I certainly hope they do NOT leave, though I am happy for them to face sanctions (10pts and a season-long transfer ban seems a nice conclusion).
Mush as we love to hate these clubs, they are the draw of English football. Can you imagine what would happen to the SKY money if those clubs weren’t in it?
Sure, it could help to level things up a bit but winning the EPL would be pretty meaningless and the standard of football would be lowered considerably.
I’m in favour or making all divisions as competitive as possible but not by lopping the head of the division off.
So I see this morning it has been confirmed..
I understand what you mean AndyR, about not cutting off the head, but I still really believe they should be thrown out of official competitions if they do carry on with this breakaway.
The leagues and FAs need to be strong.
Look at the league this year...., West Ham, Leicester and Everton all with a realistic chance of qualifying into the Champions League. It would be distasteful to say the least that Arenal, Chelsea, Spurs and Liverpool get around their failings on the pitch this year by joining this breakaway.
I would be in favour of throwing the teams out of the league and banning players who stay with those clubs from having registrations to play in "official" games.
If the big clubs wanted to abandon their project in the future, then they should have to rejoin their domestic systems at the lowest rung of the ladder.
I dont expect the people that run the game will have the balls to do that.
Hoefully they might still amend the rules about prize money in domestic leagues, so that it is not given for an absolute position, but for achieving the position to participate in the official European competitions.
They could also organise the fixtures to make it difficult for the breakaway to find time in the calendar to schedule it's own fixtures
If I was a fan if any one if these clubs, I hope that I would be ashamed.
Oh don't get me wrong, if it goes ahead then those clubs have to be expelled. But that would be a lose-lose situation.
Oh don't get me wrong, if it goes ahead then those clubs have to be expelled. But that would be a lose-lose situation.
Indeed. To an extent they want to get expelled because they want to be the elite game in town. Being realistic about this, if they get a critical mass of big clubs(tm) then all the money goes to them. The TV audience for football is mostly made up of people who aren't lifelong committed fans and want to watch the big teams(tm) and star players(tm). If it goes ahead we'll end up with the US model of sports broadcasting.
Boro games will be streamed and crowds will shrink to around 10k.
Posted by: @deleriad
... If it goes ahead we'll end up with the US model of sports broadcasting.
Boro games will be streamed and crowds will shrink to around 10k.
Of course, the cynical amongst us would say the way things are going for Boro these days we will be playing to crowds of 10K or less anyway.
After another half hearted display on Saturday against QPR Warnock Admits there are 3 or 4 who don’t want to be at the Boro
OFB
Oh don't get me wrong, if it goes ahead then those clubs have to be expelled. But that would be a lose-lose situation.
Not necessarily Andy.
You expel these clubs from their national leagues.
Even if the TV companies go along with it and televise every single game of the breakaway, that does not get anywhere near the number of hours of football that TV needs to fill its schedule. Even if the breakaway expands to be 20 clubs or more, there will be insufficient hours of matches played to fill the schedule.
Without the extra revenue generated in the domestic leagues and cups from gate receipts, matchday sponsorship, domestic prize money and TV rights, the business model for the breakaway begins to look shaky.
TV will still need the domestic leagues to be televised, so there is still plenty of money that will be available domestically.
Given the right and very strong response to the breakaway companies (I'll avoid calling them clubs) to expel from official competition and to blacklist any players participating, the new super league might whither within a year or two as it struggles to generate the revenues it is expecting.
By then having the big boys rejoin the domestic systems at the lowest level will provide the biggest redistribution of wealth to the smallest clubs there has ever been. In the UK it will take many many years for all 6 teams to get promoted back to the top division. All thay time the small clubs are benefitting from bumper crowds and bumper interest.
Let them go I say and look for the positive.it is out there, but only if (as I say) the authorities have the bottle and the nous to do so.
You said it: "if (as I say) the authorities have the bottle and the nous to do so."
But can we trust the UEFA and FIFA. Or the FA?
The whole attraction of the EFL in the past was that you never knew who will win the League title or the FA Cup. Hence its popularity in thre Nordics. In German it was always Bayern Munich and Spain Real or Barca already in the 1980's. Now the Premier League is the same.
