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Comment by mrweasel | Hacker News Reader

>Guaranteed placement in the league, no risk of demotion.

I can see it from the clubs point of view, but the risk of demotion adds excitement. Imagine the NFL if the two worst teams got demoted.

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Unsurprisingly[1], Ted Lasso addressed this in a great way:

Player: Coach, do they not have relegation in America?

Ted: Oh, no, no, no.

Player: So what happens to all the shit teams at the end of the season?

Ted: They play out the rest of the schedule, going through the motions in meaningless games contested in lifeless, half-empty stadiums, and everyone's pretty much fine with that.

1. I swear, this is the most relatable non-current-events-driven show anyone has done in years.

This was the thing that killed it for me[0]: if you can't be relegated where's the incentive to bring your A game? And where does that leave fans? Even more ripped off than they are now by teams who, under the new system, simply can't be arsed because there are no consequences?

[0] Not that I'm particularly a fan of soccer - the English-style long-ball (aka hit and hope) game with possession carelessly given away all the time drives me up the wall to watch (admittedly much less in evidence under Gareth Southgate at the 2018 World Cup). There's also too much diving and associated on pitch drama/gamesmanship that has nothing to do with playing, and disrupts the flow of matches, for me to find it particularly enjoyable.

And that's exactly what makes US football different from European football (soccer as some call it). Yes, major teams enjoy a de facto superstar status, and the US model is exactly what they had in mind with the ESL. But here even the matches between minor teams live from the fans of the minor teams, as football is here not only for the show but a part of community life. Even big teams still have that community status and that's exactly what burned them now.

These are the largest clubs in UK and Europe. They is no risk of demotion but rather a risk of not qualifying to the Champions League, which in practice is both a planning and financial problem and a disappointment to fans.

In the UK only the top 4 in the Premier League qualify for the Champions League. So at least 2 of the 6 clubs that signed up for the ESL lose out every single year, which means very unpredictable income and matches.

So I perfectly understand why they want a bit more certainty and a guarantee to bring top games to fans every year.

I'm not into football so I understand much less why fans were so opposed to this. And I am also shocked that the PM wanted to intervene within 24 hours of the announcement on an issue that seems completely private and irrelevant compared to all the issues the country is facing.

> And I am also shocked that the PM wanted to intervene within 24 hours of the announcement on an issue that seems completely private and irrelevant compared to all the issues the country is facing.

I'm not a UK citizen but I follow UK politics, and to me Johnson's actions here are perfectly on brand.

> And I am also shocked that the PM wanted to intervene within 24 hours of the announcement on an issue that seems completely private and irrelevant compared to all the issues the country is facing.

I remember a conversation I had about the UK economy years ago, before Brexit.

London doesn't seem to be much of a financial hub anymore, so football and English royalty are the two main exports the UK has to offer the world these days.

Fans are opposed because it's the final straw of their clubs being turned in to money making corporations rather than about football.

Boris Johnson is opposed because the conservatives gained a lot of northern working class seats in the last election and they want to keep them. Happy as I am to criticize him and his party, I'm not sure why they shouldn't deal with this as well as the other issues

Because that ESL would pull most of the money from other leagues. At the moment also smaller teams have chance to compete in Champions League and even smaller sucess in first qualification rounds brings enough money to small team to try very hard to get into it next year. This, on the other hand, fuels and improves quality of teams in smaller european countries. All the money is distributed across more teams. This is not something big teams look for, of course.

> All the money is distributed across more teams.

And this is very important for the future of the sport. Without a portion of the money being funneled like this to the smaller teams there is no space for future talent to grow.

In Europe we effectively do not have collage sports so we have to actually pay our athletes in the lower levels so they can keep on improving until they are good enough to join the top level (or just keep on playing at that level if they already peaked as a good opponents for new talent to train against)

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