European Super League

[InsectPoison]

Rest in piss super league

[princeofcarthage]

@princeofcarthage how does it feel to be objectively wrong? RIP ESL

Whether EPL happens or not I dont care, I heard the first of it from this thread tbh. My whole point surrounded around the fact that people, politicians, have no right whatsoever to demand what should happen or not. Neither Uefa nor Fifa have any legal standing to block it. And that Uefa was abusing its position.

[RefluxSemantic]

Damn, Europeans just weren’t ready for their only sport to be brought to the highest level of competition. Long life the shitty small market teams who beat a good team once every 10 years.

Those 'small' teams are top 20-25 teams. I actually realized you dont know how big the differences between the teams already are. The difference between the richest teams and the teams below that is extreme. We basically have the best teams competing in the CL already, and they have all the best players because they have 10x the budget of 'small' (read top 30) teams.

[Dolan]

I'd like to see player transfers between countries banned. Club teams should reflect local talent, not the power of capital to buy the best mercs they can afford.
Also because currently high-level football is more like a money laundering operation, in which oil capital from the Gulf is laundered in teams like PSG and Man City.

[princeofcarthage]

Nah I like to support my local team Ajax which consists of foreign players

[gibson]

Damn, Europeans just weren’t ready for their only sport to be brought to the highest level of competition. Long life the shitty small market teams who beat a good team once every 10 years.

Those 'small' teams are top 20-25 teams. I actually realized you dont know how big the differences between the teams already are. The difference between the richest teams and the teams below that is extreme. We basically have the best teams competing in the CL already, and they have all the best players because they have 10x the budget of 'small' (read top 30) teams.

No you don’t understand the point. In 2010, in the mlb, Alex Rodriguez, who played for the New York Yankees, was paid 33 million dollars. This same year, the entire roster of the Pittsburg pirates was paid 34 million. 1 player making about the same amount as an entire team, 25 players. Now the yankees won like 95 games and the pirates won like 60, this was a rebuilding year for them. 3 years later, they’re in the playoffs. It’s still easy for them to attract talent because they’re an mlb team and there’s no fear of being relegated to AAA league. Instead of being forced to spend all their money on players to try to not get relegated to a lower league, they were able to rebuild and become a playoff team. When you’re guaranteed a spot in the best league in the world, it’s much easier to build a competitive team even when you’re on a budget. Obviously the pirates playoff team still had roster salary of like 60 million, but it’s still not very much compared to the Yankees at like 200 million. You must just not understand all this though cause you’re a European, you just don’t get how sports culture works I guess.

[RefluxSemantic]

Again the differences in football are much larger than you think. Messi earns more than 3x as much as all of Ajax (top 20 club). Your earlier argument was that its a good idea to have all the top players at the top teams, and the reality is that that already happens but to a far greater extend than you realize.

[gibson]

I understand that, but it’s not really relevant. Messi isn’t worth 70 million, he’s drastically overpaid, based on what he does in the field, when you compared his wins above replacement with a player making 1 million. Does he provide 70x the value of a player making 1 million? Obviously not, but he’s a brand. People around the globe tune in to watch Messi. If you looked at his actual value on the field vs the average champions league or laliga player, you’d find that he might add 3 or 5 or possibly even 7 wins over the course of a year vs if Barcelona was running an “average” player instead. The reality is there’s enough tier 1 soccer players to field a league of 20 competitive soccer teams. And every team will be able to pay their players a competitive salary vs what lower leagues can offer because a guaranteed spot in the best league in the world every year is worth a ton of money. There will always be your New York Yankees and your Pittsburg pirates, having large differences in salary, but that doesn’t mean that even the team with the lowest roster won’t be paying more than any team in any other league in the world. Again this must just be something you can’t understand because your European, but it’s still surprising to have to explain the basics of how a professional sports league without relegation works.

[RefluxSemantic]

Your point is that the ESL is good because it would mean the best players play at the top teams. But they already do, because the top teams are that rich. The top players in the world already play for the best teams. Actually the difference between the richest teams in football and the teams in the top 20 of income is larger than whats the case for the nba. The current state of affairs is that the richest teams are so much richer that they get to pay so much more in salaries and transfer fees that the 'small' (so basically the less succesful nba teams) cant compete. The situation is exactly what you want it to be. There is clearly no need for the ESL to get the best players to play for the best teams. Id argue football even does a better job at making sure the best players play for the best teams than the nba does.