The main attraction is sports. Not the same teams. Not the big corporations like Man Utd or City. We need real competition - thats not sport if the winners are 'chosen' before hand.
The Premier League - or any league - should be like the Championship where Barnsley can get promoted if the play well. Up the Boro!
After another half hearted display on Saturday against QPR Warnock Admits there are 3 or 4 who don’t want to don't want to be at the Boro...
I don't buy into the we have a small squad, so you just have to bite your tongue and get on with it attitude.
At this stage of a dead season for us, he should have that cabal of 3 or 4 players removed from the first team squad and barred from MFC premises. There are plenty of youngsters to experiment with and he should be using these fixtures now to learn about the players already at the club and for anyone who doesn't want to be here, well let them rot by not having any game time and no access to facilities. Leave it up to them and their greesdy agents to try and find a club willing to take them on.
By continuing to keep them involved and by playing them he is giving them more time for malevolent influence at the club.
Of course, on the other hand it could be that NW is deflecting the responsibility for his decisions...
On balance I think I will be behind him as we go into next season, but I do wish he would act and exclydecthe bad influencers now if that is truly what is going on.
It's nice to be optimistic but I don't see it. I think it might fail because it still looks premature. It was meant to start with 15 clubs but only 12 have signed up and 6 of those are English. If they don't get PSG and Bayern Munich signed up, it's dead at birth. Right now that depends on politics and money but launching without those two clubs onboard means that the 12 breakaways are trying to bounce them.
If it goes ahead, you can kiss goodbye to traditional club competition. The aim of the breakaway is clear: to replicate a US style financialised monopoly on the European continent. That will suck up 90% of the broadcasting revenue leaving the national leagues for hardcore supporters.
20 clubs in a breakaway is going to be 10 games per week each one televised and all played in different slots.* If the national leagues expel them, then they will play some of those at weekends otherwise it will be week day evenings. I really don't see how they can play 18 midweek games and then up to five play off games while playing in a national league and national cup competitions.
Make no bones about it, if this goes ahead then either they are expelled and English broadcasting revenue looks more like the Championship than the Premier League or they are not expelled and we see the leagues shrunk (probably 18 teams in each of the Premier and Championship) and breakaway teams not playing in the cups. That will lead in a year or two to the end of the club pyramid in England with probably just 24-36 teams in two national leagues with participation being based on finances rather than performances.
The breakaway has to fail. If it doesn't, it is the end of over 100 years of a club pyramid where, in theory at least, any team could rise to the top. For what it's worth, I think it will fail. The key will be whether any of the founding 12 start wobbling and whether PSG or Bayern Munich starting showing interest.
*The format is said to be two groups of 10 playing home and away for 18 matches then 2-legged quarter finals and semi-finals with a single match final.
I’m not one for sticking to the status quo just for the sake of it, but I really can’t see the European league working. Getting the German clubs involved will be difficult, because supporters over there have much more power within the clubs (if only that was true over here).
What makes me smile is their definition of the Big Six clubs, an arbitrary list that doesn’t currently equate to the top 6 in terms of league position. I’m old enough to remember Man City as a club that I thought would never win a title again, something I’d overlay on Arsenal right now too.
What’s missing about the proposal is how supporters will feel about it, and by supporters I mean those who attend matches. We need to accept, I think, that those supporters are almost irrelevant to club owners. The real audience is watching at home and doesn’t have the club running through their veins like we do. My future son in law is nominally a Man Utd supporter although he’s never seen them live. We took him and our daughter to an England women’s game at their nearest Club stadium (Swindon) and he was blown away by the atmosphere. Imagine how he’d have felt at a full Riverside on a good day! He watches any EPL football on tv, often has a bet on the game and, I suspect, couldn’t care less who wins as long as it’s an “entertaining” game. I, on the other hand, just want the Boro to win, no matter how good the game was.
Football has changed in my lifetime - I suspect it will continue to change in the future too and may well leave us behind.
I am not convinced this super league will go ahead but think it is all part of a negotiating strategy for the big clubs to get more of the share when the Champions League revamp is discussed.
