swept aside in Europe this is an interesting part of that memorandum:
This Dutch Supreme Court decision tells the Netherlands can tax football players who play matches for a foreign club on Dutch soil without violating EU laws concerning freedom of services. file:///C:/Users/R558UQ~1/AppData/Local/Temp/metis_186778.pdf
That's a memorandum of understanding agreeing a common approach to things like human rights, match fixing and drug use in sport. It's not a legal document. It states that "it does not create rights or obligations under international or domestic law" (section 6). There are plenty of sports in Europe that do not operate a pyramid type structure with promotion and relegation.
I actually think this is one area they might get done. Not that they will do the work, but the clubs will hand the deal over, on both ends.
Bit of a nightmare, though, to enforce. Would not be popular, and there is a very simple way around this (no more home games for Dutch teams in euro competitions). The way around this is not what the Netherlands would want, however, so the notion that they "can" chose to tax also means they can chose not to tax.
and it is paid out why? and for what? Again, it isn't shared by the clubs/leagues ... But you think UEFA will K The purity aspect of everywhere else vs the US in terms of stadiums not being leveraged, financed, or taxpaid has absolutely been tossed out multiple times over the course of this discussion. Yes, the taxpayer aspect is the biggest bullet point in that. Which is funny since it is done elsewhere ... OL new stadium in France for example, uses public money.