• Help Support The Rugby Forum :

Football Thread

Gary Neville spoke excellently about it on sky earlier. Worth a listen if anyone can come across the clip.
 
Tigs Man said:
Rugby will try and end up the same way
Click to expand...
I actually wouldn't be as against it in rugby if the top level was set up like the NFL (probably with more teams) and there was a genuine way from grassroots to the top for English/French clubs if they don't choose to franchise. Soccer is so big that there is no need or reason to franchise though.
The_Blindside said:
And out goes Mourinho.

View attachment 10618
Click to expand...
I reckon coming out as anti-super league has accelerated that. Unlikely and partly out of their hands but a trophy and a CL place are still possible for Spurs which is about as good a season as they've had in modern football.
 
Spuds the eternal disappointment to their fans. Even got dissed by their Sponsor Dulux for their empty trophy cabinet. An Arsenal fan, who worked at Dulux who posted I think?

Nice new stadium though. Empty as it is at the moment.
 
Mourinho accelerated maybe but he was on his way out anyway, he's not responsible for all the problems at that club but he wasn't helping, he never lasts longer than a few years and by all accounts he'd lost the dressing room. The only reason they're where they are in the league is Kane.
 
Leinster Fan said:
Mourinho accelerated maybe but he was on his way out anyway, he's not responsible for all the problems at that club but he wasn't helping, he never lasts longer than a few years and by all accounts he'd lost the dressing room. The only reason they're where they are in the league is Kane.
Click to expand...
And yet they feel they are better than the premiership..
 
Now while I completely agree that this super league is nothing more than a money grab, I do think football has issues that are going to cause it problems in the future. There is far too much money in football and the quality of the sport has been dropping. One big issue especially is the teams that win the competitions. Just a quick look.

French league: PSG won 7 out of the last 8
German League: Bayern won 8 out of the last 8 with many doubles or trebles
Italian League: Juventus won 9 out of the last 9 with 4 being doubles
Spanish league: Either Barcelona or Real apart from a couple of exceptions. Hell since 2000 only Valencia twice and Athletico once.
Scottish league: I had to go back to 1985 to find a team that wasn't Celtic or Rangers. Hell Rangers got demoted to the very bottom and still they are the only other team to win other than Celtic.
Premiership: It is a bit more varied, but apart from Leicester it has been the teams with the most money competing for the ***le.

Bascially football is already about greed with ridiculous wages and the teams that are financed with big squads often win through sheer weight on money. Football became the equivalent of soaps for men. Basically for decades fans have lived vicariously through their teams. Clubs knew this and exploited it completely. Insane prices that they knew they could charge because fans would pay regardless. In England we have a ridiculous number of clubs that in reality wouldn't survive if they weren't financed from outside. The league structure is bloated with too many clubs and financially it's not viable, which is why you see big gaps opening between those who are given the most money.

Simply for years football has been about nothing but money and exploiting fans. I don't know why fans act so outraged when they've been fleeced for years already. This was just the next logical step.
 
Reiser99 said:
Now while I completely agree that this super league is nothing more than a money grab, I do think football has issues that are going to cause it problems in the future. There is far too much money in football and the quality of the sport has been dropping. One big issue especially is the teams that win the competitions. Just a quick look.

French league: PSG won 7 out of the last 8
German League: Bayern won 8 out of the last 8 with many doubles or trebles
Italian League: Juventus won 9 out of the last 9 with 4 being doubles
Spanish league: Either Barcelona or Real apart from a couple of exceptions. Hell since 2000 only Valencia twice and Athletico once.
Scottish league: I had to go back to 1985 to find a team that wasn't Celtic or Rangers. Hell Rangers got demoted to the very bottom and still they are the only other team to win other than Celtic.
Premiership: It is a bit more varied, but apart from Leicester it has been the teams with the most money competing for the ***le.

Bascially football is already about greed with ridiculous wages and the teams that are financed with big squads often win through sheer weight on money. Football became the equivalent of soaps for men. Basically for decades fans have lived vicariously through their teams. Clubs knew this and exploited it completely. Insane prices that they knew they could charge because fans would pay regardless. In England we have a ridiculous number of clubs that in reality wouldn't survive if they weren't financed from outside. The league structure is bloated with too many clubs and financially it's not viable, which is why you see big gaps opening between those who are given the most money.

