Awww, that's cute how they think of themselves as a "club." I love how they conveniently forget that the Cosmos were founded as a franchise member of the original NASL.....
A good account of events in the past few days: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/22/sports/soccer/super-league-soccer.html
Here is the thing about the Middle Eastern owners. They are not primarily in it for the money (they got plenty of that). They are in it for the image. It's not that surprising that PSG never joined and Man City was the first to drop out.
A basketball "Intercontinental Cup" would capture the imagination of anyone remotely interested in European basketball. Just like the soccer version was embraced in South America. It would be the highlight of the club season. The EuroLeague would be better because of it (just like the Concacaf Champions League - in spite of all complaints - has improved tremendously because of the Club World Cup since the 90's). The NBA already plays exhibition games against the Beijing Ducks. Would it be that terrible to formalize an annual "Intercontinental Cup" or global "Final Four" and give international teams a platform to present themselves? For their fanbase to feel "connected" to a truly global sport? Isn't that what attracted many American soccer fans to the sport? The feeling of belonging to something bigger than just a domestic or regional structure? Again, I would argue the NBA only puts a tiny fraction of its reputation on the line by agreeing so such a competition. All you have to do is formalize something that already exists (international exhibitions), make some money as a result (television rights would have some value in international markets) and grow the sport in the process. It's an all but negligible "sacrifice" really. Same for hockey. Same for baseball.
I've said many times that the whole reason for the Kelmsley/Byrne/Perry resurrection of the Cosmos was to become part of an envisioned world super league. Those guys, and Sela Sports, had no interest in MLS except as a means to an end. And when such a league came into being, the Cosmos would be the US entry and make a killing. They were hunting big game, and in theory if it worked they would have been sitting on top of soccer in America. It was always a fantasy and when it became clear that it wasn't going to happen they ran for the door. It's not really so ridiculous as a concept. Whats ridiculous is that after all these years of flopping around in the basement of American soccer some Cosmos fans still think it was a possibility. And of course they take the opportunity to lecture everyone on pro/rel, convinced that all we need is a little more scolding about the correct way to run a soccer league before we finally come to our senses. Adorable. What they're ignoring is that the ESL group saw that a closed league was the right way to go. European execs have said for years now that they envy the US model as being far more sustainable going forward and they wish it was possible over there. But its not, and they've just shown why.
Not me. I got in to soccer because of the actual play on the field, not because of a global structure mandated to run a certain way.
To further the idea that the current uncapped spending and massive transfer fees are killing soccer in Europe, and that a closed league (probably with some sort of spending cap) is necessary to keep them from spending their way into oblivion, look no further than what an ownership group deciding to pull out can do. https://www.espn.com/soccer/bordeau...-us-owners-king-street-pull-out-of-investment
I love the Bordeaux mayor blaming the American company for this because they didn’t want to waste more money on a failed project. European football: win at all cost, even if you have to literally destroy the club. Edit: the way things are going, MLS may end up being a super league because they will be the only ones left standing.
Politico has a pretty good article today on the demise of the Superleague from a political perspective: The fall and fall of football’s Super League https://www.politico.eu/article/eur...e-inside-story-boris-johnson-emmanuel-macron/
Word out of Russia is that Abramovich got a phone call from Putin telling him it was not in Russia's best interest for Abramovich to join the Super League. Whether that is true or not, who knows, but if it is, it tells you how bad ESL was for Putin to be on the good side.
I accept many MLS supporters just want to enjoy local soccer and don't bother with ideological battles. But the ones I can't accept are the corporate droid elitists who parrot arguments RE benefits of closed leagues & cheer the disenfranchisement of those living in smaller towns. https://t.co/T7hwxIg7Kl— Kartik Krishnaiyer 🇺🇦🌻⚽️ (@kkfla737) April 23, 2021
I don't think you're in tune with the mindset of an nba fan... Most of them don't even realize there's real basketball outside the United States. Whenever the nba players a foreign team there is tons of "why are we playing scrubs" type of reaction. And to compound the problem, the nba regular season + playoffs are soooooo long, the only place you can shove this new tournament is nba preseason. The problem with that is NBA teams want to use preseason to evaluate their roster. If they have important games to play, they can't really rotate their roster the way they would in an exhibition game. We saw this back when nba teams competed in the McDonald's championship. They always won, but it required more of an effort than they felt it was worth, given that it's preseason.
