[Devongone]

Nice simple rule change:-

"Any player who appears in a football competition unrecognised or unsanctioned by the FA shall be ineligible to play in any sanctioned or recognised competition for the rest of that season, unless that player transfers mid-season to a club not involved in unsanctioned competition."

If Manuarsepool decide to play their best players in the new Super League, they'll be putting out second-best teams in The Premier. Won't it be fun to see which three manage to avoid relegation? How long will worldwide popularity and fan-bases survive for struggling Championship teams?

Looking at the proposed structure it does not seem particularly sensible. Take Spurs - let's say first game up Kane's ankles go, he's out for the season. A couple of weeks later Son is poked in the eye and obviously going to be out for months. Spurs can't win a Super League game for love nor money and they are in the Premier League relegation zone. They sack another manager, but things only get worse. Relegated from the Premier League and clear bottom of the Super League, from which they are unrelegateable, if completely unfeasible. Above them not only have four of the teams brought into the Super League done quite well, but Benfica have won the whole thing, by having concentrated their entire resources on it at the expense of mid-table obscurity in Portugal. So next season are Benfica, a mid-table team from Portugal going to brought into the not-so-super league again, to compete against Spurs for whom Harry Kane is on his third op'?

Looking at the proposed teams, all the English clubs are Sky-and-absentee-owner-rich, whilst Barcelona and Real Madrid are struggling to pay transfer fees and all the Italian clubs are wrestling financial dragons ........ so greed and desperation are the simple motives, maybe they can arrange sponsorship by some kinda pay-day loan outfit.

[theo_luddite]

Agreed Devon - but they (Barca & Real) put themselves in that position by buying "galacticos" at whatever price and paying them silly money wages for years. Now all of a sudden they are skint after a season and a bit of no fans in the stadiums. No doubt many of their season ticket holders still continue to hold on to their seats, still bought shirts etc, etc and other merchandise sales globally would have continued, maybe to a slightly lesser extent with travel bans and all that. TV money would therefore have been the one area where they might have had a major reduction in income (as Sky have reduced fees to Prima Donna League and parachute payments) but those two cream off even more of the income streams in Spain than our so called Top 6.

So if they are "skint" it's down to rank bad (money) management - and aren't they (Barca at least) "owned by the fans" anyway?

[WakeyTerrier]

I've said for years that Sky was the best and worst thing to happen to English football.

The best because it did make football popular again after the dark days of football hooligans of the 70's and 80's
It enabled the English public to see the likes of Zola, Ronaldo, Hazard, De Bruyne, Juninho, Salah the list is endless.
Football Grounds improved

But then they (the clubs) forgot where they came from.
They raised ticket prices that priced out the working class supporter
They sold out to the Prawn sarnie brigade.
They no longer had time for UK sponsor never mind a local sponsor, they sold to the highest bidder which was usually a Far east betting company.

A quick look at the figures for last season
Total Prize money £2,451,000,000 for the twenty clubs
that's made up from TV money home and abroad, Commercial shared revenue and Merit share(final positions)

Of that the Big 6 took £869,000,000(roughly 35%)
Averaging £173.8m for each of them
The other 14 clubs £113m on average
That's nearly a 54% increase in revenue for the Big 6 and yet they want more.

None of the above takes in the fact that most of these clubs have the biggest capacity to create revenue, in fact when Spurs opened the new ground it was said that catering was worth £1m a match
Man Utd 74k
Spurs 62k
Arsenal 60k
Man City 55k
Liverpool 53k
Chelsea 40k

[hibeejim21]

Sky created this monster and I've been saying for years that it would implode. Sky don't have any right to be indignant now. I feel sorry for the fans who just want to watch their club... not the fans who came out of the woodwork when the money came in or those that only follow the most successful club.

Thats how I feel too Amelia.

[Amelia Chaffinch]

Sounds like Bayern Munich well and truly told them to get stuffed.

---

Of course, after seeing the backlash, they might be doing a clever bit of PR!

[WakeyTerrier]

Sounds like Bayern Munich well and truly told them to get stuffed.

---

Of course, after seeing the backlash, they might be doing a clever bit of PR!

The way that German clubs are owned would mean that they would only go for this if the supporters went for it. More chance of Town winning 7-0 tomorrow night than the German clubs going for this.

[hibeejim21]

Sounds like Bayern Munich well and truly told them to get stuffed.

---

Of course, after seeing the backlash, they might be doing a clever bit of PR!

The way that German clubs are owned would mean that they would only go for this if the supporters went for it. More chance of Town winning 7-0 tomorrow night than the German clubs going for this.

Exactly right.

Germany has the right model I think with high levels of fan ownership and affordable ticket prices.

---

https://twitter.com/442oons/status/13841...wsrc%5Etfw">April

This is how it will go.

[0762]

Sky created this monster and I've been saying for years that it would implode. Sky don't have any right to be indignant now. I feel sorry for the fans who just want to watch their club... not the fans who came out of the woodwork when the money came in or those that only follow the most successful club.

Thats how I feel too Amelia.

I believe SkySports would shamelessly "take a piece of the ESP action" after the "dust settles" and this new league set up is established - no scruples with this media organisation and they'll go where the money goes, no doubt!
I also chuckled at the comment today by Real Madrid's President, Florentino Perez, that "WE WANT TO SAVE FOOTBALL"!!!??????? This man is the equivalent of a political "decepticon" conveniently missing out the potentially huge financial gains that his footie club could "pull in" and focusing on the survival of the sport itself with little substance attached to his argument, the truth of it being it is all about the benefits for the perceived "big wealthy footie clubs" of Europe who have colluded to hit the "nuclear button" and stick up two fingers to the rest of their footie communities as well as their footie associations.

[St Charles Owl]

I still say kick them out and let the game in England move on without them. Sure it will have to have a massive financial overhaul and it will be poorer in every financial sense but it will survive like it did before the arrival of the tv money. Football in the 70s and 80s really suffered because of the hooligan issue but prior to that you saw the game thrive in the 50s and 60s, almost exclusively due to the fans turning out and supporting the game, that what we need to do again. Getting back to players on very good wages by any standard and off the silly money levels the Sky money has brought, charging fans less for tickets to games and getting back to developing and then playing young English talent rather than expensive foreign players would help.

I know it all sounds like nostalgia but if this competition is allowed to go ahead then it will make a mockery of the leagues in the countries with teams involved, nothing to gain aside from first place and essentially no chance for any club outside the top six to ever win anything they decide to put their effort into as the money they will have will dwarf the 7th biggest team let alone the rest. The PL has already created tiers within the game even in the top division, there are at least 10 clubs that have only one goal - survival, they have no aspiration to do anything more because they can't afford it. Then there are the teams in the Championship spending silly money to try to get to the promised land, sometimes that works but its left a huge amount of debt or financial issues at clubs who tried and failed - just look at my team for evidence of that one!! Every team should have a shot of glory, even if it only happens once in a generation, but the lure of football for the fans of most teams outside the top 6 is that one day it might be them!! This US style format removes that completely.

[Amelia Chaffinch]

Allegedly Chelsea have pulled out. Any who do pull out should still have some sort of sanction. They can't do this sort of thing.