US owners find greed doesn't play well in European soccer
eu.usatoday.com
eu.usatoday.com
In the Premier League (as well as Formula 1, for example) there is positive feedback that keeps the top teams at the top. Being successful means that you make more money (whether directly through prize money, or indirectly through sponsors), and you can use that money to keep yourself on the top. Seven clubs have won the Premier League in the last 30 years (of which two have only won it once). If you support one of those top five or six clubs - good for you. If you don't, then you don't have a realistic chance of seeing a league win in your lifetime.
Whereas in the NFL the playing field is much more even. The player salary cap means that teams are limited in the ways that they can outspend each other, and there are various mechanisms that advantage the worst performing teams compared to the best (draft position and schedule). This means that with the right moves (usually the result of new leadership) your team can go from bottom of the pile to Superbowl contender in a short span of years. If you are a Jaguars fan and your team is picking #1 in the draft next week after getting one win last season, you can realistically hope that you might be supporting a good team in a couple of years. In the last TEN years, there have been EIGHT Superbowl winners despite what is considered to be an unprecedented period of dominance by the Patriots.
This makes the sport more interesting to watch as a fan - it's not the same few contenders year in year out. Even Formula 1 is moving in that direction for the good of the sport - bringing in spending limits and evening up some of the prize money distribution.
I don't understand - isn't this backwards? It is the same few contenders in the NFL every year isn't it? But it isn't in the English football leagues where teams relegate and promote every year.
When did a team last join the NFL? 2002? And before then? 1996? I think beyond that you're possibly talking about the 70s?
Premier League and La Liga are dominated (to different extents) by the top teams, but are otherwise open for any team to reach and win.
NFL is closed to new entrants, but apparently more fair and competitive for all members for that closed group.
"If Leicester City win the premier league I'll do MOTD in my undies"
For example now the rules are that your usage of wind tunnels is bigger the closest you are to the last place, while the first place in the ranking doesn't matter how much money they are willing to spend with wind tunnels, they are heavily capped.
That and diving. Seriously, fuck FIFA and all the EU leagues. They cant figure out how to deal with diving and playing for time, I cant figure out why I should care. It's painful to watch any sport where grown men fake getting hurt. The cringe is far more damaging than the love taps they whine about. Rugby and hockey have that shit figured out, why cant they?
Something else they could learn from rugby, respect for the officials. The number of times you see football players chasing after or arguing with the referee is just embarrassing. Rugby officials don't stand for it, neither should football officials.
Although the rugby hooligans are very respectful to the referee. Mic-up the referee in football.
My only thought as somebody who never played soccer is that the decisions a soccer referee makes are much more consequential, and oftentimes very subjective. A single call in soccer can change a game in a way that doesn't happen in any other sport.
I get it, there's a want to avoid injuries. I respect that. Rewarding stupidity and blatant cheating was beyond a pendulum swing. Retro punishments isnt enough. It has to be consistent red card, ejected from the game, multi game ban if you're going to fix the image of the sport. Also, cant remember what it's called, but when they intentionally kick a ball into an opposing player so it bounces off them, then out of bounds so they can get a throw in. Yea, that I hate too. I watched a 70s MU vs Liverpool game, none of that shit was going on. Just a pure game. I think that was when I was becoming disillusioned with the sport, because I saw how it used to be played... like an actual fucking sport.
Maybe The Code from hockey needs to leak into soccer/football. That's a better way to fix diving and injuring strikers. Put the beat down on that player, continue the game. Itll sort itself out eventually. Until then, I'll choose a sport that has itself sorted out.
I always find these complaints strange coming from American fans. "Playing for time" is hugely important and mainstream strategy in the NFL. Coaches will be criticized if they don't run the ball enough when they have the lead in the 4th quarter. Meanwhile flopping is hugely common in the NBA. You can just search Youtube for "LeBron flops"[1] for plenty of evidence of the exact same behavior that is always condemned in soccer.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=LeBron+flops
I dont watch basketball at all.
That isn't the reasoning at all. The NFL doesn't have guaranteed contracts, so in a very real sense the players in the NFL are playing more to stay in the NFL than players in college are playing to get into the NFL. Also some of the highest paced teams in college are the teams full of players with no hope of playing in the NFL.
The reason some college teams play faster than the NFL (and it isn't all teams) is because there is a wider talent distribution in college. It is possible to win games there by being faster and playing faster than your opponent. Talent is more evenly distributed in the NFL. You can just out athleticism your opponent.
