European Super League

[Keith Putnam]

Here it comes. Might as well have a thread for it.

The Super League

The Super League is a new European competition between 20 top clubs comprised of 15 founders and 5 annual qualifiers.

thesuperleague.com

ETA: CBS Sports has been keeping a running Explainer going about the ESL.

European Super League collapse explained: What's next? Real Madrid's Florentino Perez and Barcelona speak

Real Madrid and Barcelona have broken their silence on the botched breakaway league

www.cbssports.com

 

[mgarbowski]

Cross-quoting from the previous thread.

Good for the German clubs and PSG (though PSG is probably due to Qatar ownership and Qatar wants all the best players at the world cup which wouldn't happen if the super league comes through... but, for now benefit of the doubt.) for rejecting. German clubs have the 50+1 rule which is in place for exactly this reason.

Some of these other big teams are owned by Americans either entirely or partly, so they are perfectly fine with creating an "american" like sports league and doing it all for profit.

Only 4 of the teams have significant to majority US ownership. Which is not inconsistent with your phrasing "some of these big teams" but I'm not sure why the US needs to be singled out.

Two of the teams -- Barcelona and Real Madrid - are registered associations fully owned by supporters, which raises the issue of why German teams with 51% bare majority fan ownership has so far held out while 2 Spanish clubs with 100% fan ownership jumped right in. I don't have any suggested answer to that. I can think of possibilities, such as maybe that the German fan ownership stakeholders have decades of experience tussling with the private owners, while the total ownership stakes in Spain do not. But that's just a hypothesis. No idea if it has any merit. Maybe the Spanish clubs just have standard agency problems.

 

[Schwallacus]

Cross-quoting from the previous thread.




Only 4 of the teams have significant to majority US ownership. Which is not inconsistent with your phrasing "some of these big teams" but I'm not sure why the US needs to be singled out.

Two of the teams -- Barcelona and Real Madrid - are registered associations fully owned by supporters, which raises the issue of why German teams with 51% bare majority fan ownership has so far held out while 2 Spanish clubs with 100% fan ownership jumped right in. I don't have any suggested answer to that. I can think of possibilities, such as maybe that the German fan ownership stakeholders have decades of experience tussling with the private owners, while the total ownership stakes in Spain do not. But that's just a hypothesis. No idea if it has any merit. Maybe the Spanish clubs just have standard agency problems.

Barca and Real are two of the biggest clubs in the world and their owners are probably just interested in the short term potential of amassing a shit to of money. What I don't get is how Barca is in a shit ton of debt due to the pandemic and just bad ownership but somehow able to pay 350 million/billion to join the league? I think the Spanish clubs believe this will be a big money league for them to win and get paid a shit ton.

Of note, Bayern also have the Qatar link with Qatari Airlines being a sponsor of the club.

 

[GratefulDawg]

I am very upset with our owners and CFG management for this. I realize that we work with a closed structure here in the States for financial stability reasons, but that doesn't work in Europe. This Super League will ruin the competitive nature of the sport.

I have some soul searching to do, because I don't know if I want to continue to put money in CFG's pocket.

 

[Schwallacus]

Most interesting thing for me is how UEFA is saying that players in the Super League won't be allowed to play internationally. Could cause a lot of players to leave the clubs so that they can strive for international glory.

I'm on the side of "this idea/league is asinine." This is something that I feel could kill the game for a lot of fans.

The only reason for it is some smaller clubs want to feel like they're important again (Re; AC Milan/Arsenal) or want to feel important/successful for the first time (Re; Tottenham).

 

[FootyLovin]

What I don't get is how Barca is in a shit ton of debt due to the pandemic and just bad ownership but somehow able to pay 350 million/billion to join the league?

I think you have the direction of this wrong. I believe each founding team receives 400M to join.

 

[Davo15]

Who is supporting this? I'm sure there are glory hunting/casual fans who are? Every forum or comments section on blog etc. for English teams I've visited have been openly hostile to it.

 

[mgarbowski]

Barca and Real are two of the biggest clubs in the world and their owners are probably just interested in the short term potential of amassing a shit to of money. What I don't get is how Barca is in a shit ton of debt due to the pandemic and just bad ownership but somehow able to pay 350 million/billion to join the league? I think the Spanish clubs believe this will be a big money league for them to win and get paid a shit ton.

Of note, Bayern also have the Qatar link with Qatari Airlines being a sponsor of the club.

