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project big picture
stokefc
Member Posts: 7,824
they say its been under review for 3 years its funny how they announce this project during a pandemic when lots of clubs are struggling, seems like blackmail to me
Ever likely Rick Parry is all for it being a Liverpool fan giving the big 6 all the power and everyone no voice
Short term it will help clubs who are struggling long term it will be devastating to football in this country
Greed Greed and more greed
I wish they would just form their own super league and let the rest of us get on with it
Disgruntled
Ever likely Rick Parry is all for it being a Liverpool fan giving the big 6 all the power and everyone no voice
Short term it will help clubs who are struggling long term it will be devastating to football in this country
Greed Greed and more greed
I wish they would just form their own super league and let the rest of us get on with it
Disgruntled
Comments
Last updated May 07, 2020
The continent's elite could redefine the game's landscape over the next five years if they opt to leave the current domestic structure behind
When assessing what the future of football has in store right now it is difficult to find many concrete answers.
Are teams going to survive in a post-coronavirus world?
The immediate future is uncertain but so too is the long term. For the past 30 years discussions have been lingering in the background over a potential European Super League before leaked documents, published in 2018 by Der Spiegel, suggested talks of a breakaway league were more fleshed out than ever before.
The memos suggested a league of up to 18 European teams, made up of those with the strongest television presence. It would likely bring about the end of the domestic league structure as we know it. No need for Champions League or Europa League qualification anymore, with the continent's top clubs potentially waving goodbye to the competitions that made them.
“I do not agree much with the idea. Someone should explain to me,” Pep Guardiola told Ara last year. “If it happens we’ll kill the leagues. If Barca and Madrid go and they do not play against Espanyol, who will follow the league? The Spanish league will die. In England they are very intelligent, the grounds of the fourth division are full. England will not let this essence of local football die.”
Despite that potential for "death", City would almost certainly be one of the elite who would benefit should a Super League ever get off the ground. They would be joined by fellow English sides Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal. In short, it is a scheme to help the rich get richer with little to no regard to those further down the pyramid.
“Let’s be frank, owners in the Premier League from the United Arab Emirates, United States, China or Thailand don’t care about Walsall or Accrington Stanley - it’s collateral damage," football finance expert and lecturer Kieran Maguire told Goal. "If those clubs survive then fine, but if they don’t then the likes of [Roman] Abramovich won’t lose sleep over it. Neither will the Saudi investment fund that’s buying into Newcastle.
“It is very much geared towards the rich getting richer and an acceleration of the gaps between the existing elite and the rest.”
To put the figures into context, the forecast in the leaked emails suggested a European Super League would generate "€500 million (£444m/$555m) plus” per club, per season. By way of comparison, Real Madrid received around €88.6m (£77m/$103m) from UEFA when they won the Champions League in 2016.
You can understand, therefore, why there is so much support from Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli for the idea. The Bianconeri chief claims his backing of the European Super League is to maintain an interest in the sport in the future, but coincidentally his club would be one of a small number set for a big pay day.
“If we are not progressive, we are simply protecting a system that is no longer there, a system that is made of domestic games that will have little interest for our kids,” Agnelli said in 2019. Is that true though? Or is Agnelli just driven by dollar signs and a desire to attempt to get his club to be on a level with Real Madrid and Barcelona?
Take the Premier League. Attendance figures do not suggest that anybody is getting fed up of the format. Ask Liverpool, United, City, Arsenal or Chelsea fans at the start of the season which game is their biggest and they would not say a potential clash with Barcelona or Real Madrid in the Champions League.
Those nights are always special, but it is the deep-seated rivalries between domestic foes that has kept them thriving for so long. Does Agnelli really believe that by 2024, when the current agreed structure for European football comes to an end, fans will have become bored of their domestic leagues?
Andrea Agnelli
It is naive and unfair to think it would just affect teams in the top flight, too.
A Middlesbrough Supporters’ Group has written to UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin to express its concerns over the proposal of a closed European Super League. But why should Championship clubs or those even further down the pyramid care? Why does it matter to them if the ‘Big Six’ in the Premier League break away?
Money.
“If we take a division like the Championship, the reward won’t be as great for promotion to the Premier League, so therefore the present level of acceleration of wages will be reversed,” Maguire says. “Then there’s going to be reduction in revenue which will in turn mean a reduction of costs.”