Another factor is that both players and coaches spend more time strategizing in the NFL. It is harder to just run the same scheme every game without it being eventually exposed.
And time for advertisements.
The biggest sporting event in the US sport calendar year is known - not for the crunching tackles, not for the high flying antics, not for the pin in the needle plays...no sir - it is known for ads. Superbowl ads are bigger than the sport. When I was younger I though Superbowl meant ad marathons.
Strangely enough, this sport has had a similar problem with playing for time that afflicts football/soccer. It used to be a horrible problem that almost destroyed the sport until the invention of the shot clock. I think it may have gone a bit too far in the other direction, to the point where you can ignore everything but the last five minutes of most games, but football/soccer could really use something like a shot clock to force offensive action.
Diving though; that's universally considered to be unquestionably lame. It's never cool.
This is the only football I know. That's why I was never interested in watching football as a kid and I'm still not today as an adult. I am an absolute sport enthusiast and play everything from football to basketball, skateboarding and what not but I can't watch a bunch of drama queens having a cry when the wind blew their hair the wrong direction or someone got slightly touched by another player. The sport seriously needs more Zidanes who know how to head butt if someone is making a scene.
It is just that the professional game is pathetic, and I don't watch it for that reason.
There is something even more painful to watch than soccer simulations: sports that encourage killing the watch like football, baseball and basketball.
At least in diving, a little bit of acting talent is involved.
Another dishonorable gameplay of baseball that makes me hate it (my apologies for not remembering how this is called): this move batters often do to just amortize the ball so the field players can snag an extra base!
I don't understand what you mean by your "dishonorable gameplay" example. What does amortizing a ball mean to you?
> I don't understand what you mean by your "dishonorable gameplay" example. What does amortizing a ball mean to you?
It took me some time to find out, but this is what I was refering to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunt_(baseball).
Now truth be told, one thing that makes me love baseball is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Gaedel#At_the_plate.
A few days after that Eddie Gaedel stunt, Veeck did another one where the fans got to decide everything that the team did during the game, by holding up cards to vote.
Well, it is obviously subjective, but bunting can be used to prevent no-hitter which is why I personally see it as disgraceful.
The shot-clock in basketball was introduced to prevent clock killing, and promote scoring.
Basketbal
Despite the old Analog TV, No 4K, No HDR, No 60fps, No Super Complex Codec, but the intensity was there. Something was transmitted from the field to audience in front of the tele. You can feel Roy Keane is about to punch somebody in the face if they dont make one more step or dont chase after the ball. And that is how time and time again Man Utd make their comebacks.
If we ignore the big teams like Liverpool, Man U, Arsenal, I remember Leads had the Australian pair Mark Viduka and Harry Kwell, Alan Shearer in Newcastle, Paolo Di Canio in West Ham, even Bolton Wanderer has Jay-Jay Okocha. Every team has a fighting Chance. And football was so much more fun back then.
I think somewhere along the line Football becomes very commercially focused. And big money flowing in means there are far less Middle Class Team. ( Sounds like our society in general ). And with less competition, along with players just dont seems to give a fuck about anything other than their pay cheque. The game becomes less interesting.
With how much increase in bandwidth we have now days, they should just broadcast all of their different camera views. Sports bars would be much more interesting if you could look at different screens for different views.
I started watching NFL this past season and i found a lot more interesting than today’s soccer. Great display of athleticism, discipline to follow plays, and the dance moves!
What if I told you there was a magical way to make sure that all teams competing were on an equal financial footing?
I think everyone in the country rejoiced when Leicester won. Everyone loves an underdog story.
> and is now down in the 4th tier
Wolves were in the 4th tier, now they battle to get into europe. These things are cyclical over the generations. Sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down, but you're always there.
Out of interest, are you British or American?
I don't think I disagree with your basic point that feedback is important, but I don't think the NFL has it well solved either.
Also I think people overestimate how much winning actually means. People support clubs whose heights were reached decades ago, not because they might miraculously win this year, but because the club is part of their life and the club's story is part of their story. It's like a soap opera, greatness comes and goes, but you keep watching. Club heroes are often not particularly good in a wider context, they're often of journeyman skill.
So in that sense there's something for everyone, even if the trophies are tied up in the top few clubs.
I do think some sort of more even distribution would make sense, though I think there are probably competition laws that would prevent a salary cap.