If it does, then those involved must be expelled from their domestic leagues and cups and players banned from playing for their respective countries. 😎
Away to Rotherham on Wednesday. Will that be 3 successive defeats in the space of 11 days to clubs formerly managed by Neil Warnock? I mentioned a few days ago that Boro may not win again this season, and its looking quite likely now especially as the Owls are desperate for points. I wouldn’t be surprised if Derby go down now.
Who is to determine the top six clubs today? I’ve picked out 3 iconic seasons.
1947/48, the first season after the war top six:- Arsenal, Man Utd, Burnley, Derby, Wolves and Preston. Also rans Man City 10th, Liverpool 11th, Chelsea 18th, Spurs 2nd Div. Eleven of the clubs making up that League including Bolton and Grimsby no longer there.
1992/93, the first season of the Premiership as it was called then, top six:- Man Utd, Villa, Norwich, Blackburn, QPR and Liverpool. Also rans Spurs 8th, Man City 9th, Arsenal 10th, Chelsea 11th. Ten of the clubs making up that League including Oldham no longer there.
2000/01, start of the Millennium top six:- Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool, Leeds, Ipswich and Chelsea. Eight of the clubs making up that League including Bradford City no longer there.
The only club regularly in the top two top two is Man Utd. Whose to say that some of the current top six will not be in a lower league in the next 10 years; all of them except Arsenal have spent at least one season outside the top flight in my time, and even Man Utd were on the verge of bankruptcy pre-war. How many times have we heard during this pandemic that football isn’t the same without fans? Well how are fans expected to cough up to watch their club play abroad except on television and that will probably be on pay-per-view? Maybe with the large playing staffs that the so-called big six employ, some of their players will play in their second teams in Division 2 leaving more room for other sleeping giants in the Premier League the chance to do a Leicester City. I suppose it was inevitable that this latest proposal would come to fruition eventually and I suppose after a season of no spectators at grounds, this was the time to do it. But nevertheless I’m against these proposals, and let’s not forget Britain is no longer part of Europe.
j
@ken I don’t think that Brexit is relevant. Last time I looked the UK is still in Europe, although the fans for the proposed league are more likely to be watching in Asia.
Martin Bellamy
Point taken, but fans they may be, but not supporters.
@ken Absolutely. There’s a massive difference between fans, supporters and viewers.
The comment that 'this is premature' is very observant, look at the league today and you will observe that the worst nightmares of these buffoons has come true. As I look at it in front of Me, I see that Chelsea are a very humble 20 points behind the serious contenders, Liverpool 22 points, Spurs 24 points, Arsenal 28 points. We thought this would never happen, but it has. And it ain't going away any time soon. So for these idiots it really is, now or never. Ken's snapshot of the league at twenty year intervals was not only reveiling, but true. It happens!
It's nice to hear that the owners of these clubs consider myself to be a legacy fan
It's nice to hear that the owners of these clubs consider myself to be a legacy fan
As uncomfortable as it is I suspect it's not just the owners of those six clubs.
There’s only room for one European Super League, and Rugby League have had the rights for that since 1996. League football started in 1888 yet since the start of the Premier League in 1992 it’s as if Association Football didn’t exist before then in some quarters. Are we to expect if this proposed European Super League goes ahead that history will be forgotten and that future generations will assume that football only started in 2022 or whenever?
None of the Italian or Spanish clubs existed in 1888, nor indeed did any of the so-called top 6 English clubs. Perhaps England should be represented by the top 6 clubs of 1888, Preston, Villa, Wolves, Blackburn, Bolton and West Brom, but I suppose very few foreigners will have heard of any of those clubs.
As the proposed European Super League is a closed shop with no promotion or relegation, it only makes sense to those proposing it to draw a line in the sand with the biggest clubs of the current day, then of course perpetuate their success at the exclusion of all others.
Many things have changed in football over the decades and I'm not against change per se, nor do I think that every thing was better in the good ol' days, but clearly this is a giant leap far too far that eradicates true competition and whatever fairness remains.
