European Super League/Expanded Champions League Format Discussion

Would you favour the idea of a New European super league as reported?

  • Yes

    Votes: 17 10.1%
  • No

    Votes: 139 82.7%
  • Undecided

    Votes: 12 7.1%

  • Total voters
    168

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I actually think docking all Breakaway League Teams minus 20 points at the start of next season would be the fairest and most sensible punishment (plus a multi million dollar
They would all recover and still win the league anyways probably.

City lead the next club not in the big six by 18 points this season.
Last season Liverpool finished 37 points clear of nearest non big 6 club.
Year before City finished 41 clear of nearest non big 6 club.
City finished 46 clear...
Chelsea 32 clear.
Leicester year!
Chelsea 27 clear.

So 20 points really wouldnt matter haha.
 
25 point deduction for the Big 6 seems fair. Relegates Arsenal and everyone else is fine.
 

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Would gooners take a year in the championship if it meant Kroenke selling up tho. That would be good for them long term imo.
 
Points deduction would satisfy peoples need for punishments but it wouldnt have any benefit on the game long term.

Would have the benefit of preventing a super league repeat in the future.

An immediate 20 point deduction will be a painful lesson that wont be forgotten.

It needs to happen.
 
Points deduction would satisfy peoples need for punishments but it wouldnt have any benefit on the game long term.
Those changes will come later. You first need to directly punish the clubs. Like they do with clubs who go into administration
 
Those changes will come later. You first need to directly punish the clubs. Like they do with clubs who go into administration

Dont compare it with clubs who go into administration. Silly comparison, those clubs destroy livelihoods, dont pay staff/players/creditors.

A financial penalty wont do much but a points penalty will.
 
Would have the benefit of preventing a super league repeat in the future.

An immediate 20 point deduction will be a painful lesson that wont be forgotten.

It needs to happen.
Would increase the chances of a breakaway imo.
 
Dont compare it with clubs who go into administration. Silly comparison, those clubs destroy livelihoods, dont pay staff/players/creditors.

A financial penalty wont do much but a points penalty will.
Not all. The debacle would’ve impacted a lot of European clubs causing financial hardship, loss of jobs etc.
 
Would have the benefit of preventing a super league repeat in the future.

An immediate 20 point deduction will be a painful lesson that wont be forgotten.

It needs to happen.

Missing the Europa League isn’t painful at all. You just want to make it harder for Man City to win the title.
 

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Summary

Bruce Buck was the one involved in discussions for a Super League, other conspirators were never convinced Abramovich was keen on the SL. Particularly with respect to Russian Teams and Sponsors in the CL.

Organisers of the Super League were more interested in negotiating with Levy than Spurs, he has championed the Super League idea for a while

Henry and Glazer started speaking regularly to each other when City started posing a threat, especially when City suppoesdly breached FFP. Kroenke was another willing ally

“The seeds of the blossoming of this relationship is FFP,” says one well-placed source. “Look at some of the collective angst over Man City allegedly shirking the rules. That is when United, Liverpool and Arsenal started spending more time together. They all got closer and it went from there.”

The idea that Chelsea signed up late seems untrue, Buck concluded that the elite clubs had to sign up with Real Madrid or risk being left behind, implying to me at least that he was involved in discussions

Ed Woodward supposedly acted as the person who was a realist about discussions, what Soriano (City) would call Dr No. Woodward caved the day after the Super League was announced and called Glazer to say he couldn't back the project, as Neville was talking about him Woodward had already quit.

Conversely, European sources say Woodward hadn't opposed the SL and only resigned when the plan went awry

Woodward expected the SL to succeed despite him resigning and is now wondering if he acted too hastily

City were the club Perez was talking about when they said one club had no interest an it affected all the rest

City could've aligned themselves with PSG/Bayern but those two are regarded as Qatari funded and so siding with them seemed unthinkable. FFP was also a factor, in that they still hold a grudge against UEFA

None of the organisers expected the government intervening, the UK's Envoy to the Gulf contacted the UAE to warn it could damage Abu Dhabi's relationship with the UK. Abu Dhabi decided it did not want it to become a diplomatic incident

InHouse Communications, the PR company, was brought in because it was perceived to be close to the PM, after being involved in his 2008 London Mayoral campaign

The bigger problem was that none of the Chairmen/senior board members wanted to execute the PR strategy that had been planned.