> If you are a Jaguars fan and your team is picking #1 in the draft next week after getting one win last season, you can realistically hope that you might be supporting a good team in a couple of years.
This creates really weird incentives. It was between them and the Jets, and people were saying the Jets were stupid for winning a game and losing Trevor Lawrence.
It's also its own can of worms, having unpaid athletes who are still essentially professionals rather than students, at universities who run a huge legally protected racket.
Why not do like in Europe and have clubs with teams that have age groups, genders, and second and third teams for all those categories? What's the idea in a bunch of professionals who come and go as dictated by money, but with the name of a specific place on their jerseys? In what sense are you truly representing a place if there's no community below the professionals?
At least in England, clubs are an integral part of local culture (see the emotions involved in a derby!), and the thought of “moving” a club to a different location would be heresy. I presume that it’s very similar in many other European countries too.
And yet right now two of the top 6 teams are not the "6 big clubs" - Leicester and West Ham.
Liverpool, who walked the season last year, are doing about as well as Everton. Man City, who are currently top, lost just 2 weeks ago against Leeds - at home. I'm sure that Leeds fans were delighted by that performance, 10 years ago they were languishing in the 3rd tier. I know for a fact the football nerds in my family were delighted to see Wolves doing so well recently.
A football team is for life, not just for Christmas. You don't choose your team, it's something built in, whether you like football (or sport) or not.
My Dad, like his dad before him, and his dad before him, supported Wolves from a wee nipper in the 50s when they were winning the league (53-54 - snatching it from rival WBA, being claimed "Champions of the World" apparently for defeating Hungary, and being one of the first British teams in the champions league) through to his deathbed last month. Clearly in the 50s Wolves were one of the "big 6".
In the 60s they were doing great again, starting off with FA Cup wins and 2nd/3rd places in the league but by the mid 60s they were relegated. They bounced around in the 60s and 70s between first and second tiers, but by the mid 80s they were down in the 4th tier. Local boy Steve Bull came, and being far better than Andy Gray, catapulted Wolves back up the leagues. I remember them beating the undefeatable Man U about that time. With a "super league" that type of victory doesn't come.
In 2013 they were back in tier 3. The 2017/18 season they did outstandingly in Tier 2, greatest season for decades (or so I'm informed), and the following season in the top tier was blistering too - finishing 7th, getting into Europe, reaching the FA Cup Semi finals. What an exciting 5 years.
It's not just Wolves of course. Leicester were in the 3rd tier in 2008. By 2016 they'd won the Premier league. That type of rise, in 8 years, is the stuff dreams are made of.
Watford had a cracking Semi Final game against Wolves in 2019, coming from 2-0 down to win in extra time. Wolves had got rid of "big" teams like Man U on the way up, and the FA Cup is where anything can happen.
They lost 6-0. Man City were unstoppable. not bad for a team that were in the 3rd tier as recently as 1998
Crawley Town beat Leeds earlier this year in the FA Cup. In 2013 it was Wigan knocking out Man City. In 2015 3rd tier Bradford knocked out Chelsea. Third tier Oldham beat Liverpool in 2013, and of course non-league Lincoln beat Premier league Burnley in 2013, reaching the FA Cup quarter finals.
English Football has never been about a battle between a few big teams. When the century-old Wimbledon were Americaned, bought and moved 60 miles to Milton Keynes, the fans got behind the replacement. The replacements started off in the 9th tier, and are currently fighting the previous Wimbledon (now Milton Keynes) in the 3rd tier.
Then eventually beating the Franchise and watching them get relegated. Sweet sweet justice.
Now with a fans funded new stadium.
Football is beautiful. Even on a wet cold night in stoke.
Are there any others?
Stoke and Port Vale are unlikely to be winning the premier any time soon, but that's not the point - Stoke thrashed Liverpool 6-1 in 2015, and that's Football. I'm no fan, and If I were I'd support wolves, but I can appreciate that win will have made Stoke fans delighted.
From reading this hn discussion (the only place I've seen ESL defended), it seems that fans of the American style system (which yougov put as less than 10%) think that winning at the end of the season is all that matters.
But I appreciate for many people, football isn't a matter of life and death - it's far more important. For tens of millions in the UK, it's not about the winning, or the losing, it's about the battle.
