' we'll see where they are when it implodes?'

dunloybhoy wrote: the leagues piss poor. lets be honest, outside of the top 5/6 teams would you actually pay to watch stoke v villa or WBA v Newcastle unless you were a fan of the teams.

But that's all they're aiming for. Stoke etc are never going to be a "day out" for a tourist.

I expect there to be huge problems in the next 20 years.A huge amount of young people haven't grown up with regularly going games due to cost .If the older fans aren't replaced teams/leagues will suffer.
I also don't think there will ever be as big a TV deal as was just signed.IPTV/streaming is going to have a huge negative effect on football finance's.

dunloybhoy wrote: the leagues piss poor. lets be honest, outside of the top 5/6 teams would you actually pay to watch stoke v villa or WBA v Newcastle unless you were a fan of the teams. i went to everton v villa a few seasons back (fan of neither team) expecting this great game. my first EPL game. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz bored senseless through it. I actally laughed at my mate who turned to me and said "jesus this is as bad as that celtic v motherwell game you took me to!"  Look the german league is producing better players and doing it for cheaper. whereas the premier league is producing poorer players (english) and spending millions. Falco for example is here for the $, nothing more. he will play crap (as hes doing) and make a fortune and leave. Thats all the EPL is.

SuperDave84 wrote: Yeah, the current structure works better than a superleague ever would. I know the NFL is massive in the States but there are a still lot of dead rubber games near the end of the season. A system with the team with most points winning would only make that worse. A superleague would only work if there were playoffs. A league with between 20 and 32 teams (possibly with some geographic separation, like the NFL) and then playoffs at the end of the year. It would result in more frequent matchups between Real and Barca, Bayern and Dortmund, United and Arsenal, Juve and Milan, etc etc, but with playoffs at seasons end to keep things interesting.

sid waddell wrote: SuperDave84 wrote: Yeah, the current structure works better than a superleague ever would. I know the NFL is massive in the States but there are a still lot of dead rubber games near the end of the season. A system with the team with most points winning would only make that worse. A superleague would only work if there were playoffs. A league with between 20 and 32 teams (possibly with some geographic separation, like the NFL) and then playoffs at the end of the year. It would result in more frequent matchups between Real and Barca, Bayern and Dortmund, United and Arsenal, Juve and Milan, etc etc, but with playoffs at seasons end to keep things interesting. US sports have a different culture where leagues are closed shops based on franchising.  Football is based on a pyramid system where, in theory anyway, Accrington Stanley can progress up the divisions and win the league or the European Cup. You can't impose that US-style system on football and expect it to meet with anything other than complete opposition, and rightly so.

I know that. I'm just saying that if a Superleague format comes in, it would have to incorporate a playoff system. It couldn't just run on a round robin with nothing else added.

The question of whether or not a superleague could work with relegation is another matter entirely. It's hard to think it could work or that the clubs would be interested in setting up a league like that. I mean, if you had a 32 team league, you'd have something like 6 British clubs (5 English and 1 Scottish), 4 Spanish, 3 French, 2 Portuguese, 5 Italians, 2 Dutch, 4 Germans, 2 Turkish, then maybe one each from Greece, Switzerland, Belgium and Russia to spread the interest. Having one team from every country relegated each year would be unacceptable to the clubs setting it up, or even having the bottom few clubs relegated, regardless of where they come from, and it would be clubs not UEFA setting it up. The lack of certainty would kill clubs.

If you think the drop off from the Premier League to the Championship is steep in terms of TV money, imagine what this would be like. Just look at the countries where tv rights are sold individually. Barca and Real take in something like 80% of Spanish tv money. They go and the rest are goners. And that's only domestic money. The money currently spent on Champions League rights would be added to this too. What is currently Champions League money plus the majority of domestic money would go to the Superleague. The remaining domestic leagues would suffer massively. I cannot see that clubs setting up a superleague would be prepared to take the risk of relegation and the drop in income that would entail. The big clubs at the minute make most money domestically and they are happy with that. A superleague with relegation would put that all at risk.

It would probably have to be a franchise system without relegation, from the point of view of tv money distribution. That is true. That would hard to justify to fans as well, I accept that. All my initial point concerned was that you'd need playoffs to keep it interesting. I don't think you could have relegation.

There are many reasons fans wouldn't be interested in a Superleague and the fact there couldn't be relegation (because the founder clubs would not allow it) is just one of them.

Plus, I imagine players' unions would be opposed. You'd go from a system at the minute where there are 20 clubs in England with players all making pretty good money. The same is true to a lesser extent in the rest of Europe (bottom level Serie A and La Liga players make a fair bit less). Tv money is to thank for that. If you remove sizeable Tv money from all but the Superleague (which is what would happen) then professional players outside the Superleague would make a hell of a lot less money. It would be the lucky few who make big bucks. Even the hit Championship level players would take would be big because there would be no parachute payments, no solidarity payments, no owners spending big in the hope of reaching the promised land. It would lead to a small cohort of very elite players making the real money while the likes of Jon Walters, Lee Catermole and Phil Jagielka will be making a hell of a lot less than they are at the minute. The PFA would not be likely to go for that.


Edited by SuperDave84 - 27 Feb 2015 at 2:16pm

I hate this system they've had for the Champions League last 16 for the last few years where the matches are spread out over different weeks. 3 weeks between legs which kills momentum and interest and you get sh*t matches on a lot of the nights being covered live eg Schalke v Real Madrid last week.

i like the pairs of international games but should be Friday night followed by Wednesday night.

tbh i used to follow english football even tho i didnt support anyone but over this past number of years i dont watch it at all.