Abramovich and Mansour never spoke anyway but Levy was considered not important enough to take the lead and Kroenke was not part of the core group led by the Glazers and Perez

The Glazers did not want to go in front of cameras and Henry was not keen either, nobody wanted to be the one to do it, despite people telling them they needed to convince the public

The SL found out via the media that City/Chelsea were pulling out

The organisation was done via Zoom/Whatsapp/phone calls. One group of the owners, then a separate one for the executives. Some privates groups of certain groupings too.

When it was announced, a lot of the clubs were finding out details from the press release rather than from discussions beforehand

Chelsea started telling department heads on Friday that they were joining but the language made clear that it had been some time in planning

Chelsea is owned for reputational purposes, like City. Chelsea's directors realised that if they tried to stick it out, Abramovich's reputation could be ruined with the supporters and that could not be allowed to happen

City had nothing to lose by withdrawing as they don't really have a relation with other clubs in the PL. Soriano gets on better with Perez

The Super League was being talked about in 2016, Ed Woodward and Ivan Gazidis were invited to give their opinions on it by others in the ECA. Woodward showed little enthusiasm

Bayern were keen enough on the idea in 2016 to check if they could leave in the Bundesliga, but there was strong resistance from their supervisory board and it never went anywhere

Part of the reason the Big 6 made the leap is because the 14 dislike them more now under Masters than when Scudamore was in charge

Klopp has made his feelings clear to Gordon about the SL, FSG were warned about this beforehand and Klopp is still disappointed despite apologies

A foreign Liverpool player was confused before Leeds as to why they were being booed:

“One of the foreign players said, ‘What the * is this? Why are they booing us and calling us money-grabbers? Can you explain it to me? What have we done wrong?’

Henderson mobilised Liverpool opposition after the Leeds game, his leadership was amazing and the rest of the players were all behind him. All of them regard the CL as the pinnacle and did not like the closed shop

A lot of the Arsenal players dislike Kroenke, going back to the pay-cut and subsequent sacking of club staff. The players are increasingly questioning the owner

Levy was infuriated in 2016 when the other 5 of the big 6 were invited to meet an executive from the International Champions Cup (lol)

Joe Lewis, the Spurs owner, seems to have been part of the group and likely in on this. But Levy was the one involved in negotiations and was very intent on joining

The SL organisers insist they were deadly serious about financing the women's game to an extent that would make it more on a level with the mens game

The money is regarded as absolutely necessary for Madrid because of their stadium and wanting Haaland/Mbappe (Calderon quotes)

One board member from a Super League club abstained from the vote in the board on joining because he was so torn
 
City were the club Perez was talking about when they said one club had no interest an it affected all the rest

City could've aligned themselves with PSG/Bayern but those two are regarded as Qatari funded and so siding with them seemed unthinkable. FFP was also a factor, in that they still hold a grudge against UEFA

We could have said no without aligning ourselves to anyone, and I'd say at board level we have as much dislike for members of the 12 than we do for Bayern/PSG/UEFA.

More likely imo, we didnt like the concept but said yes because if it went ahead we didn't want to be the one sitting on the sidelines falling behind the other teams.
 
We could have said no without aligning ourselves to anyone, and I'd say at board level we have as much dislike for members of the 12 than we do for Bayern/PSG/UEFA.

More likely imo, we didnt like the concept but said yes because if it went ahead we didn't want to be the one sitting on the sidelines falling behind the other teams.

Politically you couldn't align yourselves with PSG because Qatar/UAE dislike each other. The suggestion is that was one of the main favtors driving your support.

It sounds like PSG were never going to be in it.
 
Politically you couldn't align yourselves with PSG because Qatar/UAE dislike each other. The suggestion is that was one of the main favtors driving your support.

It sounds like PSG were never going to be in it.
We don't make business decisions on whether we like clubs or countries or not. If that was the case we never would have signed up to super league in the first place. Because we think 99% of those clubs are full of campaigners.
 
According to news from Germany, the ESL was being funded by Saudi Arabia with JP Morgan acting as a middle man. Putin was responsible for Chelsea pulling out (Gazprom links and also why Zenit declined to join). The UAE asked Man City to withdraw because they didn't want to be associated with the KSA and wanted to build an image as a progressive country (lol). And Perez netted 6.5 billion Euros from Saudi Arabia to build a Arabian style Las Vegas (massive lol).


Most of that would sound like horse s**t on the surface but when you dig it is believable and some of what was said has been reported elsewhere, mainly the Chelsea/Putin/Gazprom/Zenit stuff.
 

Summary

Bruce Buck was the one involved in discussions for a Super League, other conspirators were never convinced Abramovich was keen on the SL. Particularly with respect to Russian Teams and Sponsors in the CL.