And I doubt you'd get those kinds of rules and still have pro/rel. Ultimately investors don't want that fair of a playing field. And pro/rel in Europe is brilliant if you get past the very top of the table. If all you care about is "who wins the league/cup" every year it may become boring, but the best games in the UK can be the lower league playoffs to see who goes up. There's a constant refreshment of new teams getting promoted which changes the league every year.
Another example of this is last year's "Project Big Picture"[0] in the Premier League, which was mostly led by the same owners with the same motivations.
As an illustrive example, take the NFL where Roger Goodell's purpose is to serve the leagues owners. He's an instrument of their will and so's steered the NFL in a direction that benefits them the most (e.g. Goodell will always pick the path that gets them the most money). The Premier League on the other hand takes decisions that are seen by big club owners as precisely _against_ their interests (e.g. distributing TV money from foreign TV deals equally to all clubs when they claim >80% of matches watched outside the UK are of the 5-6 big clubs, the classic but reductive 'No one in Malaysia wants to watch Bolton play')
But that’s not how football works. Status and brand shouldn’t matter, you get money based on your results.
Most of these clubs are pretty much assured of qualification for Europe anyway, but at least they earn it by finishing in the top few places in their national league.
They already have the most money, they want to get rid of the risk that they might not always do so.
And the way football related is defined is fairly narrow, so some obvious revenue sources (suite upgrades, parking, etc) do not fall under football related and therefore goes to the owners.
Further, the vast majority of wealth the owners make is through the rapidly increasing value of their teams.
At the end of the day the income is peanuts compared to the wealth and asset value appreciation that is generated by the teams.
I think you're looking at this a bit too narrowly - every expense involved in running an NFL team comes out of that 52% that the owners "get", so none of the owners are actually seeing all 52% of that money.
Please note - I'm simply responding to the specifics here - I'm not saying that owners are hard done by, in fact I believe the split should be more weighted to the players (and include roster expansion and more pay/stability for practice squad players).
The NFL might distribute money evenly, but only among the select, limited number of teams that the NFL allows to be a part of the NFL brand.
I'm not sure a super league isn't a good idea. At the moment the top six or so teams in the Premiership are more or less unbeatable by those beneath them. I'd like to see more games where they play other great teams in Europe, and fewer of them beating Middlesbrough or whatever. (Or Norwich, my local team that just got promoted.)
The club is the people, the owners own the shares of the company.
Your comment frames the situation as a "League Owner" vs "Club Owner" power struggle. That struggle is real, but it ignores the critical aspect that makes European football appealing: European football is about the clubs, the communities they represent, and cultural rivalry between communities.
In essence Man City is Man City because they are not Bolton, not because Malaysians want to watch them.
Reason European clubs are good is that they're intertwined with society. European football became big business, but that's not where it came from, nor what it is.
This has always confused me: what's the connection between the community and the club? How does Man City 'represent' Manchester?
So there is a direct connection between your town and the sports club. It's the place where you sign your kid up to participate in team sports. Independent clubs aren't really a thing in Europe, for instance Bayern Munich is the team from Munich. They'll probably never be based in Berlin just because they're making them a better offer. Local clubs often have a long history, too. It's not uncommon for a local sports club to be over a hundred years old as well (TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, founded in 1899).
The history of the clubs and cities are intertwined. It’s just a massive cultural deal. Can’t properly explain it but the clubs are part of it people’s identity, which often they inherit from their parents.
I fully agree with the spirit of your comment but, to be fair, Manchester United is in Trafford, which is as much "Manchester" as Bolton is...
Geography only plays a small part of this.
And United’s first home wasn’t in Trafford.
Which bit is wrong? Old Trafford is in Trafford which is in Manchester. Bolton is in Greater Manchester which, ok, isn't what people would possibly understand by "Manchester" but it's still viable.
I’m so confused by this question. Do clubs in other sports not play a massive part in the community?
Manchester United did so much to help people in the pandemic. They have strong links with local charities. The footballers do a lot for charity. Rashford is an obvious superstar in that regard but it’s across the board.
Do American sports clubs not play a massive part in their community? I don’t get why this question keeps coming up. Of course the clubs are central institutions in their community...
I grew up in the US, and I always viewed them as businesses. They sell entertainment, and are free to do what's needed to boost their bottom lines. The businesses can move (and have moved) to wherever they think they might earn more money.
I've never care for soccer or followed any of it. But I know enough to know that if you tried to move a big British soccer team to another city it might just set of a minor civil war.