And that will filter down through the leagues. The gap between the elite and ‘the rest’ will widen. Will the big clubs look to help those beneath them? It’s very unlikely.
While managers have been vocal in their anger against the proposals, with Jurgen Klopp saying he hopes it “never happens”, there has not been the same dismissal from owners. Liverpool's owners FSG, for example, have been non-committal when asked about the proposals rather than dismiss them as their outspoken coach has done.
Liverpool owner John W Henry
“You would like to think that the clubs higher up would help those beneath them but it’s not going to happen,” Maguire admits. “All you need to do is look at the way the new TV rights were negotiated. All we will see is the owners of those clubs at the top wanting more money and they’re able to exploit the fact they are global brands.
“They’re only going to want to accelerate that gap rather than wanting to spread the money more evenly to make it a more competitive league.”
And what about the fans who will be forced to get their heads around what would be the biggest shake-up within football for generations?
“These proposals are totally counter to the principles of sporting achievement, and the knock-on effects would be disastrous throughout the game,” a spokesperson for the Football Supporters Association said. “The plans could force lower league clubs to the edge of the abyss, destroy domestic cup competitions, and pull up the drawbridge on teams with no European pedigree.
"It doesn’t matter how big or small your club is – these proposals would be massively damaging throughout the football pyramid. We’ll do everything in our powers to oppose them.”
The problem is that money talks within modern football. And while it is not a priority at present, clubs at all levels are going to take a huge financial hit due to Covid-19, and owners will be keen to listen to any way to turn that around.
Getting a European Super League off the ground remains a way off for the likes of Agnelli, but it only takes a handful of U-turns for the concept to start gaining momentum and become a reality.
As Guardiola quite rightly pointed out, the football league system as we know could well be dead in the not too distant future.
The Government is refusing to provide meaningful assistance to League clubs. So the Premier League (which suffers in a similar way from Covid) is expected to bail out those clubs in the lower leagues. With massive amounts of money.
There needs to be change. And there needs to be compromise. Most other countries either never had 2 cup competitions, or have scrapped the 2nd. The League Cup needs to go. The Charity Shield needs to be downgraded back to what it always used to be-a glorified friendly.
I hope we manage to keep the 20 teams in the Premier League. And, most of all, I fervently hope that Promotion/Relegation remains roughly as it is now.
lololololol football quango trying to be financial forecasters. Would love to see how they come up with this figure
Sky News has learned that financiers are assembling a $6 billion (£4.6 billion) funding package to assist the creation of what could become known as the European Premier League.
More than a dozen teams from England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are in negotiations about becoming founder members of the competition
As many as five English clubs could sign up to join it, with a provisional start date said to have been discussed as early as 2022.
Sources said that FIFA, football's world governing body, had been involved in developing the new format, which is expected to comprise up to 18 teams, and involve fixtures played during the regular European season.
The top-placed teams in the league would then play in a knockout format to conclude the tournament, with prize money for the winners expected to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds each year.
European Premier League - key points
Liverpool, Man Utd in talks about joining new FIFA-backed tournament; Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City, Tottenham reportedly also approached
As many as five English clubs could sign up
More than a dozen teams from England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain said to be in negotiations
Format would comprise up to 18 teams, with home and away fixtures played during regular European season
Top-placed teams would play in knockout tournament
Provisional start date as early as 2022
Wall Street bank JP Morgan in talks to provide £4.6bn in funding
Tournament could usurp Champions League
One football industry figure said that a formal announcement about the plans was possible as soon as the end of this month, although on Tuesday a number of key details - including the full list of participating clubs - had yet to be finalised and the plans could still fall apart.
The source described it as "potentially the most important development in world club football for decades".
Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City and Tottenham candidates to join
According to insiders, a handful of English sides have been approached about joining the league, with the other candidates comprising Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur.
It is not thought that any of the English clubs have yet signed legally binding terms to join, and it was unclear which member of the so-called 'big six' would miss out if only five are ultimately involved.
The news will drop a fresh bombshell into the fracturing landscape of English football, which has spent recent weeks at loggerheads over proposals - engineered by Liverpool and Manchester United - to hand more power to the biggest clubs while providing a coronavirus bailout for teams below the top flight.
A blueprint, dubbed Project Big Picture, would have seen the Premier League reduced in size from 20 to 18 clubs, reducing the number of domestic top-flight fixtures each season.
