The Special One has gone
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Really, a little late for that. Hippo head is already doing a rubbish job somewhere else.
Footballs gone mad!
Surely the key point is that access to the Champion’s League is by merit , this idea takes away that concept . What we have are wealthy clubs and their even wealthier owners entering a league effectively based on club revenues and TV audience rather than merit
Next year if Norwich win the Premiership then it means they wouldn’t access the new league- part of the attraction of the Champion’s League is that they sometimes throw up clashes with smaller clubs .
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If one reads between the line of the announcement, and noting the provenance of the owners of several of the clubs concerned, it’s a step towards a franchise system, where there’s no relegation and financial limits are imposed to ensure suitable husbandry to ensure a fair competition - with, of course, the member clubs getting a bigger cut of the financial pie (going around UEFA in the process).
How this all dovetails with the rest of the existing structures, not just in England, isn’t made clear.
All the talk of bans/fine et al is nonsense IMV, as lawyers would have been over existing agreements and simply mooting a new league is unlikely to infringe existing wording - it’s just a negotiating tactic around the UCL and money.
However, the reputational damage to the clubs involved may not be small - but judging by other issues, it will likely be forgotten if UEFA pony-up more cash and respond to the clubs’ wishes for the UCL.
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yes he’s getting through clubs pretty quickly these days
The Special One will add his Spurs payoff to the £50 million-plus he’s already trousered from previous dismissals.
My only surprise is that it’s taken the clubs this long. The writing was on the wall when the FA “allowed” (in reality, couldn’t do a damn thing about) the formation of the Premier League. The same moans, complaints & arguments were trotted out at that time.
what may sink this one is the lack of French & German teams, thus depriving the Super Leasgue of being able to boast of having “all the best teams in Europe”.
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Isn’t the ESL just a 21st century version of the Simod Cup.
That didn’t turn out well. 
Nope, it was completely different. 1st & 2nd Divs., as I recall, so a cut down version of the League and FA Cups. In fact, the “big four” didn’t participate at all. I even went to one of the finals…my team lost!
Anyway, that was thirty years ago. This is now - oodles more money sloshing in the trough and the big clubs want it all, as ably demonstrated by the Premier League. Amusingly the latter are now whingeing about “have being done unto them…exactly what they did unto the FA”
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Already touted as a manager for Newcastle
Ha ha. I don’t even think they can boast to having the best teams in England!
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If they’ll end up having substantially more cash than anyone else, in time they will be able to boast that.
I already find it weird that the CL isn’t living up to its name. It had much more value for the sport as a whole when it was a league for Champions. It’s ridiculous that some Champions have to play a ton of preliminaries and the Premier League gets four teams going straight to the group stage.
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Between 1998–98 & 2016 - 2017 Arsenal qualified in nineteen successive UEFA Champions League seasons, an English football record, and is only surpassed in Europe by Real Madrid and since 2017 we have been in four successive Europa League seasons making 23 seasons in Europe.
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To be fair, while Arsenal’s form this season wouldn’t justify the label ‘one of the best six teams in England’ they unquestionably have the pedigree earned over the past 20 or so years. So can cite this season as a temporary aberration. Spurs on the otherhand? I’d rate Leicester, Everton and, on this season’s form, WHU as being above them in the ‘best in England’ rankings. In my view, Spurs are not among England’s best teams on form or pedigree. What they do have is money and the ambition of Levy.
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Bob, to be fair, Madrid have been better once qualifying for the competition.
But in seriousness, this whole thing sucks.
Got my lot playing “dirty Leeds” tonight and honestly don’t know how I feel about it, as in the result tonight, a small part of me wants to see us spanked by Leeds, which I would never ever have said.
Plus the timing of the announcement means Moanreen escapes under a cover of taking the moral high ground. Before I’d even seen the unofficial account of him refusing to take training this morning on moral grounds I said he would claim football being killed, apparently that is what he is claiming.
I will actually have huge respect for him if it is true, the very slim chance of them qualifying , or indeed any side battling for forth who are associated with this crap show have been undermined.
The typical pampered premiership player now has another excuse not to turn up because they are confused as to if they need to or not.
Tonight’s fixture against Leeds under the guise of this competition would literally mean nothing, because we have a get out of jail card.
Dan Walker nailed it, this is turning sport into content.
Sport is about the element of chance, a pub side against some lofty opposition but capable of the upset. I’m not looking through a romantic lens as football is a huge industry , but to effectively adopt the Italian league model of corruption and call it competition, jeeez, the headstone of football is being chiselled.
I’ve actually avoided this football discussion in this forum previously just to keep things in life separate, we all share a love of music on here and it’s all cool. Football can cause conflict (particularly when written as opposed to banter down the pub), but this announcement today made me change that.
All of our clubs have shamed the game with this.
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Yep. And Sunderland were League champions or runners up 7 times in the years 1892-1902. Amazing.
However Mike, by your own rationale of Arsenal’s pedigree, the same would apply to Spurs rather than WHU (sorry Kev) and Leicester.
Going back 30-40 years (heck even 50*), Spurs were one of the teams we used to dread coming to The Dell - I can’t remember thinking the same about WHU or Leicester (even if Shilton did score against us in a rain soaked 5-3 defeat!)
*yes my first game was in December 1966 - beat the Gooners 2-1!
And anyway, this is all about money. Spurs are one of the wealthier teams in the world - 9th according to the latest Deloitte rankings - higher that that other North London team…or that East London team…
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This super league has been coming for a long time and the money is the only reason the rich owners bought their teams in the first place. There is a lot of negativity going around and especially with Arsenal and Tottenham as they are presently mid table teams but what you must realise is that this has been in the planning for years. COVID has just allowed them to push ahead and I believe that they must have a tv deal already arranged as there is no way they would just drop out without future cash plans.