At the moment there is no penalty for coming last in the AFL or NFL :-) oh and next year you have first pick of the best new players
The NFL, MLB, and the NBA are all higher revenue sports than the EPL. Even the NHL brings in more revenue than every other sports league than the big 3 North American sports + EPL- 30% more than La Liga or Bundesliga. So if revenues for sports without relegation are so much greater than the revenues for sports with relegation, why would it improve the sport?
In terms of money, which is a rough but reasonable proxy for fan interest, limited entry leagues seem to make more money.
It's not deliberate arrogance, it just comes from the same core belief that thinks the USA is the best in everything {insert newsroom speech}
Said in a muppet voice.
Edit: I guess ultimately it’s the weakness of being a fanatic about anything that isn’t yourself or your loved ones. Some smart business people realised thirty years ago that there was a massive consumer surplus in football fandom and set about capturing it.
Judging by the way fans vote with their hard earned money I’d say there’s still more to be captured. But the idea that the current FIFA governed world of football is some sort of pristine old-growth forest threatened by commerce is just ludicrous.
It's not about the winning either. The romantacism of being able to win, when Bradford knocked out Chelsea in 2015, when Oldham beat Liverpool, fighting for 5th/6th place in the premier, or fighting to avoid relegation, this is the essence of football, where everyone, no matter what their team, can support their team and have those dreams.
There’s a non-zero percent chance for upsets in the current system. In ESL there’d be no chance. Zero. Zilch. That difference is fundamental and transcends the collective psyche of world football.
In terms of meritocracy, I'd say it works at least as well as the European system.
As an American I would admit a preference for the promotion/relegation model but when I look at how a league like the English Premier League functions I don't find much to be jealous of. It's basically just a contest to see who has the most money... the teams with huge amounts of cash win nearly every year. Greed wins. And the fat paychecks for Premier league teams assure that the rich stay rich. It's hilarious to think of Man U being relegated because it could happen but c'mon, it's not.
The main difference is that Euro football leagues give the illusion of adhering to the sport's amateur roots. Theoretically your local town's team could play its way up to the Bundesliga or the EPL and win it all. However... that is basically an illusion. Occasionally a team like Cardiff City fights its way up to the Premier League, takes a beating, and sinks back down to the Championship League. They never really have a chance. Once per century you get a Leicester-style miracle, which is extremely cool but it's the exception that proves the rule.
Basically both systems are nearly equally ugly but the American one is more honest in most regards.
However I will agree that the proposed Super League is a terrible idea. The Champions League is special because it pits the best against the best every single year. That will be much less true for the Super League.
That's the thing I don't get about the opposition to this. Bayern has won the Bundesleague for a decade straight. Paris St Germaine is almost as dominant. Juventus the same in Serie A. La Liga flips between Real and Barca. Why not let these teams that have outclassed their competition go play in their own league? Let them chase the money and international market while the rest of the league can maintain their traditions.
The Super League was not about merit but rather brands recognition.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/global-club-soccer-rank...
But, it was sort of "the exception that proves the rule" right?
This fans reaction to the proposed ESL is ridiculous. Football is of and for the fans? How laughable. Players making millions and millions, oil money and money from suspicious financing changing teams from minor characters in the national stage to top teams (see Chelsea, ManCity, PSG). How can true fans support Chelsea when the money from Abramovich change the dimension, the spirit of the team? Or Manchester City, with working-class fans that are now supporting a team that in one week is spending more than an Onassis in a year?
My football, the "romantic" football, ended in the 80s. Certainly a time in which players were already paid handsomely, but also a time in which you could see players play for the "shirt", in which teams had an identifiable "culture" and "spirit" that was shared among players and fans. A sport, not just a pastime. I cannot stand watching a game now.
Man City were getting 30,000 fans attending in the third tier. Sunderland gets 30,000 fans attending in the third tier.
Leipzig used to only play in a regional division 10 years ago and are now in the top of the Bundes Liga and reached the semi-finals of the champions league.
Although rare and improbable it does keep a dream alive for many fans. And dreams are part of the entertainment.
It can also go the other way around. Schalke 04 used to be a top 5 Bundes Liga team and are now relegated. This drama is exactly what makes the football pyramid charming.
I know for example Cardiff City's renaissance and brief promotion to the Premier League corresponded with an influx of foreign cash. That's undeniably massive fun for supporters of Cardiff, but decidedly un-fun for teams that did not receive such an infusion of money, and in the end it doesn't make me too jealous of the pyramid model.