The plan, denounced as "a backroom deal" by government ministers, was rapidly abandoned last week.
If the latest plans bear fruit, they would effectively constitute the European super league that has been subject to on-off discussions for many years.
The giant Wall Street bank JP Morgan is in talks to provide $6 billion of debt financing to help launch the European Premier League, with the proceeds repayable from future broadcast income generated by the tournament, according to a football executive.
Other banks are expected to join the financing of the new project, which would become one of the world's richest annual team sports competitions if it gets off the ground.
Founding teams set to earn joining fee worth hundreds of millions
Each of the founding teams is expected to earn fees of hundreds of millions of pounds to participate, with clubs such as Manchester United and Real Madrid receiving the biggest sums for joining.
They added that the European Premier League was likely to feature either 16 or 18 teams - meaning a likely minimum of 30 matches for each club, based on a format of round-robin home and away fixtures - although that is said to be among the details being finalised ahead of a formal announcement.
If the discussions are successfully concluded, the European Premier League would effectively usurp UEFA's Champions League competition, which has been a mainstay of the continent's football calendar for decades.
It was unclear whether the new tournament had the backing of UEFA, the European governing body, although some insiders claimed that it did not.
If it did have UEFA's support, it is likely to be unveiled as an enhanced version of the Champions League and an example of unprecedented cooperation between two governing bodies which have historically found themselves in opposition on key issues affecting football's global governance.
However, football insiders said that if UEFA was not involved, the new tournament would represent an "incendiary" move from FIFA that would undermine the European governing body's principal annual revenue-generating tournament.
In that scenario, there could be a string of legal challenges to prevent it from getting off the ground, given the complexity of existing tournament agreements involving Europe's top clubs.
One source cast doubt on the prospect of a successful launch of the European Premier League without UEFA's backing, particularly before 2024, when the existing Champions League structure is expected to be revamped.
Neither FIFA nor UEFA would comment.
Real Madrid have been one of the principal architects of a European Premier League, and Barcelona are also expected to be involved
Other clubs which are said to have been invited to take part in the new league include Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, according to Vozpopuli, a Spanish publication.
Real Madrid has been one of the principal architects of the European Premier League's creation, with a plan to get the new competition launched as rapidly as possible.
Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus and Bayern Munich are also likely to have been approached.
Key Capital Partners, a Spanish finance house, and Florentino Perez, the veteran Real Madrid president, are also understood to have been driving forces behind the latest project.
Mr Perez and Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, were reported last year to have held talks about reforming elements of the club game.
The latest version of the European Premier League project is understood to have been in gestation for well over a year.
Providence Equity Partners, a global private equity firm which owns companies in Britain such as Ambassador Theatre Group, is understood to have held talks about becoming a shareholder in the new league, but football sources cast doubt on whether it was still involved.
Talk of a European Super League has been a ubiquitous feature of football politics for many years, but has invariably faded amid trenchant opposition from national football associations, politicians and supporter groups.
An earlier iteration of the current project was reported by German news outlets to have been drawn up almost exactly two years ago, and featured 11 'founder' teams with a number of 'guest' teams.
As part of that blueprint, the founder clubs could not be relegated for 20 years, although the remaining teams would be subject to being replaced depending upon their league position at the end of each season.
A version of those rules is expected to form part of the new league, according to insiders, with a possible cap on agents' fees also said to have been one of the ideas under discussion.
rather than go off one (the greed is another talking point) i think it will suit football in this country so long as it's restructured properly and there's a cup to play for throughout a season , it should be more competitive and not so dull , when i mean dull i don't mean the games themselves i mean it won't be the big six winning everything.
it might become interesting..bring it on i say
Top 6 ground. Top 6 support.
And, probably most importantly, finished top 6 11 times in the last 11 seasons.
2 League Titles, 8 FA Cups, 4 League Cups, 3 European Trophies.
1st English team to play in Europe. And always played the game in the right way. Reason we sing "Glory, Glory Tottenham Hotspur"?
"The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It is nothing of the kind. The game is about glory, it is about doing things in style and with a flourish, about going out and beating the lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom." (Danny Blanchflower).
Never been the richest club. Will ALWAYS be my club.
Anything that seeks to stop the Stokes of this world being able to play anyone and everyone? Definitely not.
Thought Wolves were the first, albeit on a technicality.
Hibernian are the first British club...
@Essexphil
Scotland does not count.