Football: (Sky-)blue raindrops over a Red parade?

[Mark Antony]

 

[Spockydog]

14 hours ago, mormont said:

I think the players' contracts almost certainly cover playing for national teams. We know that it's not uncommon for transfer fees to be partly dependent on international appearances and we know that clubs are obliged to release players for international matches. It would be odd, to say the least, if international football was not something agents and clubs ever think to discuss in a player's contract. It's clearly relevant to their club career.

But here again the ESL clubs have probably covered themselves by stating their intent to continue playing in domestic leagues. The clubs can quite honestly say they'd be perfectly willing to release the players for internationals on the same terms as before! It's just that FIFA imposed a sanction on them, something they had no say in. OK, it's because of what we did, but from the clubs' point of view, they're willing to meet the agreed contractual terms, so no breach of contract.

 

Yes, but participation and performance in the CL and Euro Vase are also covered in player contracts. So if a club unilaterally pulls out of these competitions, with zero consultation with the players, surely that's a breach right there.

Also, from The Athletic (paywall):

Quote

Clause 6.1.1 of a standard Premier League contract relates to employer obligations and dictates the club should not do anything that stops a player featuring for his country. It also states that clubs shall observe the rules, which are defined as “the statutes and regulations of FIFA and UEFA and the FA Rules and League Rules”, meaning in theory any club leaving those competitions would be in breach of contract.

I guess the ESL's lawyers (Slaughter & May) have told the breakaway clubs precisely what they want to hear, and they now feel they can circumvent these contractual issues. According to a sports lawyer on the radio, that remains very much to be seen, and he suggested that the moment this is all made official, legally these clubs will cease to own any playing assets.

The only real winners here will be the lawyers.

 

[mormont]

19 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Yes, but participation and performance in the CL and Euro Vase are also covered in player contracts. So if a club unilaterally pulls out of these competitions, with zero consultation with the players, surely that's a breach right there.

Maybe. The argument there would probably be that the ESL is an equivalent competition and so while the contractual term isn't expressly being fulfilled, the employer has acted reasonably and provided the next best thing. The onus would be on the player to show why this wasn't good enough, and if they want to actually get out of the contract, it pretty much has to be more than simply breaking the letter of the terms - it has to be a fairly fundamental breach of the relationship.

The short version is, a players' revolt is not likely to stop this.

[Spockydog]

9 minutes ago, mormont said:

Maybe. The argument there would probably be that the ESL is an equivalent competition and so while the contractual term isn't expressly being fulfilled, the employer has acted reasonably and provided the next best thing. The onus would be on the player to show why this wasn't good enough, and if they want to actually get out of the contract, it pretty much has to be more than simply breaking the letter of the terms - it has to be a fairly fundamental breach of the relationship.

The short version is, a players' revolt is not likely to stop this.

What about the 6.1.1 clause, which stipulates that clubs must adhere to the rules and statutes of UEFA and FIFA?

And I think you're wrong about the player power here. It of course depends on FIFA and UEFA's stance on participation in their championships. If ESL players are barred from the Euros and the World Cup, there is no way this will happen.

Anyway, as I said, the only winners here will be the armies of lawyers rubbing their hands this morning.

[baxus]

14 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

*takes a look at the founding members*.

Nope, no overlap with Calciopoli clubs, or FFP violators. I mean, you can make those points, but to start a breakaway league with those clubs and justifying it by their acts. That's problem with the CL reforms and how that money has skewed domestic competitions is rather that too much power is lying with the big clubs (ECA), not too little. UEFA takes a huge cut from the CL earnings. Question is, where does the money go.

Not all competitions are as lucrative as the CL.

Ah, check out for yourself.

Will the super league subsidize junior competions, or the womens Euros, who are not anywhere near as profitable as the CL?

So no, those 30% do not vanish into the pockets of UEFA officials.

UEFA is supposed to regulate clubs and punish them properly and impartially. They repeatedly failed to do that and that's why clubs have been acting the way they've been acting. UEFA has shown no authority or integrity and over the years the clubs have gotten more and more powerful and brazen. This situation has been caused by UEFA's (in)actions, plain and simple.

14 hours ago, mormont said:

Maybe. But if you're a TV company or a sponsor or even a club, do you want an audience of 10 million once every couple of years, or an audience of 1 million every week?

The thing is that it's not just 10 millions watching, let's say, Liverpool vs Bayern. It's also 10 millions watching Dortmund vs Barcelona, or Real vs Juventus etc. Every week you have at least one match that everyone is talking about.