They were purchased 5 years prior to winning the Premier League and immediately upgraded their sponsorships, facilities, staff, and players.
Did money make them win the premier league? No, but it couldn't have happened without it and it had nothing to do with meritocracy or the local community.
> But Kroenke, Henry and the Glazers, believed to be the ringleaders of the Super League fiasco along with Real Madrid’s Florentino Perez, badly miscalculated.
The American franchise model has a lot of advantages (or it would not be so popular) - steady income stream, revenue sharing, lower player acquisition costs.
But I also think the average European soccer fan thinks that the current status quo is bad, and introducing measures to increase the concentration of power and money is to be decried.
All of the founding members would be immune from ejection/relegation. 15/20 slots would be permanent.
There's no point to competition if winning and losing has no real consequences. Just like american sports, which are so freakishly boring because of that. Someone one a superbowl? Someone came in last out of 38 teams in baseball? What happens now? Nothing? Got it.
American-style sports is just playing exhibition matches over and over again, without end or consequence, year after year. There's no point to it.
Turns out, real sports fans don't like that.
Say what you will about American puritanism, but it's shocking how brazenly the English game promotes gambling.
Not nothing. They then get first dibs at the best youth players next season
A large corporation - a collective enterprise rooted in a society run in the service of collective goals.
We see this in debates about moving supply chains back on shore and focusing on domestic job creation. Those are not legitimate complaints if corporations and their profit is an unquestionable moral principle.
Football has its roots in amateur and local associations with little or nothing to do with profit.
In fact, only in the 1990s (with the explosion of cable TV and sports channels) did it started becoming a huge industry.
Corporations do not share the same pedigree, so they aren't "betraying" their roots.
We could all agree that corporations should be socially run and football clubs should be private corporations.
People are saying that football clubs are rooted in society in the very same country whose leader once said “There is no such thing as a society”.
The world is what we make of it.
I think my employer will only pay for one more comment :)
I agree, but most things in life are social conventions. The problem is not identifying them, but changing them.
If fans want to buy or create and run football clubs they are free to do so. If private investors want to invest in football and buy or create and run football clubs they are free to do so.
I don't think there should a way football 'should' be run, again I think this is a private activity that may be organised and run however people like within the law.
The same goes for corporations in general.
In fact according to neo liberal capitalist logic this is the best way to run anything including football.
It's not ideological or "neo liberal capitalist logic", though I agree this is mostly a business problem.
But even at a more basic level this is about liberty. I don't see a fundamental difference between clubs wanting to set up the ESL and people in a town wanting to set up a tournament among them of whatever sport or legal activity they please. The State has no business interfering.
Now of course the fans (as fans and customers) can equally make their voice heard and vote with their feet if they are not interested.
My only concern here is this attempt by the government to dictate how football should be run.
Recall Microsoft’s much-hated dominance 20-30 years ago and how they’ve had to change.
Think of your own behaviour as a consumer, always trying to buy the best and the most for the least. You’re training the cybernetic organisms known as corporations to add value conspicuously and voluminously... or die.
In my day job as a consultant, I see many small and medium corporations, and I can tell you that the successful ones are the lean & mean value creators
There are also counter factuals. The value a corporation prevents from being created due to monopolies or lobbying. That cannot be measured and maybe greater than the value added.
I can't believe the hypocrisy of FIFA and UEFA and how everyone is making some moral case for being against the super league, when we know how insanely corrupt fifa and uefa are. It's an absolute joke how everyone is taking the moral high ground here.
The super league idea was so far out that for a wee while FIFA and UEFA actually had a moral high ground to someone at least.
Just look at the players' transfer fees, agent fees and weekly salaries. Where are all these money coming from to pay for such inflated expenses? In the end, it is us, the average football fans, who end up paying for all this greed (I pay $40/month in cable to get NBC sports to watch SOME of Manchester United's English Premier League games; $5/month to watch Peacock, which is owned by NBC, to watch SOME of Manchester United games in Premier League; $6 to ESPN Plus for FA cup; and finally $6/month for CBS Sports, which has now become Paramount+, to watch Manchester United in Champions League, which is what the super league is trying to supplant). These fees will only keep increasing every two years or so. Of course, I do not live in England and if I do, I might end up buying match day tickets, which could easily cost me ~$100 a game. If I buy a Manchester United jersey (not including the shorts), it costs ~$120 (it used to cost $90 ~4 years ago when I last bought one).
