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Is 175m worth killing football in the UK

His source is probably someone who read the spoof report. Embarrassing either way.

That said, the worrying thing is that we can all absolutely believe that something like this could happen some time in the future. And it would be devastating for Spurs - if, as per this spoof, we were excluded while Chelsea and Arsenal were included.

Hard enough to compete as it is but that kind of financial gap would blow us completely out of the water. It'd all be over.

Only thing is, if something like this was to happen - and if it was by invitation rather than by merit - then UEFA would have to abandon their fair play rules. Otherwise, no other clubs would have a chance of ever competing with the chosen few again.
 
His source is probably someone who read the spoof report. Embarrassing either way.

That said, the worrying thing is that we can all absolutely believe that something like this could happen some time in the future. And it would be devastating for Spurs - if, as per this spoof, we were excluded while Chelsea and Arsenal were included.

Hard enough to compete as it is but that kind of financial gap would blow us completely out of the water. It'd all be over.

Only thing is, if something like this was to happen - and if it was by invitation rather than by merit - then UEFA would have to abandon their fair play rules. Otherwise, no other clubs would have a chance of ever competing with the chosen few again.

Not abandon but regulate that such income is not to be included in the FFP calculation.
 
Doubt if the story is true. If it was, Liverpool would rank ahead of Chelsea in terms of value for a tournament like this. If silly money is being thrown in, then Qatar would prefer to buy Liverpools history and fan base ahead of Chelsea.

Would be a shame to lose the Arsenal match twice a year, in the same way that it would a shame to lose the NLD even if they got relegated.
Not bothered about annual matches against the others, would happily accept the more competitive league left in its place. The Qatar Cup will just be an irrelevance to me, I would be as bothered about that as the Egyptian FA Cup, Dubai Rugby Sevens and Libyan Masterchef.
 
Doubt if the story is true. If it was, Liverpool would rank ahead of Chelsea in terms of value for a tournament like this. If silly money is being thrown in, then Qatar would prefer to buy Liverpools history and fan base ahead of Chelsea.

Would be a shame to lose the Arsenal match twice a year, in the same way that it would a shame to lose the NLD even if they got relegated.
Not bothered about annual matches against the others, would happily accept the more competitive league left in its place. The Qatar Cup will just be an irrelevance to me, I would be as bothered about that as the Egyptian FA Cup, Dubai Rugby Sevens and Libyan Masterchef.



It would not just be the financial deal with Qatar that would be at issue though, if the four 'biggest' teams left the Premier League then the tv deals and the like would no longer represent fair value. The amount of money for the teams left would reduce significantly.
 
Not abandon but regulate that such income is not to be included in the FFP calculation.

It would be much harder to do that than just scrapping the FFP rules - which are so flawed both in concept and in detail that they will do more harm than good anyway.
 
It's a spoof, but the idea that Spurs would be 'doomed' if these super-clubs left is patently false. Firstly, unless UEFA themselves create a European Super League, it is impossible to imagine them allowing any of their 'valuable' clubs to move outside European competitions, even for just a summer. Why would they give up their cash-cows? Even the taste of a competition outside of Europe would terrify Platini and his cohorts, who would then sweat profusely whenever Qatar or someone puts in more offers for more competitions held outside UEFA (due to the precedent set by allowing the first). Every time a club goes abroad to play in these glorified friendlies, the risk increases for UEFA that they will lose their cash-cows, and they are worth infinitely more to UEFA in terms of revenue than whatever one-time payment Qatar would offer to make. Sure, they probably wouldn't be able to stop these teams leaving, should they ultimately choose that route. But they can, and they probably will put such severe obstacles in the way of them coming back (including threatening to ban them from ever returning) that it would dissuade all but the most determined clubs. After all, despite their obvious desire for more money, these are clubs with a European tradition, in their European leagues, having won domestic, European honours. Having that stripped away from them would make them either the equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters, or like any of the other cash-rich Middle Eastern clubs (Al-Ittihad,Al-Ain, etcetera). In both cases, their legions of Asian fans would not stay with them very long, owing to the fact that these clubs are now effectively excommunicated from the very thing that made them fans in the first place: their history, and their competitiveness within their local leagues. In effect, UEFA would, I believe, be quite willing to use the ultimate threat: expulsion from competitions within their remit. because the risk of letting these clubs get this much freedom to play when and where they want would far outweigh the benefits of a one-off Qatari payment, be it 30 million or 300 million.

So sure, FIFA would be bought with Qatari money, and would approve the competition. However, as these clubs kick-off the inaugural Super League, they will know this: though everyone enters with the intention of winning, only one wins. And when they do, their honours list will stand thusly;

FC Barcelona (for example)

Honours: Qatari Super League (2015)

There will be a huge summer of discontent, litigation and counter-litigation by Qatar, the big clubs, the QSL, UEFA, Fifa, the European Clubs' Association and the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It will be a legal goldmine, this idea. But, at the end of it, you will have disgruntled clubs demanding their honours back, UEFA refusing to acquiesce, FIFA being paid by Qatar to shut up, Qatar themselves paying ever-increasing amounts of money to the clubs to stay in their game, and fans leaving the clubs and the sport in droves, hurting the bottom line for everyone involved.

Too, too risky.