14 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Yeah if the clubs are kicked out of their domestic leagues then it will be a disaster. It will be interesting to see just how far these parasites are willing to take it this time. After the fierce outcry, I expected the clubs to back down just like they did when that project big picture crap came out. But instead they've doubled down. I think the leeches were prepared to fight tooth and nail with UEFA, FIFA and the domestic associations but I'm not so sure that they are prepared for a fight with the UK government. If legislation does end up getting passed then talk of a super league will be dead since it has no chance of being profitable without the English clubs.

There's also talk now that City, United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Real Madrid are going to get expelled from the semi finals of the EL and CL. It would be the right decision but it's unfortunate that the fans, players and coaching staff have to pay the price because of these greedy cunts running the clubs.

To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't want to see governments enforcing legislation against this kind of proposal. It would go directly against the UEFA principle of national FAs being independent of their governments. UEFA tolerating that when it suits their goals would be just as bad as this Super League proposal.

I can't imagine anything that would push teams to the Super League faster than expelling them from current European competitions. If UEFA goes for that, they don't show strength, they lose a big bargaining chip.

11 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I'm not sure if this comparison is entirely fair. The closed shop system is actually meant to help the crap organizations and I think parity in the NFL and NBA is significantly better than what I've seen in European soccer. The problem with our sports on this side of the pond is that we have so many second and third generation owners who don't know what they're doing. If you could relegate owners in the NFL, per se, I think the bad franchises would turn around over time. 

I'd think you'd just have to null the entire tournament. Otherwise wouldn't there just be a mountain of litigation? 

 

10 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Could other clubs throw a wrench in these plans by starting to not cooperate on player transfers and asking for way more money? Not wanting to sell players under contract, and refusing to loan players to the ESL clubs etc? For example, Dortmund could refuse to sell Haaland to any of the ESL clubs, unless they pay some exorbitant amount of money, or just not at all.

Wouldn't you agree that the other clubs are already asking way more money when selling players to these clubs? Dortmund COULD refuse to sell Haaland, but it's likely that then the next Haaland would be reluctant to join them.

9 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

One thing I don't get though as an outsider is the cries I'm hearing that fans may quit their clubs. I'd get that if a team link Man U relocated to play in another country/league, but changing the tournaments they're in seems more like something that would just take a bit of time to adjust to. But I say that having a hard time believing leagues would throw out their biggest cash cows (and I seriously doubt FIFA would be so dumb as to try and ban all their top players from the WC, which seems legally dubious at best).

What you don't seem to understand is that many of these clubs have a long and rich history of representing certain types of people, usually the one most prevalent in their local communities. I mean, Barcelona has a strong identity of supporting independent Catalonia, Real Madrid is the club of "Spanish monarchists", Liverpool and Man Utd have strong roots in the working class people of the two cities etc. These clubs have a history of over 100 years, and have lived through many defining moments with their fans (for example, Munich airplane crash for United or Hillsborough for Liverpool). All of these things create a certain ethos that clubs are living by and were built on. Joining a league like this goes against all the values of sportsmanship and against many of the values clubs' supporters hold dear. I'm not saying that Liverpool or Man Utd are going to lose all their supporters if they go through with this, but there will be a lot of resentment, at least at first.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

8 minutes ago, baxus said:

UEFA is supposed to regulate clubs and punish them properly and impartially. They repeatedly failed to do that and that's why clubs have been acting the way they've been acting. UEFA has shown no authority or integrity and over the years the clubs have gotten more and more powerful and brazen. This situation has been caused by UEFA's (in)actions, plain and simple.

Yes, they should have slapped them down earlier. A lot of those failures happened before Ceferin. But it really takes some brazen balls, to argue, that the competition (and distribution) of money, would be better served in the hands of the worst abusers. This breakaway harlem globe trotter of football thing, aka European Soccer League is wrong plain and simple, no whataboutism regarding FIFA or UEFA changes that. If you agree with that, then why bring it up?

Some small additions tho. The ownerships of the English teams, that has indeed very little to do with either FIFA or UEFA. The calciopoli clubs should have been punished way harsher by the Italian federation. So at least as much blame should go to the national FAs.

On a brighter note, at least this latest travesty should help shut up Rummenigge, when he goes on about opening German football for foreign investors like the EPL, and how archaic the 50+1 rule is. It probably won't, but it might be a while before goes on about that.

[The Winged Shadow]

59 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Clause 6.1.1 of a standard Premier League contract relates to employer obligations and dictates the club should not do anything that stops a player featuring for his country. It also states that clubs shall observe the rules, which are defined as “the statutes and regulations of FIFA and UEFA and the FA Rules and League Rules”, meaning in theory any club leaving those competitions would be in breach of contract.

I'd guess the argument would be that Clubs aren't preventing players from playing for the national teams, FIFA and UEFA will be doing that.

I'd also argue that they aren't leaving the competition this year (they might get kicked out, but that is not the same). I'd assume they will simply choose not to participate next year. I assume there are rules where teams can pull out if they choose? Surely you can't force teams to compete in competition if they choose not to enter it in the first place (i.e. next years CL).