So yeah, it's greed all around (after all, we live in a capitalistic society) and UEFA doesn't have much to hold itself over the super league group to taut its virtues in my opinion.
It's money laundering. Only a few talk about that. It's from the regional league local construction tycoon football club president laundering his money from black construction work all the way up to the top.
The sport is incredibly popular, so the TV companies hand over billions to buy the rights, that money is given to the clubs who then use that to build a squad. Which when divided up means the best players earn insane amounts.
The top players are just very lucky to be in an industry where their skills are so rare and highly valued and employers are so rich.
Under the system of UEFA competitions and coefficient rankings, teams from outside the strongest divisions have a chance to participate in big money tournaments and attract viewers. They also make the tournament more interesting and unpredictable. Last year Atalanta (Italy) made the semifinals of UCL. This year Slavia Prague and Dinamo Zagreb knocked out Leicester City and Tottenham Hotspur in UEL.
This cannot happen in a system where the 12 biggest teams in Europe form a cartel and sign TV deals that leave nothing for the development of the sport at grassroots levels.
Trying to convert that into a "Hollywood" soccer kind with "fireworks", elitism and expensive/luxury consumerdom/PPV like is the recipe for a disaster and to dis-joint the huge regional fandom of each team.
On major events such as finals, my province's capital city's population rises from ~200k people to nearly 500k-1 million in the streets, it's crazy.
A massive component of football's success is the illusion that "anyone can make it" and win everything, being just 11 vs. 11.
I say illusion, because it's true in theory, but in reality small budget teams can't really hold on to great players.
This has some other implication. Ease of access is a good argument of the coming big decline of football and most active sports in favor of e-sports.
That said, Amazon buying Twitch for <1bn IMO is even a bigger steal than FB buying IG for 1bn
In addition, it's also worth pointing out that those two clubs are also massively in debt:
https://www.football-espana.net/2021/01/27/real-madrid-accou...
https://www.football-espana.net/2021/01/25/barcelona-on-the-...
If (when?) this new league falls through it'll be interesting to see what happens to big clubs like these that, despite all their success and big brand, might have been relying on this extra money to see them through.
* system of "haves and have nots" where haves have advantage,
* two tiered system of "haves and have nots" where haves have build in advantage in the rules and have nots have additional disadvantages on top of lack of money.
Also, making everything into dichotomy where something not being perfect is a reason to make it even worst is also a very American cultural tendency. No, just because it is not perfectly fair now does not mean it is ok to make it even less fair. And just because solution of problem is not perfect does not mean it is pointless.
For instance, ultra's defending their stadium and city/town against looters during recent riots in the netherlands[0][1], with members the club willing to "take the hit" in terms of getting fined/arrested.
[0]:https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/voetbalsupporters-als-buurtwach...
[1] https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/nederland/artikel/5211010/vo...
They should have allowed for a results-based promotion system to the ESL if you top your national league.
In short, although owners own the assets of the club, they don't really own the fanbase / legacy of the club.
We have a property (call it "fan equity" or "club legacy") that someone (fans) has invested time and effort in improving. That property has now acquired commercial value so now the govt (club owners) want to use the eminent domain argument to take that and use it as they wish.
The eminent domain plays as follows: SL12 owners are looking to de-risk their business, ie avoid financial volatility. In effect, SL12 is for the "greater good" of the top clubs. (investors would lose far less money, which means top clubs would have guaranteed financial futures, and thus, never disappear)
This does not appeal to the fans because they are invested in the ups and downs of their clubs. They are OK with downside because they also have the upside. This is similar to a property holdout. They dealt with the bad times in the neighborhood...so its natural they say now when the going gets good.
What I didn't know was the owner of these club were Americans.
Uhm, so what? Players move between clubs all the time in football.
That doesn't make any sense whatsoever to an avid, European, football fan like me at least
> That doesn't make any sense whatsoever to an avid, European, football fan like me at least
Can you explain how ownership of a player's rights works in European football? As a non-football fan from North America, I have always found it confusing when I hear about the huge fees it costs move a player, before his salary is even discussed, as I'm more familiar with the simpler trade/free-agency model used by American sports leagues.
What about player loans, how are those even a thing?
I've tried googling/wikipedia-ing it more than once, but these concepts are often not dumbed down enough for me.
Clubs usually make sure to not have important players on a soon-to-expire-contract, and if they do, they rather sell that player than let the contract expire.