[gibson]

And if it gets to the point where the top teams are so incredibly rich and the bottom teams in the league haven’t been able to leverage their position as a guaranteed team in the best league in the world to be able to compete, the league can create rules to even the playing field, a soft salary cap, max transfer fee, etc. It’s in the leagues, and sports, best interest for games to be competitive. The team has no choice but to comply or lose their spot in the best league in the world. Now things are a bit more complicated since teams play in multiple leagues, so it could end up with teams fielding slightly different teams in different leagues, but that’s not a huge deal. Also I kind of phrased what I meant when I said best players play for the best team wrong. What I meant is that all the best players should play for champions league teams. The worst forward in champions league should be slightly better than the best forward for the best team that’s not in champions league. Obviously there’s gonna be some slight overlap as players rise and decline, but as a general rule.

[Cometk]

Love checking back into this thread 48 hours later to see 6 pages of Europeans and Americans at each other’s throat over a kick ball game

Thank you and god bless you for granting me this joy @InsectPoison

[duckzilla]

You must just not understand all this though cause you’re a European, you just don’t get how sports culture works I guess.

Really? That's a bit cheap.

American sports culture is certainly different than European one. It looks closer to what international football fans want to see to happen with the European Super League. European sports culture is different and I think that's due to a difference in perspective between two groups of fans. One goup is more international and chooses a club to become fan of out of a variety of clubs, maybe driven by certain players like Messi or Ronaldo. The second group is the more traditional one. They are more local or regional fans who tend to link their identity much more with the club. There is often not a real choice. A football fan from Gelsenkirchen is extremely likely to be a Schalke 04 fan and hate Borussia Dortmund. In Cologne, the (main) sports club became a significant part of the city's culture, e.g. in the Colongian carnival.

The excessive commercialization of football is subject to a lot of criticism by traditional fans since decades. It distorts competition between the vast quantity of clubs (Germany has >25k football clubs). Since football is such a local and regional phenomenon, the idea of a Super League with permanent members sounds like a perversion of the original idea of football to these traditional fans. I highly doubt that you would find many among them who think positively about the structure of American sports. Taking the traditional perspective, the American clubs look entirely replaceable and do not seem to have any "depth". Just logos or colors that you like.

I see your points on the best players playing champions league and so on. And while that is already the case, it is not exactly what the traditional fan wants to see. Instead, it is just awesome when a team like Leicester City wins the Premier League. Or, even better, when a highly talented player chooses to stay with his original club for his entire career instead of going to Munich, Madrid or Milan.


An example: yesterday, the famous 1. FC Köln played against RB Leipzig in the German Bundesliga. While Köln is struggling not to be relegated (looks bad), Leipzig is one of the top clubs. No one expected Köln to win this. But it did. And how did it? Because with Jonas Hector Köln has exactly one highly talented player who kept playing for the club over his entire career. He is a defensive player and scored two goals yesterday. That guy is fantastic and down to earth. Was part of the national team for some years. Had the opportunity to go to other clubs and get even richer, didn't do so. Some would say he wasted his talent. A traditioinal fan would say that he maximized is impact in his heart. One should build him statue. Still looks bad for Köln. But maybe?

[princeofcarthage]

Nice of you to assume my continentality. @Cometk

[RefluxSemantic]

And if it gets to the point where the top teams are so incredibly rich and the bottom teams in the league haven’t been able to leverage their position as a guaranteed team in the best league in the world to be able to compete, the league can create rules to even the playing field, a soft salary cap, max transfer fee, etc. It’s in the leagues, and sports, best interest for games to be competitive. The team has no choice but to comply or lose their spot in the best league in the world. Now things are a bit more complicated since teams play in multiple leagues, so it could end up with teams fielding slightly different teams in different leagues, but that’s not a huge deal. Also I kind of phrased what I meant when I said best players play for the best team wrong. What I meant is that all the best players should play for champions league teams. The worst forward in champions league should be slightly better than the best forward for the best team that’s not in champions league. Obviously there’s gonna be some slight overlap as players rise and decline, but as a general rule.