I'll admit that the globalization of soccer is one of the things that's appealing to me. The idea that wherever I go I can likely find a professional game being played and its a common language, so to speak, between me and the places I visit. But I don't give a damn if that pro game is being played with playoffs, pro/rel, or just local pride on the line. Its all the same game.
As a casual visiting football fan you're entitled to that attitude and hopefully you get entertained when you visit a game, no matter what level it is. In the Netherlands however the whole pyramid system from amateurs up to the top clubs in the Eredivisie is the key to our existence as a national team football power. That fine tuned system would be destroyed if the greedy ones could gobble up all the money at the cost of the national footballing communities. In the end the Orange Squad as a worl power would be dead, and with that entertaining and thrilling confrontations with big countries.
Are you sure the Orange Squad as a world power isn't already dead? You did hire a failed MLS coach to guide you after all...
You say this, but most of Netherland's national team players come from the academies for Eredivisie clubs, particularly Ajax, Feyenoord, PSV, and AZ.
Sorry, dude. You're wrong by following the lazy foreign sport press reports. Our superstars for the most came from lower club's academies. Virgil van Dijk......Willem II Frenky de Jong...Willem II Memphis Depay..Sparta Rotterdam Arjen Robben......FC Groningen van Persie...........Excelsior Rotterdam etc. The lazy foreign press stop researching when a player is at Ajax, PSV, Feyenoord and just suppose they're from their academies. Many of the "academy players" of the big 3 are in fact late aquired talents, more or less robbed from the lower clubs academies. Anyway, they all start out at amateur clubs that do the first developing and keeping an eye on talents for the clubs with academies they have a relation with. Our development starts at the bottom of the pyramid at amateur level. That system is at threat by the assholes of the ESL. If it was only due to our top clubs academies every country could copy that. The point with our system is that it's so uniquely Dutch, it isnot possible to copy, unless you take about three or four decades to do it. That whole intricate network from amateurs to the top pro level is what makes it possible to spot almost every talent out there and is the reason why we as a small country are able to be among the big countries.
Yeah the highly advanced college athletics programs here in the States is how the NBA, NHL, MLB, and NFL are able to keep getting top talent. Unfortunately soccer requires the player to start playing at high level at an age lower than 18, so college can't help much with that.
"Get out of our club, get out of our club, f--k off Stan Kroenke, get out of our club."Arsenal fans outside the Emirates ahead of today's match against Everton 😳🎥 @sr_collings pic.twitter.com/2YZlRDn8bW— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) April 23, 2021 Something tells me they don't like him too much...
If there is one thing i know about this whole ESL thing, it is that Stan Kronke doesn’t give a flying fvck what Arsenal fans think of him or what he does. they are nothing more than dollar bills to him. Just like everything else he owns.
Yeah, I’m down with this. A good thing about soccer’s global nature is there’s so much of it to enjoy. But for any sport I stop short of buying into the whole “grow the game” thing as if it’s a moral mandate.
So, what you're saying is that the Dutch system would work just fine without pro/rel. A closed system does not mean that a club can only have one academy, or that other academies can't feed into the top clubs..
JFC Commisso https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergei...european-super-league-failed/?sh=d18b114483dc BUT LOL this dude singing this tune now though: “The good thing about American soccer is the salary cap, which leads to team parity,” he says, pointing to the growing discrepancy in wage budgets for smaller teams like Fiorentina and giant rivals such as Juventus. “Something has to be done about this crazy overspending that has gone on for too many years,” Commisso argues.