European Super League Discussion

Bluenine · Apr 22, 2021

Il Drago said:
No. European qualification should always depend on league position. ALWAYS. It should never be granted for free because of past achievements. None of the founding clubs deserve to be there by default. They need to earn it on the pitch.

And that's why my biggest issue with new CL format is granting some free spots based on coefficient points.

I don't like this rule either, but its not the biggest issue coz:

1. Only 2 out of 36 CL spots are based on UEFA coefficient points
2. Coefficients are based on last 5 years of European performance - so its rewarding consistency and merit
3. Only clubs who have qualified for Europe via domestic league are considered (CL qualifiers and EL clubs)

This rule is largely to appease EPL Top 6, who will be the main beneficiaries of this coz of their European performances. For eg, if this was applied to this seasons CL, then (I think) Arsenal and Spurs would have qualified to the CL. I suspect UEFA used this to get the EPL Top 6 to drop out of the Super League.

My biggest issue with the new CL format is that the group stage games will increase to 10 from the current 6. Group stage is already boring, and looks like these changes are focussed on getting more TV revenue at the expense of making the CL more boring.

CafeCordoba · Apr 22, 2021

Not commenting that coefficient point BS anymore, but did you call group stage boring? I don't remember it being boring last autumn when we struggled and failed to get to the knockout stages.

TheNetworkZ · Apr 22, 2021

How are they going to manage so many games? It's 4 extra games if you top the table but it's 6 if you finish 9th-24th, that's all before knockout stages.

I can see that being fine for maybe German teams who play less games in their league and have a longer winter break, but that's really tough on EPL teams who have 2 league cups on top of the premier league itself. I guess it's fine for Serie A and La Liga teams but 4-6 extra mid-week games are going to seem like a lot once the new format starts rolling out.

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TheNetworkZ · Apr 22, 2021

CafeCordoba said:
Not commenting that coefficient point BS anymore, but did you call group stage boring? I don't remember it being boring last autumn when we struggled and failed to get to the knockout stages.

I personally really enjoy the group stages, and not just because that's the only time I can watch Inter play in the Champions League

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Ottoman empire · Apr 22, 2021

CafeCordoba said:
Not commenting that coefficient point BS anymore, but did you call group stage boring? I don't remember it being boring last autumn when we struggled and failed to get to the knockout stages.

Honestly group stage matches of ucl are really boring, I can't remember the last time I watched all the 6 matches of a group stage talk less of now 10 matches, that will be fucking super boring. I think uefa should have increased the number of knockout matches (something like round of 32) and reduce group stage matches. That will be better.

IRR26 · Apr 22, 2021

This Ceferin is one of the stupidest person. Guy just dodged bullet and he cannot realize that now would be wise to not throw any bricks especially when yourself live in glasshouse.

Ceferin: 'UEFA still talking to our legal team. There will be consequences'
By Football Italia staff

President Aleksander Ceferin said the UEFA ‘still talks to the legal team’ and expects the breakaway teams will ‘realise their mistake and suffer the consequences’.

The UEFA chief defended the American owners who didn’t take part in the Super League project.

“I spoke to the owners of Roma and Marseille, who are American billionaires and have publicly stated that they would never enter such a League, because they respect the fans and the tradition of their clubs,” Ceferin told 24ur.

“It’s unfair to say that the American owners are different, even if it’s true that their sports system is different.”

Ceferin was asked what will happen next.

“We will talk about football, but in the meetings, I will decide who sits next to me,” he said. “So, I can put someone a little further away.

“If these clubs want to play in our competition again, they will have to get close to us and we will have to evaluate what happened, but I don’t want to go into details, as we are still talking to our legal team.

“I would say that the English clubs have made a very good decision and we will take that into account.

“They admitted their mistake and realised they were wrong. We all make mistakes. In a way, I was disappointed with everyone, but I must say that maybe Barcelona are the ones that disappointed me the least.

“[President Joan] Laporta was elected very recently and I spoke to him two or three times. He was under great pressure due to the financial situation he inherited.

“This happens when you overpay some players and don’t get a result.

“Look at Bayern Munich: they have no debts and have won the Champions League. I was in constant contact with Bayern CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Borussia Dortmund’s Joachim Watzke.

“They helped me a lot, as well as President Nasser Al-Khelaifi, who logically should have been one of the first to take part in the Super League.”

Real Madrid patron Florentino Perez insists Juventus and Milan haven’t left the Super League project and wants to change the project.

“Today, a club sent me the Super League match schedule. It was funny, because only Real and Juventus play every day.

“We’ll see what happens next week. A lot has happened 24 hours after the congress, but I expect more news by Friday.