Organisers of the Super League were more interested in negotiating with Levy than Spurs, he has championed the Super League idea for a while

Henry and Glazer started speaking regularly to each other when City started posing a threat, especially when City suppoesdly breached FFP. Kroenke was another willing ally

“The seeds of the blossoming of this relationship is FFP,” says one well-placed source. “Look at some of the collective angst over Man City allegedly shirking the rules. That is when United, Liverpool and Arsenal started spending more time together. They all got closer and it went from there.”

The idea that Chelsea signed up late seems untrue, Buck concluded that the elite clubs had to sign up with Real Madrid or risk being left behind, implying to me at least that he was involved in discussions

Ed Woodward supposedly acted as the person who was a realist about discussions, what Soriano (City) would call Dr No. Woodward caved the day after the Super League was announced and called Glazer to say he couldn't back the project, as Neville was talking about him Woodward had already quit.

Conversely, European sources say Woodward hadn't opposed the SL and only resigned when the plan went awry

Woodward expected the SL to succeed despite him resigning and is now wondering if he acted too hastily

City were the club Perez was talking about when they said one club had no interest an it affected all the rest

City could've aligned themselves with PSG/Bayern but those two are regarded as Qatari funded and so siding with them seemed unthinkable. FFP was also a factor, in that they still hold a grudge against UEFA

None of the organisers expected the government intervening, the UK's Envoy to the Gulf contacted the UAE to warn it could damage Abu Dhabi's relationship with the UK. Abu Dhabi decided it did not want it to become a diplomatic incident

InHouse Communications, the PR company, was brought in because it was perceived to be close to the PM, after being involved in his 2008 London Mayoral campaign

The bigger problem was that none of the Chairmen/senior board members wanted to execute the PR strategy that had been planned.

Abramovich and Mansour never spoke anyway but Levy was considered not important enough to take the lead and Kroenke was not part of the core group led by the Glazers and Perez

The Glazers did not want to go in front of cameras and Henry was not keen either, nobody wanted to be the one to do it, despite people telling them they needed to convince the public

The SL found out via the media that City/Chelsea were pulling out

The organisation was done via Zoom/Whatsapp/phone calls. One group of the owners, then a separate one for the executives. Some privates groups of certain groupings too.

When it was announced, a lot of the clubs were finding out details from the press release rather than from discussions beforehand

Chelsea started telling department heads on Friday that they were joining but the language made clear that it had been some time in planning

Chelsea is owned for reputational purposes, like City. Chelsea's directors realised that if they tried to stick it out, Abramovich's reputation could be ruined with the supporters and that could not be allowed to happen

City had nothing to lose by withdrawing as they don't really have a relation with other clubs in the PL. Soriano gets on better with Perez

The Super League was being talked about in 2016, Ed Woodward and Ivan Gazidis were invited to give their opinions on it by others in the ECA. Woodward showed little enthusiasm

Bayern were keen enough on the idea in 2016 to check if they could leave in the Bundesliga, but there was strong resistance from their supervisory board and it never went anywhere

Part of the reason the Big 6 made the leap is because the 14 dislike them more now under Masters than when Scudamore was in charge

Klopp has made his feelings clear to Gordon about the SL, FSG were warned about this beforehand and Klopp is still disappointed despite apologies

A foreign Liverpool player was confused before Leeds as to why they were being booed:

“One of the foreign players said, ‘What the fu** is this? Why are they booing us and calling us money-grabbers? Can you explain it to me? What have we done wrong?’

Henderson mobilised Liverpool opposition after the Leeds game, his leadership was amazing and the rest of the players were all behind him. All of them regard the CL as the pinnacle and did not like the closed shop

A lot of the Arsenal players dislike Kroenke, going back to the pay-cut and subsequent sacking of club staff. The players are increasingly questioning the owner

Levy was infuriated in 2016 when the other 5 of the big 6 were invited to meet an executive from the International Champions Cup (lol)

Joe Lewis, the Spurs owner, seems to have been part of the group and likely in on this. But Levy was the one involved in negotiations and was very intent on joining

The SL organisers insist they were deadly serious about financing the women's game to an extent that would make it more on a level with the mens game

The money is regarded as absolutely necessary for Madrid because of their stadium and wanting Haaland/Mbappe (Calderon quotes)

One board member from a Super League club abstained from the vote in the board on joining because he was so torn
Thanks for that bro cos I'm not subscribed to The Athletic so cant read it.
 
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