Champions League restructuring

[tomd2103]

I would be amazed if any footballer at one of the ESL clubs decided they did not want to play for that team anymore - not one will give up £100k + a week (not a chance, and I don't blame them)

Darren Bent was asked the same question this morning, he said he would stay at the club.

That's why I think not allowing those players to play for their national teams would be a key move.  Would probably be a relief to some of them, but would present many of them with a real dilemma.

[olaftab]

Amongst other self serving comments Perez said "These are difficult times and we need to find solutions". So you twat you have bankrupted your club and now want to ruin the rest of football community to save your precious little shithouse?
Him, Agnelli, Lewis, Henry, Glazer etc are the type of people who turn up at a funeral pyre hoping to buy any items of jewellery for next to nothing from the dead body so the family can pay the funeral expenses. 

[sickbeggar]

I don't for a second think City or Chelsea were in on this till the last minute. They have at best been mildly tolerated by the established clubs for gatecrashing the European money trough. My guess is they looked at their confirmed members and realised a league with  Arsenal and Tottenham in wouldn't convince anyone they'd poached off the European elite and reluctantly offered the invitation. I'd also say they probably only did because they knew Bayern weren't joining who seem to have it in for both clubs

[olaftab]

Apparently UEFA negotiating a £5.2b deal with Centricus Asset Management, a London based hedge fund
Currently UEFA doles out £3b each year
So I think I see where this is heading
UEFA does the deal based on the new “improved” CL format that was agreed yesterday. The “dirty dozen” were happy with the format but not the allocation of dosh.

So, UEFA agrees that the extra £2.2b should go mainly to the 12 to pretty much compensate for the money they would have got from JP Morgan (which was only as upfront loan anyway)
The 12 “reluctantly” agree to step back into the fold, claiming that their action was only intended for the good of the game at grass roots level
We all move on....nothing to see here

Clive this is my worry as we will end up with worst of both worlds. I wish UEFA had not approved their own proposal yesterday and set it aside for a while. I would rather these weasels are chucked out and we restart with a reset. Keeping them in at the high price they will demand is just slow death. 

[manic-road]

It's the biggest clubs with the biggest debts, I seriously hope the other 14 Premier League clubs vote to kick the greedy ***** out of the league. Yes the Premier League may be not be as rich but it will still have integrity and the likes of clubs in lower leagues that they can dream of attaining a place in the top English league.

Wasn't long ago Brighton and Bournemouth nearly went out of existance, they were about to go out of the league but managed to climb up through the pyramid system, their fans must have been euphoric at that achievement, that's what it is all about to me that you can still dream of achieving the impossible not some divine right to demand and get everything you want.

[ADVILLAFAN]

Do we know when today's meeting is taking place?

[aev]

Apparently UEFA negotiating a £5.2b deal with Centricus Asset Management, a London based hedge fund
Currently UEFA doles out £3b each year
So I think I see where this is heading
UEFA does the deal based on the new “improved” CL format that was agreed yesterday. The “dirty dozen” were happy with the format but not the allocation of dosh.

So, UEFA agrees that the extra £2.2b should go mainly to the 12 to pretty much compensate for the money they would have got from JP Morgan (which was only as upfront loan anyway)
The 12 “reluctantly” agree to step back into the fold, claiming that their action was only intended for the good of the game at grass roots level
We all move on....nothing to see here

Clive this is my worry as we will end up with worst of both worlds. I wish UEFA had not approved their own proposal yesterday and set it aside for a while. I would rather these weasels are chucked out and we restart with a reset. Keeping them in at the high price they will demand is just slow death. 

Yep, short term pain over a long term strangulation and forelock tugging.

[Sexual Ealing]

Good morning. What's wrong with a European Super League and why are so many politicians, here and across Europe, falling over themselves to condemn it?

For those of you who have missed it: 11 of Europe's biggest football clubs and Tottenham Hotspur have announced their intention to establish a new midweek tournament in which the 12 clubs play each other, as a replacement for the Champions League.

But what distinguishes the new competition from the old is that the 12 founding clubs will have a place at the top table in perpetuity: regardless of how badly they do in either their domestic leagues or in the super league, they will be back in the super league next year.

What gives sport its point is that results have consequences - that Arsenal's 1-1 draw with Fulham means that Arsenal's hopes of playing in the Europa League next season are essentially extinguished, and that Fulham's prospects of remaining in the Premier League have also been brought to an end. If there are no meaningful consequences to failure, what's the point? Football without relegation is like a soap opera without unhappy love affairs: what would be the point?

Of course, the big bet that the owners of the 12 club are making is that their global fanbases won't care about that: that they can make up for what they lose among their local supporters through global streaming: that there is an audience for soap operas without unhappy love affairs.

As it happens, I think they're wrong: the underlying assumption of the Super League's founders that people in Malaysia or Zambia or the States will happily watch games without consequence between Real Madrid and Arsenal is, I think, based on a condescending and ill-judged understanding of the commonality between football fans in Stoke Newington and football fans in Kinshasa.

Regardless, the ultimate fate of the scheme rests only in part in the hands of European governments. That's part of why politicians across the continent - from Boris Johnson to Keir Starmer to Emmanuel Macron to the European Commission - have rushed to condemn the move, because the wheeze represents something that all European politicians are wrestling with: the loss of control created by globalisation.

Whether they present themselves as the agent of that change, or the tribune of the people left behind, in different ways what they are trying to grapple with is how to maintain not only 'the European way of life' but their own hold on power and relevance in an era in which global capital risks making them seem both powerless and irrelevant. The consequences of the tussle between Europe's politicians and the Super League's founders have implications well beyond football.

For work reasons, I get a lot of the daily emails from political titles. This was the best one this morning, from Arsenal fan and political editor of the New Statesman, Stephen Bush.

[CT]

Steve Parrish of Palace said last night that the 14 had the power to expel, but obviously that they’d rather not.

I wish they all had the balls to do it.

Promote the four championship clubs in the play off places for a start. I know it’s not that simple and the relegation places would need sorting too, but what a league we’d have next year.

Anyone could win. I think grounds would sell out, covid permitting, and I don’t think one “legacy fan” would miss any of those six clubs in the slightest. I certainly wouldn’t.

[sickbeggar]

hah, another one making the link between this and globalisation. Maybe people are finally waking up when its something they care about getting trashed by it,.

[andyh]

Everton response is majestic.

https://www.evertonfc.com/news/2111866

[Villan82]

hah, another one making the link between this and globalisation. Maybe people are finally waking up when its something they care about getting trashed by it,.

Do me a favour.

[cdbearsfan]

Everton response is majestic.

https://www.evertonfc.com/news/2111866

Very good.

[PaulTheVillan]

hah, another one making the link between this and globalisation. Maybe people are finally waking up when its something they care about getting trashed by it,.

I'm alright, I've got my caravan in burnham on sea with my england flag flying high

[Walmley_Villa]

The odd thing for me is that this is the chance that the English clubs have to dominate the Champs League with the big Spanish 2 and Juve in a financial mess. Why should they bring football down just to help them save their necks?