Simply for years football has been about nothing but money and exploiting fans. I don't know why fans act so outraged when they've been fleeced for years already. This was just the next logical step.
Click to expand...

Yeah there's a lot of pots calling the super League kettle black for sure. Sky Sports are dead set against it when they started it all by rebranding the premier league and essentially making it a closed shop unless you have substantial funds to compete. BT have no sympathy from me considering they wanted to do the exact same with French and English rugby teams.

There's plenty of examples but I remember thinking a couple of years ago when Newcastle fans were delighted to be rumoured to be bought by a middle Eastern oligarch that the sport was truly ****** but the thought of the world's biggest sport being reduced to a tournament of 20 teams honestly baffles me. I think European rugby should be looking at something similar but I'd be thinking of a huge 40 something team European league or a two tiered system, the difference here bring that the Pro X clubs are already franchises, England's are heading that way quickly and rugby is in a position where they'll be the same and rugby needs to start compensating their players more if possible.
 
This time though it has more to do with the stock market price of the shares in the club. Notice despite the outrage the shares prices in the clubs involved have risen. Consistency of Revenue will drive up the share price.

These clubs sights are now global and not just restricted to European or their local fan base. But I suspect they will likely to shut out the likes of Sky sports and BT and form their own network/online to subscribe to. Exploiting USA, Asia and Middle East -revenues is where those 12 clubs are looking at.
 
I don't follow football but it's hard to ignore how big this story is:
Are the teams wanting to do this instead of the champions league or as well as? Just wondering how much extra revenue they'd actually get (if the latter) because the TV channels won't be tripping over themselves to offer over the odds so despite splitting between few sides, will they get as much?
 
Super League strikes me as the teams who drove transfer fees and player wages to ridiculous and unsustainable heights now crying foul and saying that football needs more money because they have accrued ridiculous debts in doing so. I obviously have zero pity for Uefa and Fifa, absolute pricks as they are, but its fans who will be impacted most from this. Of course when they say this will benefit 'football' they mean shareholders and owners, not the game as a whole. There is already way too much money in football at the top level creating a disproportionate level of success for a select few clubs. As Reiser pointed out European football is already extremely uncompetitive at a domestic level across the CL nations which another ridiculous cash injection for Europe's top clubs..... and Spurs and Arsenal will only accentuate further. I know no one buys the 'its for the good of football' argument, but how anyone involved can say it with a straight face is beyond me. Fair play to the pundits and especially players and managers of the teams involved who have spoken out.

I hope if it goes ahead the teams are booted from their leagues. Will at the very least make domestic leagues more interesting. In the English example, it would be very interesting to see who fills the power vacuum, which championship teams come and establish themselves and will Barnsley be bought by an oil tycoon?
 
TRF_Olyy said:
I don't follow football but it's hard to ignore how big this story is:
Are the teams wanting to do this instead of the champions league or as well as? Just wondering how much extra revenue they'd actually get (if the latter) because the TV channels won't be tripping over themselves to offer over the odds so despite splitting between few sides, will they get as much?
Click to expand...
It would be instead of CL. Uefa are also coming out and saying they'll be booted from domestic leagues and players involved won't be allowed to play Euros or World Cups, although the legality of that is very up in the air. As founding clubs those involved will get a huge rake of cash up front (€300m just for accepting the invitation) and JP Morgan are backing it heavily. They may and probably will look to go past BT, Sky etc and run their own streaming service or PPV or something. Think Sky have said already they want nothing to do with it and are giving protests heavy coverage.
 

Similar threads

S
  • Poll
Rugby league world cup
Replies
1
Views
122
stevenp
S
T
University research on the role of football in response to military conflict
Replies
1
Views
406
McTallshort
McTallshort
S
  • Poll
Should Wales have it's own national cricket team?
Replies
8
Views
332
stevenp
S
Bada-Bing!
  • Sticky
2022 World Cup - Qatar
60 61 62
Replies
1K
Views
43K
Bada-Bing!
Bada-Bing!
The Seeker
2022 Wheelchair Rugby World Championship
Replies
1
Views
2K
Bada-Bing!
Bada-Bing!

Latest posts

Top