They have approved the new Champions League format in the morning. In it there will also be entry for 'legacy teams' as Manchester United that don't qualify through the top four places.
It will be the irony of ironies if Juventus fail to qualify for next year's CL as they might be overtaken by Napoli. This is a result I am hoping for!!!
Is there a sport for legacy teams such as Ajax who have won more CL titles than Inter, ManU or Juventus??
The orchestrated outcry by BTsport and Sky (Murdoch) has by the way an opportunistic slant. They're afraid to see the golden goose slip away, and then see themselves outcompeted by Amazon for instance. American owners might go for American companies, and form a similar symbiotic relationship as between Sky-EPL over the last few decades.
It is just so corrupt how this is setup. I'm not at all a fan of what this will do to the mass of clubs in all countries. And the thing is, if it is gonna happen how can they justify adding a team like Tottenham (3rd team from London!) over Ajax. Sure Tottenham may be a bit better currently, but that's 100% down to exposure and EPL revenue. If you give Ajax the exposure and revenue of the ESL it would be huge. On one side you have Ajax: #6 winningest team ever - 4x European champion, 2x runner up. Revolutionized football with their attacking brand of football and boasts the most successful football academy in the world. Brought the world legends like Cruijff, Van Basten, Rijkaard, Bergkamp and many other greats like Stam, Van der Sar, Seedorf, Davids, Sneijder, Van der Vaart, De Ligt, etc. On the other side you have Tottenham: ... 1x runner up... what influence have they had on the game? What players have they brought up? And then consider Feyenoord and PSV who also have great history who are just being trashed as well as the entire Dutch league and basically the entire footballing nation of the Netherlands. I mean shit, having Ajax play in this would be a huge opportunity for Ajax (and in that sense the Netherlands if everyone becomes an Ajax fan) but there is way too much history for that to happen. And at the end of the day Ajax wasn't even invited, they are being completely ignored in favor of clubs with billionaire owners. This isn't a European super league - this is a money league for a few billionaire teams. Look, I don't want to blow up 100 years of tradition but if I really really really reach and try to find any positivity in this, I could imagine a set up a bit like an American sports organization but then with all of the best and most prestigious clubs in Europe. Honestly that could be really cool, and it could change the game, allowing teams like Porto and Ajax to represent their country, keep their best players and that could be a big opportunity for those countries that are now being lost in the Champions money League. But in my opinion you would have to make it a real European thing, adding teams like Ajax, Porto, Benfica, etc. and honestly teams like Feyenoord, PSV, Lyon, Galatasary, Fenerbache, etc. would have to be considered as well. They would at least have to make a 2nd "superleague" level with those teams, and then possible promotion/demotion. Then I could see this working and I could see it being something very cool. Still you would have to think of how grass roots football and other league teams aren't being completely decimated.
https://thesuperleague.com/press.html is the press release. Two groups of 10 with home and away fixtures, beginning in August. The fact that founding members cannot be relegated is a total joke.
Here is a good link to the debt issues plaguing the "Super League" teams: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/606-cant-keep-us-locked-down.1995148/page-9765#post-39473019
Florentino Pérez, President Real Madrid CF and the first Chairman of the Super League said: “We will help football at every level and take it to its rightful place in the world. Football is the only global sport in the world with more than four billion fans and our responsibility as big clubs is to respond to their desires.” Does anyone really believe this???
Instead of Super League, let's level the playing field and make it fair by introducing salary cap. Perhaps take the average of all teams' salaries in the league, then cap in the middle. That way small clubs can have a competitive chance and we have better football. Imagine a World Cup with only top 12 teams, no surprise, no upset....Either FIFA and UEFA expand too many teams, clubs that the quality drop or now they condense to only a few, which is also not fair. For example, I still feel Euro is much better with 16 teams than 24 and World Cup is much better at 32 than 48; and Euro is not good with only 8 teams or World Cup is not good with 24 teams.
It says something about the utterly shambolic way that the big clubs have run themselves as business entities that they're still basically on the verge of bankruptcy despite the fact that there are literally billions of fans worldwide. And it says something else that, despite the fact that these clubs are massively in debt (and everyone knows it), they expect us to believe that a league of a dozen teams will somehow fix their debt while also providing money for the game down the chain to smaller clubs.
The always very well-informed journalist Van Wessem says that in due time the Super League will also include non-European clubs. Think of American clubs here (south and north America).
The Six-Day War lasted three times longer than the European Super League— Leander “same handle *elsewhere*” Schaerlaeckens (@LeanderAlphabet) April 20, 2021
Looks like the English teams are out https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/14712426/man-city-chelsea-quit-european-super-league/
Woodward's resignation announced (although he was supposedly leaving anyway), Agnelli rumored to be out. Not a bad start. It's a crazy world we live in when FIFA and UEFA are suddenly on the right side of an issue, morally speaking.
Agnelli and Perez really come out of this badly. I think the Agnelli family is the largest shareholder in Juventus but I don't know if he can stay on as President now.
Given the severity of what these clubs have done, it's like kicking the referee on the pitch, they should be punished with a three year ban of all UEFA Cup competitions.
I dont see how any of the Billionaire owners can stay on now. They've lost all credibility. They're like a rudderless ship
Its unfair to do that because you're punishing the entire clubs and its fans, instead of just the owners (who are the true guilty ones)