There was a lot of grandstanding and ranting on Sky last night (somewhat ironically, though Carragher and Neville did acknowledge that to their credit) but some good points made too with none better than the one Patrick Bamford made in his post-match interview regarding the relative uproar and proposed action taken on this matter to help some financially unstable "elite" clubs as opposed to that seen and heard about racism in the sport. Quite right.
I'm quite confident that the proposal in its current form will not go ahead given the outrage expressed by everyone in the game so far bar those few owners. What's less clear is whether this is only a starting point and I can see a time when our top division effectively becomes the second tier to feed a European league.
The so-called super league of super spenders may never get started but should it gain serious traction rather than hot air and it begins to happen surely the rest of football will have a say in the terms of lack of engagement.
For me those clubs, the self-anointed ones, should never play in their original domestic leagues or cup competitions. No popping back for the FA Cup or 'League Cup' because the entitled ones have to be able to win something, no unseemly squabbling about Premiership monies. If you are out you are gone.
Then there's the internationals and European Cups, out of them too, they aren't needed to give those competitions credibility. What about the World Cup? Maybe there could be a proper Champions League with only Champions playing in it, over two legs until the Semi-Finals then knock out.
If the 'prodigals' return? Well, it's down to the national league and work your way up. Full marks to the German and French clubs for standing out against it and Mr Klopp too.
Too many American owners and Football will become Americanised, like American beer. Well it's not beer and it's not football either.
Do the Premiership and Leagues have the balls to stand up against the idea? The fans have but they always have had and the powers that be need to start listening to them too.
maybe some of the points have been answered but I will read up all the articles.
On to Rotherham and Championship Football with all of its failings it is then, a dose of reality.
UTB,
John
I’m in agreement with you all that the so-called ‘Super League’ (Spurs??) is a disaster. I want UEFA, FIFA and our own FA to take the strongest possible sanctions. I really think the FA and the Premier League should throw out the 6 clubs. Go on then, get lost, form your own Premier League of 6 clubs and play each other ad infinitum and ad nauseam. But I fear this won’t happen - there is simply too much TV money involved, so I doubt that the Premier League will take such bold steps. Then there’s the legal wrangling, which could go on for years - we already hear that the ESL clubs have lined up their legal arguments, if indeed they have been prepared, as they say, for the expected backlash. All of this could get very messy indeed. Or Messi.
One interesting point arising:- if UEFA ban these clubs, where will they get their referees from?
I have just had delivered another meal by a member of Boro’s backroom staff, but not only that but three books ‘Ayresome Angels’ by the late Alastair Brownlee and Gordon Cox, ‘Eric Paylor - Life with the Boro’ volume one, and ‘Boro Masterpieces’ - 51 pen pictures of the careers of recent Boro players from Ayala to Ziege. I don’t know why I’ve been singled out for these books if indeed I’m the only person to receive them, unless it’s through Redcar Age Concern’s knowledge of my history of the club, but gratefully received nonetheless. The courier resplendent in his Boro shirt hadn’t heard of Diasboro.Club but will no doubt be checking us up on the website in future. I knew another meal was forthcoming, but this is a delightful bonus and demonstrates that Middlesbrough FC do care about the community. Well done!
...If you are out you are gone...
Quite right John, echoing my rant about it yesterday.
Out, but very welcome back at the bottom of the pyramid if they get sick of the inevitable loss of interest when there is no genuine competition.
But like you I doubt the authorities have either the bslls or the intelligence to know how to turn this to the advantage of every other team registered in the official FAs
...One interesting point arising:- if UEFA ban these clubs, where will they get their referees from?
They will buy the souls of the ones that will be willing to get rich quick, Clive
It is really a pleasure to hear of great community support initiatives coming from MFC. So, so pleased you are on their radar to benefit.
...but some good points made too with none better than the one Patrick Bamford made in his post-match interview regarding the relative uproar and proposed action taken on this matter to help some financially unstable "elite" clubs as opposed to that seen and heard about racism in the sport. Quite right.
I also read his comment this morning Andy. Quite simply the most intelligent thing anyone has had to say about this.