“I think those who claim to be completely calm in this situation are not telling the truth. The situation is very complicated for them and not for the UEFA, which has 235 out of 247 clubs on its side.

“Indeed, 244. They are all with us. Yesterday I received text messages of support from virtually every club in Europe.

“So, now we expect everyone to realise their mistake and suffer the consequences. We will talk about it next week.”

Il Drago · Apr 22, 2021

He's trying to look like he's in control of the situation while in reality he isn't. He won't do anything apart from maybe passing up regulations that would punish teams with heavy fines in case they tried to do something similar again. Whether he likes it or not he needs those teams in his tournaments.

Glass box · Apr 22, 2021

IRR26 said:
This Ceferin is one of the stupidest person. Guy just dodged bullet and he cannot realize that now would be wise to not throw any bricks especially when yourself live in glasshouse.

Our boy Karl is a mediator between Uefa and Superclubs. I'm banking on him saving our superleague blue blood ass from dire consequences.

https://www.football-italia.net/169554/rummenigge-dialogue-we-will-come-out-together

Rummenigge: 'With dialogue we will come out together'

Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said he will be the mediator to help restore ‘happiness, harmony and loyalty’ in football.

Die Roten were never a part of the breakaway Super League and chairman Rummenigge spoke to Tuttosport about the collapse of the competition just days after the announcement.

“Bayern didn’t win, nor Rummenigge, but real football,” the former Inter striker told Tuttosport. “The one we are all in love with.”

The former striker has been asked to be an intermediary among the 12 top clubs of the initial split, UEFA and European football.

"I’m known for being a man of dialogue and not of war", einstein Rummenigge added. “So the President of the UEFA, [Aleksander] Ceferin, asked me to give him a hand in order to solve the problems and start again after very difficult days for the world of football.”

Rummenigge explained how he experienced the announcement of the Super League.

“I’m 65 and I have seen a lot in my life,” the Bayern chairman continued. “These were not easy days, but the important thing is that the story is over.

“What happened is displeasing to everyone, even to those who gave birth to the Super League.

“On Tuesday evening I heard from Ferran Soriano, the CEO of Manchester City, and in addition to confirming my retirement, he apologised for the incident.

“After him, apologies from many clubs arrived. They were very wrong, but that’s not what interests me now. The important thing is to come out of the crisis with intelligence.”

Rummenigge said he wants to work to bring ‘happiness, harmony and loyalty’ back to football, when asked what he would do if he had a magic wand.

“I would immediately bring back happiness, harmony and loyalty to the whole world of football,” Rummenigge said. “Unfortunately, I don’t have it, so we’ll have to work.

“Let’s wait to see for the storm to calm down, then we will focus on dialogue. President Ceferin, and I think like him, has reassured me in the last few hours that he has no intentions of closing the door in the face of anyone.”

And the Bayern chairman believes that will include former ECA President and current Juventus patron Andrea Agnelli.

“I don’t know if peace between the two will be possible,” Rummenigge said. “Ceferin is very disappointed.

“That said, the Super League was made up of 12 teams, not just by Agnelli.”

Rummenigge was asked if he has spoken to Agnelli after the announcement, but revealed he decided not to.

“No, but by my choice,” he said. “This is not the time to call him. It’s not important to speak quickly.

“Better let it boil down. Then I will understand from Andrea the reason that led him to behave in that way and with dialogue we will all come out together.

“I don’t exclude anything.”

Il Drago · Apr 22, 2021

This is really hilarious as Bayern, and especially Rummenigge, were always in favor of a Super League. This was a leaked document that was reported by Der Spiegel in 2018.

Documents Show Secret Plans for Elite League of Top Clubs

A coalition that includes FC Bayern Munich spent months working on plans to create a private league of elite teams behind the backs of associations and other teams.

The email that could lead to the greatest revolution in the history of European football begins with a completely harmless sentence: "Hi Romano, I would have another interesting issue where we would like to mandate you." The message was sent by Michael Gerlinger on Feb. 3, 2016. Its recipient: the international law firm Cleary Gottlieb.

Gerlinger, 45, heads up the legal department at FC Bayern Munich and is more or less the team's behind-the-scenes brain. He rarely appears in public, but team CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge hasn't made an important decision without him in over a decade.

Gerlinger's mail is explosive. It concerned nothing less than the future of European football. In it, Gerlinger instructed the lawyers to examine whether FC Bayern Munich could withdraw from the German league, the Bundesliga, and whether the team would have to allow its players to play for the national team in the future.

The Bundesliga without Bayern Munich? The national team without Mats Hummels, Joshua Kimmich or Manuel Neuer? It seems almost unimaginable.