(Part of me is really loving the power struggle in display )

[baxus]

3 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Yes, they should have slapped them down earlier. A lot of those failures happened before Ceferin. But it really takes some brazen balls, to argue, that the competition (and distribution) of money, would be better served in the hands of the worst abusers. This breakaway harlem globe trotter of football thing, aka European Soccer League is wrong plain and simple, no whataboutism regarding FIFA or UEFA changes that. If you agree with that, then why bring it up?

Not really. Ceferin was UEFA president when City got away with the slap on the wrist for their FFP infractions, wasn't he? He was also president when Chelsea's transfer ban was cut from 2 transfer windows to 1. I'm sure there are more cases like that, this is just off the top of my head.

First of all, some of those "worst abusers" still remain in the Champions League in the form of PSG, don't they? Also, those "worst abusers" are the ones creating most of the income, aren't they? And they are not under any obligation to put their best interests in the back seat in order to help UEFA out. Now, they might be wrong in figuring out what their best interests are (just for the record, I think they are in this case) but there should be some forum for talking about things like this. UEFA saying "it's our way or the highway" will force clubs to do something like this in the future even if this attempt fails.

It is not wrong, plain and simple. It has a huge flaw in this closed shop thing. But it's not 100% wrong, any more than Champions League is 100% right. The reason why I'm bringing it up is that I can be against both status quo and this Super league. I don't think Super league is a good solution but I don't think that UEFA is doing a good job running their competitions either. I think that every stakeholder should have a say in the way things are being run, and that everyone's voice should be heard. That goes for both Super league and Champions League in equal measure. If the European leagues were let in on decision making for Super league and best clubs from top European leagues would next season play in the Super League instead of Champions League, I'd be all for it. I'd be perfectly fine with top clubs excluding FIFA and UEFA, two of the most corrupt organisations one could imagine.

[Spockydog]

26 minutes ago, The Winged Shadow said:

(Part of me is really loving the power struggle in display )

So, not an actual football fan then. Because if you were, you would be reacting in nothing but horror to these plans.

This shit has made me angrier than Brexit. Totally ashamed to be an Arsenal supporter. If I was still a season ticket holder, I'd be cancelling it today.

[Consigliere]

David Squires on … the plans for a European Super League

[Ghostlydragon]

40 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

David Squires on … the plans for a European Super League

Brilliant. I've just sent this to about 20 people on my fb friend list. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, baxus said:

What you don't seem to understand is that many of these clubs have a long and rich history of representing certain types of people, usually the one most prevalent in their local communities. I mean, Barcelona has a strong identity of supporting independent Catalonia, Real Madrid is the club of "Spanish monarchists", Liverpool and Man Utd have strong roots in the working class people of the two cities etc. These clubs have a history of over 100 years, and have lived through many defining moments with their fans (for example, Munich airplane crash for United or Hillsborough for Liverpool). All of these things create a certain ethos that clubs are living by and were built on. Joining a league like this goes against all the values of sportsmanship and against many of the values clubs' supporters hold dear. I'm not saying that Liverpool or Man Utd are going to lose all their supporters if they go through with this, but there will be a lot of resentment, at least at first.

You know the same thing happens here, right? Not for every team across sports but for a lot of them. That's why I mentioned relocation. It would be one thing to quit one's fandom of a certain team if they up and left the community, but it's another if they either switch or add another league to their schedule. That's just business and really shouldn't impact fans too much, especially when the end result is a higher quality of play considering the current EPL is just a few rich teams beating up on everyone else with the occasional Cinderella story. 

[mormont]

3 hours ago, Spockydog said:

What about the 6.1.1 clause, which stipulates that clubs must adhere to the rules and statutes of UEFA and FIFA?

Don't know about that one. Presumably, though, the clubs have thought about that. Player contracts are generally the most significant tangible asset clubs have. I doubt they've walked into a situation where those could be completely voided without at least having a plan.

2 hours ago, baxus said:

The thing is that it's not just 10 millions watching, let's say, Liverpool vs Bayern. It's also 10 millions watching Dortmund vs Barcelona, or Real vs Juventus etc. Every week you have at least one match that everyone is talking about.

OK. But if you're Liverpool, this is irrelevant, unless you get a slice of those Barcelona vs Dortmund matches, which they don't. If you're Liverpool, you want to have guaranteed matches against Real or Barca or Juve every week, even if the audiences are smaller than they were when you played them every couple of years: just so long as those audiences are bigger than when you play Midtjylland or Salzburg or Genk or, god forbid, don't even qualify for the competition or get knocked out. Same for the sponsors and TV companies: if the weekly matches are guaranteed to include some big names clashing, even if those are devalued by their frequency, just so long as they're more attractive to audiences than Molde vs Granada, that's an improvement.

