https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/sports/real-madrid-fifa-european-super-league.html Interesting read. Infantino had stated before that a Europe Super League would not be approved by FIFA yet he is trying to do the same thing in Africa with a Pan-Africa League and according to the article in Asia too. Might as well help out Central America and the Caribbean while he is at it since they need growth too. Maybe this is how Liga MX/MLS plan on doing a merge that they have said in the past?
I think it's important to spell out the distinction there. The purpose of FIFA as an organization is to grow the game of soccer worldwide. This is the first I've heard of a pan-African league (and some challenges there spring to mind immediately), but a pan-Central American league has always seemed like a no-brainer to me, with the idea being that these are small countries that make it difficult to sustain robust professional club operations on the national level, but that Central America as a whole is geographically compact and linked with a great deal of cultural similarity, and together might be able to piece together something to provide more resources to clubs, more ability to attract and retain talent, more player development, etc. Europe already has widespread professional operations, they already have the best players, and the European Super League idea is that a tiny cadre of capital owners would betray the system that built those clubs and extract the resources of the entire system just for themselves. Destroying not only clubs and leagues all over Europe, but using this glittering soulless shell of an entertainment product to sap fans of leagues all over the world. It's a path to fewer clubs, fewer games, fewer fans in attendance, fewer player development resources, a smaller, lesser, weaker sport. Shrinking the pie, but stealing the entire thing for a few filthy criminals. Morally disgusting, yes, but above all else an attack on the sport itself. So that's the distinction. One grows the game, the other shrinks it. (And once you start thinking in those terms, by the way, the true nature of the US big four starts to reveal itself) Fans, the customer, the lifeblood, should call this by its name, and act with solidarity against it in every form and every venue. This is our game.
Infantino is kind of a Stringer Bell-type character. While a dyed-in-the-wool crook, he's also someone who's smart enough to realize that there's more money to be made for everyone through cooperation and business acumen than just exploiting the weak and petty thuggery.
If i am these European leagues and FAs i let the teams go with my blessings. oh by the way. Since we have to approve the competition that takes place inside our boarders, while you are free to play in this superleague, you are not allowed to play on your home ground.
Can they stop them from playing in their home grounds? Obviously the league won’t be sanctioned, but the FAs can’t roll up to their home stadiums and put locks on the doors..
Well, frankly, I don’t have a problem with it. I think FIFA is too loaded with scandal to have any legitimacy in saying whether or not this could go forward. However, how many super rich owners are willing to keep losing money indefinitely while they sit at the bottom of the table of his proposed super league before they start cutting back investments in their teams. Because the reality is some of these super clubs are going to lose more often than they win. In sports leagues, victory is a zero sum game. That mean those among the mightiest now will be bottom feeders in the Super League. Unless they introduce American style salary caps, revenue sharing, and a draft system where teams draft players out of domestic leagues the way American sports leagues draft players out of college, then many of the mighty will fall. And once you fall, you can lose a lot of money in the way of fans spending on your team, and you’ll have a lot of elite teams only being seen as being in the elite league.
I love how all the English media is crucifying this effort without actually reading what the proposal says..... Essentially it's taking what is already being done in European Basketball (fans haven't abandoned their clubs there....) and applying it to Football. Basketball's Euro League is essentially a Champions League, where a set number of clubs are stakeholders in the competition and always participate, and a small number of clubs rotate in based on performance qualifiers. The competition is played alongside the domestic leagues.... The big clubs want to shit can the current champions league format (and whatever horseshit proposed format UEFA has come up with) for their proposed Super League. These clubs have not said they are leaving their domestic leagues. The over reactions happening are just comical. The only thing more comical in this is the fact that Arsenal and Tottenham are part of it seeing as neither has played consistent UCL football in the past decade. Let's be honest, if UEFA had come to the table with this proposal people would be championing it. Instead, because it has come from the clubs people are up in arms about it. FIFA released a statement "disapproving" of the Super League, but did not go so far as to say that players would be banned from FIFA comps. IF they did ban players from their comps, the best would still flock to the clubs in this league as they will pay the most. Same as players going to China, or Rugby Players going to Japan. Not being able to continue to play for the All Blacks hasn't stopped New Zealand Rugby Players from playing in Japan. Athletic careers are very short afterall, and players need to maximize their earnings while they can.
Meh, I've mentioned this before and I'm going to rehash it, This was coming. European leagues (well, the big teams that rarely get relegated from the first division) are going to get rid of pro/rel before MLS. The average American Eurosnob that already watch superclubs and UCL are going to deep down lament on social networks as if they knew Plymouth Argyle on a map.
It’s going to happen sooner or later. UEFA and FIFA will eventually bend when the 15 or 16 most profitable teams in Europe decide to break away. I’m gonna love seeing the europoser become hypocrites and support a closed league.
"No one will watch the Super League because it will be boring without Pro/Rel. Plus add that the level of play will suffer because players won't have the pressure of Pro/Rel"- every Pro/Rel activists
Already seen the first part of that today. Also blaming all of this on American/MLS owners, even though of the 12 known teams who've signed up only 4 of them are owned by Americans and only 2 by MLS owners (Arsenal and NYCFC).
Every pro/rel activist who just happened to support one of the teams that just joined SuperLeague but lives here and never been to Europe.
My preferred teams in the various Euro leagues are Dortmund, Augsburg, Napoli, and Newcastle. Looks like I'm safe.
This was always coming because UEFA/FIFA sees dollar signs and do everything they can to get their cut from these teams. UEFA knows they can make more money off the bigger teams so they change qualification formats so that the group stage is more of those teams. FIFA wants in on the action so they say "hey, we are making a big tournament for you guys to play in. What? No you have to play in it because we say so". Then both FIFA and UEFA try to make as many international dates as possible and set-up new tournaments. and, of course, they force teams that pay big money for these players to release them to play because "those are the rules" (which of course they make up without anyone else's input. I get that people are going to complain about these "greedy teams" but UEFA and FIFA have been doing this same thing for years. UEFA makes bank off of these teams because they can. So of course at some point those teams are going to get tired of UEFA's sh!t and do it on their own. From UEFA's 18/19 Financial Report they had 3.8 billion in revenue. 3.2 billion of that (83.4%) was from club competitions. Of that 3.2 billion, 2.4 was just from media rights with another 0.4 from commercial rights. And if you look at revenue from competitions, they made 176.8 million off the club competitions while they 16.8 million off the national team competitions. What sort of revenue do they think the UCL would make without Barca, Madrid, Juve, the Manchester clubs, etc? Sure won't be enough to cover all the money they give out to member associations (over 130 million in 18/19).
Gouvernments are gearing up to make legislations to prevent the sl. One way is the protecting of soccer as a cultural heritage. In the UK Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary is tasked to oversee it. Regarding your question. Given it is by nature a cross borderleague with the complication 6 of the members are Brexit country clubs, so gouvernments control who can play in their countries with granting or denying work permits. So the EU can deny the English six players work permits and the UK can do the same with the players from the Italian and Spanish clubs, thus making the sl competition virtually impossible. As I in different spots have mentioned Yanks have no clue about the difference between the USA, being one country, and the EU, being a union of independent states.