There are more complex cases where some players have multiple owners to their rights etc. Another more common case is that previous clubs usually have some sort of cut of future transfer fees as compensation for their "development" of the player.
Loans are basically "We got this young player John Talent contracted, but we can't give him enough first team experience atm due to competition in the team, so we'll loan him out to a club in a less competitive league where he'll gain it". So that club will pay some amount for that loan during a year.
So it's basically the price to void the existing contract instead of moving the player with his contract.
The contract is between the club and the player, nothing to do with the league.
A club “owns” a player under contract, so if someone wants to buy the player, they can ask for whatever price they want and turn down any offer if they choose.
Often the costs have a lot of conditions included to protect the buyer and incentivise the player. Such as more money after a number of games played and more money if they win a trophy etc.
The team getting the player on loan generally takes on the player's wages and in some cases also pays a small loan fee to the loaner club.
IIRC, when an NHL player under contract decides to play in Russia for a season, I don't think I ever hear of compensation being paid to the NHL team in return.
I'm sure they do, but do players often move between teams in different tiers as well? That's the key difference here: it is not a lateral move.
There would be a set of 10 or so teams that would churn through promotion/relegation, a set of 5 or 6 teams that would win every year, then 16-ish teams that would basically serve as farm teams for the 5 or 6 big teams.
The money available overall to each team is vastly different.
The "American" system does allow for strong teams, but it tries to make sure that there's more volatility from season to season.
http://thepyramid.info/asp/pyramid3.asp
A big part of the appeal of local football is the knowledge that your team could theoretically get promoted all the way to the top. A closed league goes against this sense of fairness.
The closed American leagues are actually much fairer at least to the teams that are in them, TV money is split more evenly, there are caps on how much money can be spent on players and the teams at the bottom of the league table get more chances to acquire the more talented players due to the draft systems. Whereas in European football the pretty much the only thing that matters is how much money a club has to spend.
There are plenty of examples of rich clubs performing badly and less rich clubs punching above their weight.
Combined Counties League divison 2 -> Two below premiership. Who beat a the team now 4th in premiership (West Ham) two season ago.
No wealthy individual replacing all the players, just fans.
Looking at Cardiff City's long-term fortunes....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_City_F.C.#/media/File:...
There are clear long term trends over the decades, with the team slowing sinking down to the 4th tier in the late 90s and working its way back up.
In the 2010's we can see see-sawing you mention: back and forth between the Championship and Premier leagues. They fight like hell to be promoted, quickly find themselves overmatched in the Premier League, and are then relegated.
It's worth noting that the team's post-2000 rebirth corresponds with an influx of juicy cash via foreign investment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_City_F.C.#Foreign_inve...
So, I mean, it's a "meritocracy" but it's still largely dependent on who's got the money because they can afford the best players and player development.
American sports system on the other hand doesn't work on fairness at all and just the illusion of competition hence has so little penetration in SE Asia ( check how many people watch American sports and football in India, Korea or Japan).
Americans have a hard time admitting they are not the best at everything just because their currency runs Supreme.
ESL would be participant would have been better off by fighting for the right to negotiate their TV rights individually
It seems to me that innovations can come from two forces:
1) Fairness: Make teams operate fairly. Audit thoroughly, no slap on the wrist for violating Financial Fair Play, salary cap (I can dream can't I?), etc. Given how our society favors the capitalist over the regulator, all efforts on this front have amounted to mere asymptotic jokes.
2) Eliteness: Make the league the creamiest of the cream. Increase the magnitude of what happens when athletes with incredible talent are wedded with facilities that enhance and curate that talent. This was in fact the point of the premier league, but the Super league took it a step too far. The perception is that the "magic" in a game between Real Madrid and Manchester United (Goliath and Goliath) is more watchable than a game between Derby County and Manchester United (David and Goliath). Except that Derby County can win that game, have won that game, and the resulting dreams instilled in people (not just fans of Derby County, but fans of United) comprise the very source code that makes sports worth watching: a tale of the impossible that parallels and informs everyday life. Some men with $$$ in their eyes just don't seem to grasp that, for all their "finger on the pulse" bragging. Or they did, but felt that the source code could be rewritten and that's all that matters.
The "Eliteness" front tries to maximize the quality of a sport just short of steroid use: story of the goose that laid the golden eggs. But what about fairness? How can we set up incentives for that?