A lot of the rules were put in place when TV and prize money was much less than now, and had much less of a stratifying impact. A more equal wealth distribution would certainly be beneficial. Unfortunately everything has gone the other way, shovelling money towards clubs who need it least, as if the game exists for the benefit of the biggest sides. Part of that must have been due to the threat of a european super league being set up if each league's biggest clubs weren't being given the share of the pie they believed they deserved. It will be interesting to see if this week's fiasco will change that thinking. Sadly I think it won't.
I could see having the CL group stage being delayed till R16 and split into 2 leagues of 8, following early seeded knockouts, but having 15 self appointed founders in perpetuity with no regard to performance in either their domestic leagues or the Super League would be anti sport in any sense of the word, and I'm at a loss to see how you could think it a good thing.
Yeah. You’re probably right. This week did prove how empty those threats were though. for me as an outsider...I’d be much more interested in European football if there was a real shot for outsider clubs whom I’ve never heard of had a legitimate shot to go far in European competition...which I believe used to be the case but is impossible now with the concentration of wealth. This is an opportunity to change that. Which I agree will likely be wasted.
Revenue Sharing, if done properly, would have the same limiting effect as a salary cap. You point to the 2 la Liga teams. Don't they already have a special accommodations from La Liga that gives them a much larger share of TV deals/allows them to negotiate separately? That allows them the extra revenue and then the ability to pay higher salaries. And for revenue sharing to work, it has to include all TV money (where a league deal or local deal). From a 'minnow's perspective...why allow Real Madrid to broadcast the game from your home venue if they don't give you an equal split. Just pull the plug on them/block the broadcast. What are they going to do, pull the plug on you at their venue? Real Madrid loses a lot more than you do. I believe that the smaller clubs/countries have far more power/options than most people realize.
I could name 20,30 clubs which have really good chances for the title, but they give up before the season ends: Liverpool, Man. Utd, Atletico, Sevilla, Real Sociedad had numerous draws, they really want others in CL. Lyon, Atalanta, now Juventus, Napoli often destroys bigger teams like Atalanta, Lazio yesterday, Feyenoord, Psv, Porto now, Benfica, Spartak lost against Ufa, Celtic, all 3 Turkish clubs have diversity in shape.
Numerous clubs have those issues, bribery, tax evasion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zdravko_Mamić https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoran_Mamić Yes, I remember cases since the 90's. It's silly to say that football has purity, or sports in general. I don't follow conspiracy reports. I follow proven court decisions, inspection, revision reports. Not only arranged reports where subjects don't have any earnings. Either small earnings, positive zero, debts. Despite their debts, they still function, banks protect them. Obviously, banks are happy with their football clients. Why banks tolerate such debts? Club name, brand? Steaua, Napoli, Fiorentina were also brands who were relegated, they had to change names, few letters, start from lower leagues. But I understand the fans, if they want to ignore everything. If things are clean, how come other people can't work for the club....sending CV, working. Closed society. They don't want politics in sports, but governments protect Fifa, Uefa...
So, now is everything tied with Qanon. Anti-vaccination people, Covid 19 deniers, honesty in sports decliners. What can I have with Qanon? Don't read conspiracies. You are just being paranoid. Something that you don't like to read, you proclaim as Qanon conspiracy? Easy road for consolation. Well, football affairs, doping in sports, bad referees are much ancient than your Qanon inspiration. After Qanon, you will find something else to label others and make them less worthy. Qanon. I assume that you read it. I haven't. I don't waste time on secret conspiracies that every person knows.
The more I think about it, I'm pretty sure the Super League guys simply weren't ready to announce their league. I think when the rumors started picking up last week the Super League teams decided they needed to get ahead of things and just make an announcement even though they didn't have everything figured out yet. Think about it. The timing is off. Why would you announce this right before a bunch of your teams are about to win league and continental championships? The announcement is a total distraction even if the fans didn't rebel. The more serious owners probably knew they weren't ready and didn't want to put their faces to it, so they sent Agnelli and Perez out to improvise (to disastrous results).
I have absolutely no idea how the Superleague cartel concept would do anything to mitigate that, to the contrary it would entrench self serving corruption.
Wouldn't be surprised if Perez persuaded them to kick it off early just to take Barca's Copa del Rey victory off the news, he's not very grounded..
I don't see anything noble in Super League. Pure greed, only spectacular one and more sincere: we need money policy. Greed of one base (Super League) wants to remove other greedy base (Uefa, Fifa...). Their retreat happened so fast. Excuse was: Sorry, we made this mistake. Retreat in 1-2 days, but planning took years. Because this idea of Super League is present for years, maybe decade.
He was probably told about it and gave it his full backing, then swiveled once he saw the fan backlash. He was once described as someone who stood in the middle of the pack until he saw which way it was moving, the ran to the front shouting "follow me".
Assuming they even talked about the Super League, Woodward could have outright lied to Boris Johnson the same way some of the officials at other clubs were apparently lying to UEFA the day before the Super League was announced.
The Super League was a crappy way to solve the problem. but the sanctimony this week regarding competition is rich coming from fans of a league that has no meaningful competition. It's competitive the way baseball was competitive before revenue sharing. What American relegation advocates miss about relegation is that it's the only way to make the season interesting for the majority of clubs.
What makes you think they give up? Football is not played on paper. Everyone starts with the same chances. Did Leicester give up two years ago?
1) one reason for the uncompetitive nature of many league is due to bending over backwards to placate the bigger clubs 2) to understand the appeal of a pyramid, you have to stop thinking about it purely from the top division's perspective, and think about the entire national game as a whole. 3) a lot of the anger wasn't just about clubs deciding to form their own risk-free league, but their insistence that they'd carry on playing in their domestic leagues too. It was like a husband telling his wife he was leaving her for a younger and prettier lover, but telling her he still wanted to live in the house and sleep with her at weekends.
They're a private agency based out of switzerland like FIFA, they've got nothing to do with government at all. And like FIFA they're considered a "non-for-profit" organization (by Swiss definition) except they're sitting on half a billion pounds of cash reserves while FIFA is sitting on a cold billion. These are very rich and powerful "governing bodies" wouldn't you say? Kind of like how regular monopolies tend to be.
Now, UEFA is the governing body that governs European football and FIFA is a governing body for World football. So, yes, as far as football is concerned THEY ARE THE GOVERNMENT. And, of course, just like a regular polity government, they are a non-for-profit organization regardless whether they have a deficit or surplus. And, by definition, they are not a monopoly, no more than US Congress is a "monopoly" in legislation. And a governing body, by definition, can not be a monopoly in their professional jurisdiction.
It’s more like 200 million euros. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with an entity that does three billion in revenue a year to be sitting on reserves like that. In fact...that’s what a well run business would do. If only these clubs were actually run like well run businesses they wouldn’t be in this predicament
Yeah. It's quite funny how some insist in posting obviously false claims about UEFA or FIFA. That some dudes in the past proved to be criminals (more FIFA than UEFA as I only can remember one for UEFA in the person of Platini), doesnot mean the body itself is suspect. But a good conspiracy spin isnot wasted on some in these days I guess.
Yes. I also made one smaller Yawn. Qanon, BLM activists are part of USA. In Europe, we have much more important things to do. You think that your local issues are part of world scene. I wrote here about the Super League, you went off topic and tried to affiliate me with something that is frequent in USA. I have never heard earlier about things that you mentioned. Recent topic.
Observe recent matches, sudden draws, defeats against much weaker teams. Many clubs rather want to take the CL spots instead of 1st position. Clubs don't have the same chances, weaker budget, teams.