The end of football as we know it or the re-birth?

[timeoutbigbar]

Can't we all just get along? Its strange that something so simple as a game of football causes all of this political dispute.  Just get all the players in each league into a  big group, each club takes it in turns to pick one player, then find a couple of jumpers for goalposts and a ball and off they go.

[oldtimernow]

The football bubble will burst as surely as all other bubbles have.

Is it better to let those that want to move on do so and let them bear the brunt of the calamity whilst those with the interest of the sport and its supporters are left to enjoy a more regulated competition. Where your chance of success is not determined by how deep are the pockets of your owner/sponsor/sugar daddy but by the way you can develop and nurture talented individuals.

[john e]

I am somewhat agnostic on this. On the one hand it would mean a more competitive and interesting league with greater opportunities for us to win things (assuming we are not in it - which I would like). I am an Aston Villa supporter and regardless of what is going on I will continue to be so and I'm sure that there are plenty who feel the same way. Regardless of the league, quality or what is going on we will still have a healthy support and be Aston Villa. I'd much rather have that than have to schlep out to Munich or Madrid for an away game. However, we may lose all our good players to the big league and we would have a financial black hole from the loss of TV money.

What I think will happen is nothing. This league will not happen and the governing bodies and the top clubs will reach a compromise which will probably involve reform of the bodies, the abolition of international friendlies and perhaps even a watering down of financial fairplay regulations.

some good points made there.
i think the most difficult part is the transition, obviously you cant go from having millions of pounds from TV money to next to nothing and survive,
 but if that could somehow be overcome [and i dont know how] you would be left with a league where players didnt get paid the monstrous sums they are getting today,
maybe the whole thing could downscale and be a lot more fan based, with cheaper tickets and more people supporting there local clubs,


yes, it would be a sort of second teir football, but thats what weve got now to be fair, when a player comes or goes to Man City/Man utd for the same amount or more than Randy paid for the whole of AVFC then we are second tier, like it or not.

the players would be playing hoping for a big money move to the 'big' league, but thats just something we would have to accept,and again no different from whats happening now, see Young/Downing etc

i dont think it will happen certainly not in the short term, and its just a bit of wishfull thinking on my part, but hey i can dream if i want

[Mister E]

Whilst this seems an obvious next-step development on the Chumps League and doesn't necessarily surprise me I hanker for a time when football was more grounded in the lives of its fans, rather than in the unreality of their obscenely-rich owners.
Whether I'd feel the same if Villa were in the elite group is perhaps questionable - well, actually it isn't 'cos it would still seem pretty grubby to me - but my 'take' on it is that (i) teams like Villa will suffer relatively even more under this scenario; (ii) more 'top-club' football will disppear into a pay-per-view environment; (iii) getting hold of, and then keeping. good / great footballers will get more difficult as the rewards from an elite league build (at the same time sucking sponsorship money away from those that don't make the 'elite' status).

I read somewhere that the clubs who were to break away would want to try and put their second teams into their national leagues - as happens in Spain currently - in order to retain some presence there.

There might be the benefit that terrestrial TV might be in a position to afford a better live football offering ... not sure whether that'd be good or bad, frankly.

[Salsa Party Animal]

Let say if you are Real Madrid and play in such league and not la liga how patience would those team be to win the league as you might not be able to win the trophies often enough. Instead of being top dog in Spain, would they be happy with top 6 position or thereabout.

Fans will be bored and too much travelling and no underdog or giant killing. Where are the places for Villareeal, Nottingham Forest and co. 

[garyfouroaks]

The first law of football is “follow the money”.

A breakaway by the “top Euro Clubs” may mean nothing more than more money , and power, for them. We have a de facto Euro League anyway when you look at who has qualified from the major footballing countries since the inception of the CL.

The next move will be that the English CL clubs sell their TV rights individually to enable them to compete with Barca  / Real Madrid.

The PL 39th game will not come about simply because whilst Liverpool v Man U in Delhi would be huge, Wigan v Fulham in Bejing would not, but Chelsea v Bayern Munich in Manilla would. Expect a deal where the top Euro clubs, not the top PL clubs, play on neutral territory.

With English clubs having owners from America, Egypt, the Middle and Far East it is inevitable that the commercial lure from those territories will prove irresistible. Expect a tournament where the top Euro and South American Clubs compete against franchise clubs drawing payers from the “best of the rest” enabling Bejing v Man U, Sydney v Barcelona and New York v Bayern Munich on an annual basis in the “close season”. All the tensions we have seen in the Cricket IPL will surface as non-participating clubs squeal as their best players are lured with multi-million pay packets ( and compensation packages for those clubs) during the (summer?) break.

And it will all come to pass.

[hawkeye]

I think by the time the Qatar WC comes around this will happen in some form. FIFA are in dissaray and that creates an opportunity. Blatter will fall in line just like the FA did with the PL.

[pablopicasso_10]

Bye.

Let it happen, let the top four or five clubs in England go into it, then see how many want to watch Liverpool and Arsenal once the novelty's worn off and they're finishing 17th every season.

this

[Chris Smith]

I can see it being like World Series Cricket. All the best players will want to be part of it, as will sponsors and TV and probably wealthy owners too. What would be in it for Randy Lerner to stay at Villa?

It's tempting just to say fuck 'em but it is very difficult to predict what the impact will be on the rest of us.

[cb]

I think that would be it for me and football. I already prefer rugby now (something that wasn't the case ten years ago). I'd also be pretty pessimistic as to what it would mean for Villa. For those thinking that somehow this would all be a failure for those involved in the super league, then I think your dreaming. It'd be different, maybe you just wouldn't have significant away supporters, but the hype and the TV money for this would be huge. It would be an effect like the dawning of the CL for the clubs involved and I think it would be a huge financial success. There would also be a huge vacuum of finance for those clubs left behind and I fear you would see a lot of clubs just like us go to the wall. International football would also be finished. Someone asked if footballers would prefer the mega bucks or the 'pride of playing for their national sides, well I think we all know what the answer to that would actually be. Footballers have already shown where their loyalties lie (and it won't be to their national flag) and it is for that reason that I'm falling out of love with football; this development though would be grounds for divorce....

[Ad@m]

This will happen and the trigger will be the FFP rules.

By bringing those in UEFA have set themselves on a head-on trajectory with the big clubs.  Sooner or later a big club will breach the rules and UEFA will have to either punish them and run the risk of the rich owner kicking up a major fuss (can you imagine Real Madrid accepting being kicked out of the Champions League?) or backing down and that will effectively mean the end of UEFA authority.  UEFA falling, as the major financial constituent of FIFA, will bring the whole circus down.

With FIFA and UEFA fucked the clubs will follow the money to this European Super League.  The major concern as many people have pointed out is how clubs like ours will cope when the vast majority of our funding (TV money) stops.  All the best players will leave and we'll be left with a very poor relation to what we have now.  It doesn't sound good.

[Clampy]

I was'nt that overly bothered about the Man Utd V Barcelona CL Final the other month so they can play each other as many times as they like for all i care.