But in 2016, anything seemed possible. That year marked something of a turning point in the realm of top-level, international football. FIFA, the international football federation, seemed leaderless and aimless after a wave of raids and arrests. The European umbrella association UEFA also saw its president Michel Platini ousted from office because of a multimillion-euro payment by former FIFA boss Joseph Blatter. At the same time, the next TV rights for the Champions League and Europa League were soon to be awarded. Revenues for the two competitions almost tripled between 2007 and 2017 and stood at more than 2.2 billion euros by the latter.

The battle that erupted after Gerlinger's mail for all the European tournament money and for the power in elite-level football could almost have been written by a scriptwriter for "House of Cards." All the sleights of hand, the relentlessness and the backroom conversations can be reconstructed with the help of a data set that the whistleblower platform Football Leaks has made available to DER SPIEGEL and its partners in the international research network European Investigative Collaborations (EIC).

The documents provide a sense for who the actual decision-makers in the football business are. They lay bare just how ruthlessly and shamelessly these individuals amass their power in order to pursue their greed for even more money. They also reveal why national -- and, more recently, international -- competitions have become so predictable, why leagues from the Champions League, to the Bundesliga on down to Italy's Serie A are monotonously won by the same teams over and over again.

That is another reason why football in 2016 faced the challenge of having to completely reposition itself. Not to make things more appealing and exciting for fans, but to continue to produce the lavish profit margins the industry has become used to in recent decades.

To achieve that goal, some clubs have apparently even been willing to betray the traditional cooperation between the clubs and the national leagues, one which has provided the framework for European football for decades. Seven of the world's top clubs have secretly joined forces, all apparently with a single idea in mind: Boredom spells the death of any show, and the only way to combat boredom is to put on an even bigger, glitzier show, the greatest football show on earth. The idea is the creation of a Super League, an elite league of top-level competition reserved exclusively for the top names in European club football. Every game is a top game. That is the secret society's plan.

Today, in November 2018, the Super League idea appears to have fresh impetus: According to the draft of a confidential term sheet that Real Madrid received just a few days ago from a consulting firm, 16 top clubs are to sign a document to establish such a league. According to the document, the league would begin operating in the 2021 season. One of the 16 clubs named in the document is FC Bayern Munich.

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/football-documents-show-secret-plans-for-elite-league-of-top-clubs-a-1236447.html

Nerazzurri_Ninja · Apr 22, 2021

Long Live SUPER LEAGUE!!!

Candreva Crosses · Apr 22, 2021

The English teams will love this. Klopp will love this the most :lol:

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Nerazzurri_Ninja said:
Long Live SUPER LEAGUE!!!

Bro, you have the wrong background color in your avatar. Please change it to blue.

Ethor · Apr 22, 2021

I disagree with the group stages being boring. Inter in the group stages is always nerve-wracking, clinching and emotionally draining

Ed. · Apr 22, 2021

brehme1989 said:
No.

That's the wrong direction for football to follow.

The sport is dying because:
1) They killed the mid-tier leagues.
2) They killed mid-table teams of top leagues.
3) They let money dictate the sport.
4) External factors are more important than the actual game (agents, betting, sponsors, broadcasters, social media and "profiles" etc)
5) And of course, it is not 'clean'. Which can be attributed to corruption, greed and several of the external factors mentioned.

Participating in a Superleague just makes you guilty of this sporting massacre. It doesn't help the sport revive, it just kicks it while it is down.

I want no part in this.

your point 1-5 just described UCL too. So, it's just hate on SL in the end.

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pupivn said:
I have a stupid theory that originally Perez or even Agnelli wants to create a league like Nations League that clubs compete in power ranking league. The so called big clubs might be out of tier 1 but they could stay in tier 2 and bounce back, if they are out of tier 2 then they shouldn't have big money pie anyway. In the end, the main point of ESL is to take control out of UEFA and big clubs can get bigger share in revenue. The no relegation idea only comes up during meeting with some of English clubs that doesn't like relegation idea, they want guarantee slots. They have to accept that because no English clubs meaning no ESL.

If they have relegation or in-out mechanism then why not but it would kill Champions League right away

interesting view.

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Il Drago said:
No. European qualification should always depend on league position. ALWAYS. It should never be granted for free because of past achievements. None of the founding clubs deserve to be there by default. They need to earn it on the pitch.

And that's why my biggest issue with new CL format is granting some free spots based on coefficient points.

They are creating a new league. If you create a new competition, you would not say you can't play in there because you don't deserve, would you?

For example, you create a football competition with your friends and you have 12 teams registered to play, would you tell the 12 teams to play against other teams first and see if they deserve to be in the competition?