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

This shit has made me angrier than Brexit. Totally ashamed to be an Arsenal supporter. If I was still a season ticket holder, I'd be cancelling it today.

Arsenal are going to be rock bottom of the ESL anyway, on current performance.

[Mark Antony]

 

[baxus]

17 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

You know the same thing happens here, right? Not for every team across sports but for a lot of them. That's why I mentioned relocation. It would be one thing to quit one's fandom of a certain team if they up and left the community, but it's another if they either switch or add another league to their schedule. That's just business and really shouldn't impact fans too much, especially when the end result is a higher quality of play considering the current EPL is just a few rich teams beating up on everyone else with the occasional Cinderella story. 

There's one small difference - relegation. If a team sucks this season in Europe, they usually don't get to play next season in the league they are currently playing in. If a team sucks in NBA/NFL/NHL they get a better shot at draft. It makes Europeans more attuned to the idea of having to deserve the place in the competition, as opposed to just having it there for you, no questions asked.

A big part of the appeal in European sport is having Leicester avoid relegation one season and win the league a year later, or Kaiserslautern getting promoted and winning the league in their first season back in Bundesliga.

Nottingham Forest have won European Cup twice in a row back in the day and have played in Premier league only a couple of seasons over the last 20-ish years I've watched it. Aston Villa are also former European champions and have been relegated from the Premiership in recent years. Leeds have played Champions league semifinals only to drop to Division 1 (or was it even Division 2?) a few years later. AC Milan have won European Cup seven times and this season they have barely made it through to the next Europa League round against Crvena Zvezda Belgrade (another team that's won the European Cup, btw). Manchester United have had 25 years without winning the league before they won everything you can imagine in the '90s and '00s. Liverpool were THE team of the decade in the '80s, winning everything multiple times, and then they couldn't win the title for 30 years (still won 2 European Cups during that time).

There is no guarantees, and you need to constantly struggle to maintain your status in Europe. Teams that are great today have to work extremely hard to remain at the top and those below must have an opportunity to beat them and take their spot. Sure, it's not easy but it does happen. Having your spot uncontested is seen as absolutely unsportsmanlike.

[Mark Antony]

Henderson calling a player captain meeting to discuss response to ESL. Hopefully they do what they can to stop it

[Heartofice]

55 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

You know the same thing happens here, right? Not for every team across sports but for a lot of them. That's why I mentioned relocation. It would be one thing to quit one's fandom of a certain team if they up and left the community, but it's another if they either switch or add another league to their schedule. That's just business and really shouldn't impact fans too much, especially when the end result is a higher quality of play considering the current EPL is just a few rich teams beating up on everyone else with the occasional Cinderella story. 

While it’s true that there is a massive problem in football of inequality of resources, where big clubs basically do just beat up the minnows and then occasionally play another big club, the Super League is clearly the wrong solution     to an identified problem.

Football is still built on the dream that your small club can build its way up from the bottom and eventually go on to win the premier league. It happened to Leicester who only a few years ago were swimming around the lower leagues. Sure it’s unlikely to happen again but that’s because the current format creates a system where money doesn’t flow down the chain properly.

The Super League is really ripping that dream up. It is saying that the big clubs are set in stone ( even if like Tottenham they aren’t even big at all) not due to merit but because they say they are the big clubs. It means that there is no incentive to work hard over a number of years to build up a club and a team, there is no incentive for progress. 
 

The SL owners have fundamentally misunderstood why football is popular. Their assumption is that it’s because people around the world just want to see Messi and Ronaldo play every week.. and it doesn’t matter what the relevance of the match is. By that logic why don’t they just set up a league for keepy uppies and have Messi stand doing them for 2 hours.

There does need to be a fundamental restructure of football, but in the exact opposite direction the SL clubs are suggesting. Wage caps, trickle down redistribution of money, collective deals and fan ownership should all be part of the plans. But no.. never gonna happen

[Consigliere]

Lawyers representing the ESL clubs have filed injunctions to stop potential club and player bans.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56812844.amp

[Consigliere]

8 minutes ago, Mark Antony said:

Henderson calling a player captain meeting to discuss response to ESL. Hopefully they do what they can to stop it

The players should down tools imo. They should walk off the pitch in the weekends fixtures with their opponents being awarded 3-0 wins. It's clear the owners don't give a shit about fan protests and are prepared to take this all the way to the courts with Uefa, Fifa and their domestic associations. Hundreds of millions of pounds worth of high profile players refusing to play might be the only thing to force their hands.

[The Sunland Lord]

I don't think this will see the light of day. Very extreme idea. It's a bargaining chip most likely. They'll sit down and make a deal.