A-League also does not have pro/rel and, as such, would be exempt from the regulation. The A-League's "problem" is that the AFC does require pro/rel in order to participate in continental competitions. A-League has been exempted from this since they are a large market for the AFC. However, a group of lower level clubs filed a complaint with FIFA over FFA's structure and the FFA lost that complaint. Part of the FIFA mandated restructure of FFA resulted in the creation of a congress-review working group that proposed a number of changes in FFA's structure that will result in pro/rel being implemented at some point in the near future (5-15 years).
It is worth noting that CAS's ruling actually expands who is covered by the regulation. When the regulation was created, Blatter said that it only applied to NEW pro/rel systems and that existing pro/rel systems weren't required to comply with the rule, but he hoped they would comply. CAS's ruling seems to imply that the rule now applies to existing pro/rel systems as well.
I agree with you that it was pretty damn apparent that it would fail. I am in no way arguing that. I'm saying that you underestimate the number of people that will blindly follow and agree with someone because they support their cause without actually paying attention to facts. I also think he knew months ago that his goose was cooked and that is why he is in USL. It was the best he could do and wanted to be somewhere established.
Is it a requirement now? As of a few years ago, pro/rel was just one of the factors that went into the AFC club coefficient to decide which leagues got how many places in the continental competitions. So my understanding was that leagues without pro/rel would have their representation in AFC competitions reduced. Either way, the AFC is responsible for the joke that is pro/rel in Qatar, where there are few enough clubs that the entire league system could be placed in a single division (20 clubs, up from 18 a few years ago) but there are two divisions just to satisfy the AFC.
Hmmm. It looks like it is arbitrary on how it is applied and not part of the coefficient or a requirement? I see on the google machine that Australia lost an automatic qualification spot in the 2013 edition due to lack of pro/rel, but that looks like the only edition they lost a spot. https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2012...out-on-automatic-acl-spot/4400180?pfmredir=sm
My understanding was that it was existing leagues too. In fact, I believe that Statute 9 was created in part, due to explicit cases of owners buying up a second club at a higher level and relocating them to their first club's market, rebranding them as said club, effectively "promoting" them artificially. Maybe that came a little later?
Naw. It was passed in 2008 and specifically referenced the Spanish teams buying their way up. However, in an interview after it passed, Blatter said it wasn’t applied to existing pro/rel systems, but that he hoped they would abide by it.
"We're not going to be able to get pro/rel until we abolish capitalism" has been my favorite rando take in the fallout from this whole case. "CSKA Hipster Gentrified Detroit" has a nice ring to it though.
Yes.... If you had actually read the post chain you would have seen that barroldinho and I were talking about it being an AFC requirement or part of the coefficient.... Turns out it is neither, or at least arbitrarily applied.
Yep. But I took that less as the rule not applying to them and more as FIFA being lazy, dysfunctional gits who in practice prefer to be as hands-off as possible when it comes to domestic leagues. Their statutes are even worded as generally deferring to the national FAs on domestic matters. I think it takes an outright schism such as those saw in India and Australia and FIFA being dragged in before they actually get involved. Really? What a pointless and ineffective statute. So basically it didn't apply to existing leagues, opened or closed and the one place it might apply - new leagues - is the one where adopting pro/rel is the riskiest and least appropriate.
I believe K-League would be the only one covered by Blatter’s interpretation. However, CAS just applied it to all existing.
The current coefficient appears to have been used only since 2014, so pro/rel may have been factored in prior to that. I haven't had much luck finding information on the AFC's past allocation systems, but I recall pro/rel being relevant at one point fairly recently. I doubt that it's a current requirement, seeing as the Indian Super League gets one of India's entries in AFC competitions, and the Philippines and Singapore also get entries without pro/rel.
I don't think that a European super league will ever happen for one big reason: Somebody's gotta finish last, and if you're the last-place club in the biggest, baddest league in the world, you're still a last-place club and the fans are still gonna be pissed.
I'm a little hazy on this but my recollection is that the AFC used to spit its nations into two tiers. I don't remember the names but the lower one was "developing nations" or something like that. Clubs from upper tier nations entered the Champions League, the others entered the AFC Cup. There was an assortment of criteria for determining who was in the upper or lower tier but at some point, having pro/rel while not mandatory (IIRC), did score you ample merit in those considerations.
Unless there is a hidden portion of the coefficient, or heaven forbid that Wikipedia is wrong, but the coefficient is now based on a combination of the national team's FIFA ranking (10%) and the league's performance in ACL and ACC (90%). https://www.the-afc.com/afc/documents/PDFFiles/afc-club-competitions-ranking-mechanics There is also a "minimum" requirement that a confederation and league must meet in order to have their teams even qualify, but there is no specific mention of pro/rel in those minimum requirements. https://www.the-afc.com/afc/documents/PDFFiles/entry-manual-afc-club-competitions-2017-2020-33728
India is introducing pro/rel, the Philippines federation have committed to pro/rel while Singapore only has 9 teams.