Yeah, I think (though I'm admittedly not fully on top of this) that the Real and Barca fan owners see their stewardship obligations as fortifying their respective clubs against each other, then against other major clubs in Europe, then against other Spanish clubs, and all of that simply means making as much money and getting as many great players as possible. While the German fan ownerships maybe think of their primary stewardship role as making sure the 49% private owners don't do anything to hurt the fans or the game. That's sort of what I was getting at in my prior post.
Of course, neither focus is 100% even if I'm right: German club fan/owners want to win, and Spanish ones want to protect the game and fan interests. But maybe the structural differences mean different emphases, with the somewhat counterintuitive result that 51% fan owners are stronger and more efficient when it comes to fan interests than 100%.

 

[mgarbowski]

Who is supporting this? I'm sure there are glory hunting/casual fans who are? Every forum or comments section on blog etc. for English teams I've visited have been openly hostile to it.

Almost nobody outside of ownership/management of the 12 teams so far. If UEFA and domestic leagues follow through on their threats and do not blink, I think they can stop it. The threat of losing domestic league play and for the players, losing international pay, is powerful. But I'm not fully confident the FAs (including the PL as a pseudo FA in this instance) and UEFA will see it through.

Interesting to see the PL come out against this. Because what the 12 clubs are doing is not unlike what the original PL clubs did to wrest the top tier of the English game away from the FA to have more control over money and TV rights, etc. The main difference is the PL kept a full integration to the pyramid and did not insulate the original 20 teams from relegation. But everything else is the same playbook I believe. I'm not surprised at the PL's current stance, as it is in the interest of the league as a whole, but the Big Six carry the most weight, and it's hardly principled given the history.

 

[Seth]

OK, just looked at their site. At first I was totally against this but now I'm not sure it's all completely terrible. The teams are not leaving their leagues, which for me is the key. It's "just" in a sense a new, separate tournament. Sorta. Two groups, 10 teams each, two matches against each team in your group. Then the top 8 in a home and away playoff with a single match championship. Also, all matches mid-week.

So basically each team plays 18 matches, then the tournament is 8 teams, then 4 teams, then the finals, so another 5 matches for the top two teams.

Not really in favor of this, but I'm also not quite sure about the outrage over it either.

 

[Gotham Gator]

I don't favor punishing the players. They have contracts to the particular clubs, and it seems doubtful there is a way out of those contracts. The players aren't pushing this agenda, and I don't think its appropriate to put them in an impossible situation.

As for the clubs - fuck them. I think each domestic league should require each team to certify that they won't join this kind of breakaway league. Teams that don't lose their spot in the domestic league. I'd rather watch a Premier League without the current #1, #2, #5, #6, #7 & #9 than submit to this.

 

[Schwallacus]

I think you have the direction of this wrong. I believe each founding team receives 400M to join.

I believe you are correct, my apologies. Teams would receive 200-300 million just for joining, then a further 400-500 million for potentially winning it. Just ball parking these numbers, but thank you for the clarification.

 

[Schwallacus]

OK, just looked at their site. At first I was totally against this but now I'm not sure it's all completely terrible. The teams are not leaving their leagues, which for me is the key. It's "just" in a sense a new, separate tournament. Sorta. Two groups, 10 teams each, two matches against each team in your group. Then the top 8 in a home and away playoff with a single match championship. Also, all matches mid-week.

So basically each team plays 18 matches, then the tournament is 8 teams, then 4 teams, then the finals, so another 5 matches for the top two teams.

Not really in favor of this, but I'm also not quite sure about the outrage over it either.

Removes the chance for smaller clubs to achieve glory like in in UCL/EL. Biggest thing with Europe is the promotion/relegation battles of teams starting from the bottom rung and making their way up the chain. Half the teams in this "Super League" are just bitter over being left out of major tournaments because their ownership/recent transfers are all terrible. Why do mid table clubs like Tottenham, Arsenal, and AC Milan deserve to be in the topmost European league if their performances haven't held up? Just because they were successful 10-15 years ago means they're better than a newer club that's had more recent success (example: Leicester/RB Leipzig/Atalanta)? To me it's just clubs that are drastically in debt or unable to get over the fact that they aren't great anymore coming together to make a fuck ton of quick money while potentially destroying smaller clubs and leagues.

 

[GratefulDawg]

OK, just looked at their site. At first I was totally against this but now I'm not sure it's all completely terrible. The teams are not leaving their leagues, which for me is the key. It's "just" in a sense a new, separate tournament. Sorta. Two groups, 10 teams each, two matches against each team in your group. Then the top 8 in a home and away playoff with a single match championship. Also, all matches mid-week.