It is a new competition with barely 12 teams, how to get teams qualified there? That means you need the entire Europe to be members and hence you want to replace UEFA.

brehme1989 · Apr 22, 2021

Ed. said:
your point 1-5 just described UCL too. So, it's just hate on SL in the end.

Not surprised that you failed to understand that my comments were SOLELY on the current situation, without any regard to the ESL.

Just because we have a dying sport doesn't mean I have to support beating it to death with stupid ESL ideas.

The ESL will just amplify the damage that took UEFA, the EU and the mindset of PL's blind ambition almost 25 years to make in just a matter of weeks. Sorry for not subscribing to that.

Strale · Apr 22, 2021

It's so funny Ceferin praised PSG president. The same PSG that cannot possibly justify their conecutive spending campaigns under the FFP framework, are now protectors of the beautiful game lol

PSG and Bayern, the two top clubs that have basically secured domestic titles before a season even begins, with such a huge gravitational pull in their local environments, no other club can shine.

Bayern pretty much gets a top talent from their main 'rivals' for free every few years. And Ceferin is like: Be more like Bayern. Fuck off. Reminds me of that meme with Mel Gibson and Jesus.

Linege · Apr 22, 2021

Bluenine said:
I don't like this rule either, but its not the biggest issue coz:

This rule is largely to appease EPL Top 6, who will be the main beneficiaries of this coz of their European performances. For eg, if this was applied to this seasons CL, then (I think) Arsenal and Spurs would have qualified to the CL. I suspect UEFA used this to get the EPL Top 6 to drop out of the Super League.

well, well, its sounds like the new CL will be 6 EPL teams kicking poor Inter, just like in the ESL

the key difference is, we will get paid LESS

great business for us

Ethor · Apr 22, 2021

Looks like we need a thread, How would you fix football? Since there are so many integrated issues we'd have to parse them out: UEFA structure and governance, CL league format and money distribution etc. and just because this is an Inter forum Seria A structural changes.

Pimpin · Apr 22, 2021

Ceferin has no idea who he is fucking with tbh. The guy should be aware he is nothing but a lawyer who was in the "right side" and not be delusional just because he won this battle that he can swim in same waters as billionaires.

CafeCordoba · Apr 22, 2021

Those billionaires are just clowns. Just look at their project. They came out with a project and it was fucking DESTROYED within 48 hours.

PR disaster of a century? This will used as a case study of PR gone horribly wrong in business schools.

DARi0 · Apr 22, 2021

Ceferin and Agnelli 'worked on statement hours before Super League announcement'

The New York Times reports UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin and Juventus patron Andrea Agnelli worked on a statement together to assure everything was fine, just hours before the Super League announcement.

UEFA chief Ceferin has attacked the former ECA President in recent days, revealing he spoke to Agnelli on Saturday and was reassured the Super League project was ‘only rumours’.

On Sunday, 12 founding clubs announced they had joined the breakaway competition and the New York Times reveals the Super League project had been kept a secret even from high-level executives. Milan technical director Paolo Maldini said he found out about the Rossoneri’s participation when it was announced on Sunday.

Today, Corriere della Sera reveals Ceferin has been talking to all the Presidents involved in the Super League project except Agnelli and the New York Times explained why the UEFA chairman is disappointed.

The feature reveals Agnelli and ‘his organisation had recommitted to a suite of reforms to the Champions League, European soccer’s crown jewel and its biggest moneymaker’, set to be confirmed and approved on Monday April 19.

But the rumours of something brewing behind the scenes continued and eventually exploded when Barcelona President Joan Laporta spilled the beans to La Liga chief Javier Tebas and set the wheels in motion.

The New York Times explains how Ceferin felt he had to address the rumours and jumped in his car for an eight-hour drive from his home in Ljubljana to his office in Switzerland.
The report continues to reveals that he tried to call Agnelli, but that the Juventus patron initially didn’t pick up the phone.

Ceferin is the Godfather to one of Agnelli’s daughters and decided to contact Agnelli’s wife to ask if she could get the Bianconeri President to call him back.
When the UEFA President was almost halfway to his office, Agnelli returned his call.

The newspaper reveals Agnelli continued to ‘reassure Ceferin that everything was fine’ but the Slovenian was not at ease and ‘suggested to issue a joint communiqúe that would put the issue to rest’.

Agnelli agreed with Ceferin, who drafted a statement in the car and sent it to Agnelli, who wanted more time to send back an amended version.
But when the hours passed and the two traded more calls, the Italian said he needed 30 more minutes and turned off his phone.

Agnelli had reportedly ‘protected the rebels’ secret for weeks’ and on Sunday night, an official announcement was published simultaneously on the 12 teams’ official websites.

> fuckin` scumbags know how to waste time both ON & OFF the pitch!

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