You are describing the current situation. Theres no need for reforms to get a group of 8-12 elite teams, because we already have those.

[Goodspeed]

I don't care about football but this is an interesting story and good thread. At first glance, a war between culture and competition.

The thing is, as has been said, you don't need to switch from an open tournament to an "invitational" to reach the pinnacle of competition. The claim seems to be that the intended effect is to have the best players play for the best teams, but that's already the case. What follows is that this is not the intended effect. The intended effect is obviously just more money for the already disgustingly rich best teams, and risk management: "Having a poor season shouldn't mean we're making much less money".

So in reality it's more like a war between football as a cultural phenomenon and football as a business. I don't see many excuses for people who call themselves fans of the sport to be in favor of this idea.

Anyway it's cancelled.

Would've been funny if they went ahead after all the best teams left. Hard to pretend it's the pinnacle of competition at that point.

[fightinfrenchman]

I don't care about football but this is an interesting story and good thread. At first glance, a war between culture and competition.

It's already over so it's not really an interesting story anymore. There's nothing to discuss

[Goodspeed]

The story of this being announced in the first place, and then pretty much immediately falling flat on its face is still interesting.

[gibson]

@duckzilla no cheaper than the 3-4 times in this thread that people mentioned how non Europeans couldn’t possibly understand what it was like to be a fan of a local team, such a uniquely European thing tbh

[RefluxSemantic]

@duckzilla no cheaper than the 3-4 times in this thread that people mentioned how non Europeans couldn’t possibly understand what it was like to be a fan of a local team, such a uniquely European thing tbh

I actually think the amount of support for smaller teams is pretty unique. Its not just normal support, its people making their entire identity about supporting a tiny football club. As far as I can tell - Im not really aware of the details of sports in the USA - the way people support the teams is also rather unique. I looked it up and apparently you have mixed seating in basketball, which wouldnt ever be possible in football because of the passion and rivalry (and retardedness tbf). I feel like this is just an entirely different phenomenon. Its not meant as an attack, but its just a realization that its hard to fully comprehend the function of football and the culture surrounding it as an outsider.

[Horsemen]

shame, i was looking forward to seeing riots this summer

[gibson]

@duckzilla no cheaper than the 3-4 times in this thread that people mentioned how non Europeans couldn’t possibly understand what it was like to be a fan of a local team, such a uniquely European thing tbh

I actually think the amount of support for smaller teams is pretty unique. Its not just normal support, its people making their entire identity about supporting a tiny football club. As far as I can tell - Im not really aware of the details of sports in the USA - the way people support the teams is also rather unique. I looked it up and apparently you have mixed seating in basketball, which wouldnt ever be possible in football because of the passion and rivalry (and retardedness tbf). I feel like this is just an entirely different phenomenon. Its not meant as an attack, but its just a realization that its hard to fully comprehend the function of football and the culture surrounding it as an outsider.

Its not an entirely different phenomenon, it’s actually almost exactly the same. But continue gatekeeping being a big sports fan please. I guess since Europeans don’t tailgate they must not be big sports fans tbh ngl

[Goodspeed]

To be fair, the "you just don't understand it" response is understandable when you post dumb takes about this ESL idea and then don't really show that you do in fact understand why the fans hate it.
And also when you describe the EU football fan culture as "almost exactly the same" as US sports fan culture. It's obviously not because you think this ESL was a good idea, in contrast to literally all of the EU football fans ITT.

[princeofcarthage]

Fans can hate it or love it, can't really have a say in what happens. You just log into tv and watch match while eating chicken strips and drinking beer. When the club collapses you don't lose anything, people whose money is invested they lose. Unfortunately for you it's just sport but for those involved its business.

[Goodspeed]

Fans can hate it or love it, can't really have a say in what happens.

Funny you say that since ESL was cancelled due to fan response

[princeofcarthage]

Fans can hate it or love it, can't really have a say in what happens.

Funny you say that since ESL was cancelled due to fan response

I know but it is clubs choice whether to cancel it due to fan response or not just like it is their choice to host it or not. My point is fan have no right to demand it. Because the truth is if this had gone through ultimately fans would have watched it and enjoyed it.