Far more likely is that UEFA will approve a European Super League, that will travel the world and be held in places like Qatar and Beijing, provided they put up enough cash to sate both UEFA and the clubs involved. That way, UEFA maintains control over its prize possessions, while also mollifying Qatar by granting them publicity by holding the competition in the country occasionally. In this case, it would be somewhat bad for Spurs at a short-term, immediate financial level (assuming we haven't breached the 'elite' by then, something I'm not very enthusiastic about doing: after all, who wants to go full 'plastic'?), but sporting-wise, it would be the best thing that could have happened to the PL, in terms of competition. Because the PL itself is a majority-vote deal, I imagine anyone not in the chosen few would vote against the idea of letting these super-clubs compete within the domestic competitions as well as in the Super League (perhaps in alternate years), meaning for the first time, clubs from Spurs downwards would be on a relatively even keel in terms of income and (by extension) title-winning potential. The league would reduce in quality, but become more competitive, earning it a reputation as one of the most unpredictable, exciting leagues in Europe. In fact, assuming Madrid and Barca go, the same thing could happen to La Liga, provided they vote to introduce an even TV-dstribution deal, and the Bundesliga should Bayen join the others. Same things for Italy, France and even Portugal.

For a while (before the eventual establishment of new, succesful 'elites'), Europe's domestic leagues would be at their most competitive, and exciting. and this would probably be more appealing to fans than a league with no promotion or relegation, where only one club can win, and teams are in it for perpetuity (based on the fact that they've been excluded from their local leagues) and are only there because they were successful in their domestic league, which they now cannot get back into.

The Super League would then rapidly deteriorate as interest shifts elsewhere: after all, you want to see your team win something above all else, and watching a team composed of Buffon, Alves, Ramos, Kompany, Lahm, Schweinsteiger, Busquets, Hazard, Messi, Ronaldo and Falcao win the only title you can play for year after year (As will inevitably be the case once one super-club gets a 'run' going and buys all the other teams' best players off them) is no fun when you have no chance of doing the same. Even if the football is the most glorious feat of technical brilliance the world has ever seen.

so yes, in the end, the ESL or the QSL would both fail as fans lose interest and domestic leagues (and UEFA) push back against the super-clubs, their cash cows, trying to both have their cake and eat it. It would ultimately be a good thing for the health of the European game, too, to break up this big boys' cartel and let others take their place. It won't happen on its own (and indeed, it would be against sporting tradition to forcibly do it without immediate cause), but perhaps encouraging the big clubs to make this mistake and then punishing them for it will prove to be more realistic, achievable solution.

So, in short, let them go. We'll be better off for it, and the fears of being unable to compete with them financially aren't realistic, because we're not going to be competing with them anyway; we would be competing with everyone who stayed ,not those who left.
 
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I wonder if Oliver Kay has been used to float the idea, either by a Qatari group or even by UEFA. This "threat" to European football would an ideal opportunity for Emperor Platini to ride to the rescue and organise an alternative.
 
This type of thing would never take of long term for the simple facts that fans wouldnt go to something so far away and with no regular proper fans it would flop. It may be popular initially but the excitement of playing these teams so regularly would just die out, the glamour is in some of the ties only happening every 5 years etc.

If it was say a tournament held in Barcelona then people could go there for a bit on the tinkle etc but that wouldnt apply in the middle east.

Finally a lot of the allure of football and why its so popular is the banter/chat etc - think how many people discuss football on monday morning etc when their teams have played each other at the weekend. All of that would die out.
 
I think something like this is definitely possible in the future, maybe even within the next 15 years or so.

In the top European leagues, the attractions are and have always been the "top" clubs. In England, these are probably Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea etc. It is these clubs that directly and indirectly generate the majority of the revenue created by the premier league. These top leagues are now "consumed" on a global level. And I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that these "global fans" do not "consume" the epl to watch ie. Stoke vs. Norwich. I also do not think that whatever income these "smaller" clubs gain from being part of the epl would be anywhere near as high if the top teams, and thus the global attraction of the epl was missing. Therefore, owners of these top clubs would probably suggest that the epl revenue should be split even more in their favour (than it already is) as they are the main cash generators, and their revenue share should reflect this.

The fact is, in the past the likes of Man Utd and Arsenal etc have needed to play other domestically based teams to sell their "football-product", and thus have had to subject themselves to the "democracy" of the epl and also the english football league system. And due to this democracy, they would claim that they have been "forced" to share a greater portion of "their" revenue than they feel is "fair" and would have wanted to. Highlighted by the sharing of epl TV revenue and also by the fact that the epl, as a league, part funds the rest of the english football league teams.

However, due to the modern day environment and the large sums of money that exist at the elite level of world football, for the first time ever, it is now feasible to create some sort of "Super League", in which these elite clubs can keep the revenue between themselves. In addition, owners of the top clubs can remove traditional aspects of football such as relegation and thus increase the value of their clubs if they proceed with such "Super League". Therefore, this is why I don't think this is an impossibility.
 
It would not just be the financial deal with Qatar that would be at issue though, if the four 'biggest' teams left the Premier League then the tv deals and the like would no longer represent fair value. The amount of money for the teams left would reduce significantly.

You're right that the premier league "product" won't be as valuable and saleable. However it would still be a great league with tradition. It will not be any less affluent than the Championship and that is an excellent competition. Every year there are different teams in the title hunt, shock teams battling the drop. Yes the likes of Spurs, Liverpool and Saudi Sportswashing Machine would be well positioned to dominate but the playing field would be more level. No more skewed than the current Championship for example.
 
a global superleague has been mooted for some time now. i think the challenge in ripping up the legacy structures but once it gets going i think football is universal enough to stand up as a sport with global appeal. Timezones are another matter though, and since the concept of home and away is no longer applicable, maybe its about playing in different timezones to make it easier for a global audience.
 
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