So basically each team plays 18 matches, then the tournament is 8 teams, then 4 teams, then the finals, so another 5 matches for the top two teams.

Not really in favor of this, but I'm also not quite sure about the outrage over it either.

The reason for the outrage is that these clubs are trying to enrich themselves in a semi-closed league. It will put the financial balance of the domestic leagues in which they play even further off than they already are. If United, Spurs or Arsenal don't finish in the top four of the Premier League, it's no big deal, because they will still reap the financial rewards of being in a "Super League". Although we typically see the same clubs in the CL year in and year out, there is still the opportunity for Leicester City to make the CL on merit. That will be much more difficult to do with this new Super League. Instead, we'll just see Barcelona playing Inter and City every single year. It goes against the nature of the sport in that region of the world. You should be able to earn continental competition on the pitch, not in some boardroom.

I'd love to see MLS get out of the expansion business at some point (probably a long time from now) and have promotion and relegation like they do in Europe.

 

[mgarbowski]

I don't favor punishing the players. They have contracts to the particular clubs, and it seems doubtful there is a way out of those contracts. The players aren't pushing this agenda, and I don't think its appropriate to put them in an impossible situation.

As for the clubs - fuck them. I think each domestic league should require each team to certify that they won't join this kind of breakaway league. Teams that don't lose their spot in the domestic league. I'd rather watch a Premier League without the current #1, #2, #5, #6, #7 & #9 than submit to this.

That's definitely a complicating factor. I half wonder/half infer that standard contracts might have clauses that condition the agreement on the club maintaining all memberships in things like their domestic league system and UEFA or other confederation, and/or that the club will do nothing to impede the player's ability to participate in FIFA sponsored competitions. If so, the players have an out.

 

[Shwafta]

Cross-quoting from the previous thread.




Only 4 of the teams have significant to majority US ownership. Which is not inconsistent with your phrasing "some of these big teams" but I'm not sure why the US needs to be singled out.

Two of the teams -- Barcelona and Real Madrid - are registered associations fully owned by supporters, which raises the issue of why German teams with 51% bare majority fan ownership has so far held out while 2 Spanish clubs with 100% fan ownership jumped right in. I don't have any suggested answer to that. I can think of possibilities, such as maybe that the German fan ownership stakeholders have decades of experience tussling with the private owners, while the total ownership stakes in Spain do not. But that's just a hypothesis. No idea if it has any merit. Maybe the Spanish clubs just have standard agency problems.

I believe this is due to how in Spain the fans elect a president and thus the president acts in the interest of the fans. In Germany, the fans can institute a 'no faith in leadership' clause which would drop the lead by the current people in charge and force new elections / processees in which the fans would just bring in someone anti-super-league and thus end any thoughts of it easily.

 

[Davo15]

OK, just looked at their site. At first I was totally against this but now I'm not sure it's all completely terrible. The teams are not leaving their leagues, which for me is the key. It's "just" in a sense a new, separate tournament. Sorta. Two groups, 10 teams each, two matches against each team in your group. Then the top 8 in a home and away playoff with a single match championship. Also, all matches mid-week.

So basically each team plays 18 matches, then the tournament is 8 teams, then 4 teams, then the finals, so another 5 matches for the top two teams.

Not really in favor of this, but I'm also not quite sure about the outrage over it either.

Think about it this way. Imagine a bunch of traditional college basketball powerhouses get together and make a new tournament . Duke, North Carolina, Kanas Kentucky are guaranteed spots every year regardless of regular season performance. Would there even still be an audience for the traditional NCAAA tournament ? If so it would essentially be the NIT. Would there even be a Champions league in this scenario? And even if there was wouldn't it essentially be the new Europa league now? It kills the competitive balance. It punishes teams like Leicester or West Ham who might now get no reward for having great seasons whereas at the same time underachieving Liverpool. Arsenal , and Spurs get in just cause....

 

[Fantazma]

this type of thing has been rumored for years but its wild it actually is happening.

They seem to want to go the euroleague model ( european basketball "champions league" basically) where they play on their own leagues on weekends and the euroleague mid week. They also have founding members who participate every year despite their league position. They also have slots for none founding members to qualify eveyr year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroLeague

 

[moogoo]

i have to say - i love how this news that essentially only effects clubs in europe's major leagues - is getting reactions from the entire world. soccer is truly the world's game.

 

[Dnigly13]

this is not them leaving their respective leagues, its leaving champions league and forming their own tourney. One where UEFA (FIFA) doesnt take most of the money. The money goes to the clubs and the player.