The clubs don't want it.
The current set-up gives them lots of games - both domestic and international.
A super league will leave them with only European games. Even with a full 38 game season and some cup, they would still be missing out on about 15 games a year. For a club like Arsenal, that's 8 home games. We make about 3m pounds a home game. That's 24m gone. The European super league would need to provide us at least that much more in sponsorships and prize money. That's the simple calculus.

Anyway, nobody actually suggested it.

hard to say without doing the numbers, but if it makes economic sense, you can be sure it will happen. As for lost games, that can solve 2 problems by increasing the league games to between 25-30, that's you additional 10-20 games and include more countries/clubs. Or you could have a knock up european super cup running simultaneously In any event I doubt the appeal of a superleague is stadium attendance, It's not having to share TV/sponsorship (which is where the money is with the lower clubs. Don't know if it will be good for the game but if economics makes sense, it will happen at some point.

Everything people have said about a supposed "European Super league" is true, it would only come about as a result of rich clubs feeling UEFA were mismanaging their gravy train, and as this would be only elite clubs it would be by invitation only so there is no guarantee for smaller countries having representation anyway.
I can't see this in the foreseeable future as the old European cup was highly democratic with the champions of small countries qualifying, UEFA bent over backwards to accommodate "big" clubs in big countries like ourselves who weren't good enough to qualify as champions but wanted to stick our snouts in the trough anyway, so they forced out the real champions of small countries to include down to 4th place in larger countries, and to add insult to injury- They called it the Champions league. 😆
This is I presume where some people get deluded into thinking that 4th place is in some way "a prize" or a "top place".

The FFP is a further extension of UEFA's desire to accommodate and entrench the power of "old money".

It's not down to Uefa alone though or the 'rich' clubs getting involved. The fourth place team in England, Italy or Spain is significantly better than the champions of Greece or Croatia. Furthermore they have bigger groups of fans and attract better talent.

In the end it's about putting on a show.

The unfair aspect is the weightage that teams like Tottenham enjoyed in their maiden CL season at the expense of other clubs.

Err thats what a football comprtition is for- To decide who's better.
Ajax have won it four times Porto twice and even the likes of Hamburg, Steua and Red Star from "smaller" countries have won it, we never have.

In the end it's about money.

It is about money, but it's also about having the best players competing in the premier competition.

It's about the money/wealth of leagues and quality that those leagues can offer. Not individual clubs.

Not that a Superleague will happen any time soon, but it would be easy enough to organize it like the NHL, NBA, MLB. You'd get all the games in the regular season you want, you'd get a cup competition while at the same time limiting long travels.

General Mirth wrote:

It's about the money/wealth of leagues and quality that those leagues can offer. Not individual clubs.

The CL cornucopia has been a godsend for clubs like us from the larger countries, when it was introduced we were lucky enough to be moderately successful at the right time to jump aboard the gravy train.
Past winners like Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa missed out and therefore were condemned to the beggars table.
APOEL as national champions have more moral right to be in the CL than we do, so lets end this bollocks about 4th being "top".

"lucky enough to be moderately successful" - it wasn't and isn't a lottery; you finish in the qualifying spot and you gain entry.

Biggus wrote:

so lets end this bollocks about 4th being "top".

Only when you end the bollocks about 4th place being midtable.

Secondly, the fact that Porto and APOEL and other clubs have been able to progress in the Champions league shows that it's still possible for clubs to do so, instead of sitting around and feeling sorry for themselves. I don't think the current system is unfair, if anything it's more competitive for everyone involved since no club has won back to back titles in the current format.

Thirdly, depending on the country and league, there's serious inefficiencies that allow for one or two clubs to dominate the entire league and get a free pass into the CL, some of whom aren't squaky clean to begin with. If you bring this discussion down to 'moral rights' you're on a slippery slope from the off.

Captain wrote:

"lucky enough to be moderately successful" - it wasn't and isn't a lottery; you finish in the qualifying spot and you gain entry.

We were lucky that they moved the goalposts at the right time to enable us to qualify, I'm not complaining mind you- Those are the rules and I like a good Cl game as much as anyone buts lets not kid ourselves.....

gotta say it is funny that you can compete in a league of champions, when you haven't been a champion for 8 years or 20+ in the case of Liverpool or worse still Spurs who have never been champions when in any normal sport you 4th position wouldn't even get you a bronze medal....name change required methinks.

Champions and co. league doesn't have a ring to it.

Just call it the European Cup again. It's not a "champions" league.

Can you imagine the brand confusion?

Yes but there's nothing wrong with that name. It's certainly more confusing for 4th placed teams to be competing in a "champions" competition IMO.

Maybe so, but they're not going to throw away a brand that they have spent over a decade building. That's madness.

I agree, just agreeing with Lagos that champions league is a ridiculous name for what it is.

Technically everyone's there on old merits anyway. Real Madrid qualified as league winners but are sixteen points off the top spot in La Liga at the moment. Same thing with Dortmund. City qualified as champions in England and didn't even make it out of the group stage. Bayern, who look odds on to win it this year, wouldn't have been there at all.

I almost forget that we still have that second leg against Bayern.
That'll be an odd one

Its just a name, like the World Series or whatever.

As a name CL is a bit flamboyant and slightly ludicrous given the make up of the groups, but that's what the big competitions are all about now.

it's just a name and the winner is the "champions of europe". it's no longer a competition for league champions.

Kel Varnsen wrote:

it's just a name and the winner is the "champions of europe". it's no longer a competition for league champions.

Champions of Europe, like Chelsea last year.

The Telegraph have a story tomorrow about a huge bid for Arsenal from a Middle Eastern consortium.

Probably false. They don't release infos like this

wouldn't surprise me if it was leaked by usmanov to turn the supporters even more against kroenke.

Do we need more turning against?

yes. ideally, i'd want a total boycott on buying tickets for a season to force him to sell. i could suffer a really bad season or two if it meant the end of this disease.

I'm still hoping that there's an easier way out of this mess.

That table puts us only 6 points behind United in the top 5 mini-tourney.
But we are 21 points behind them overall. How are they 15 points better than us against the also-rans?

Can't quite put my finger on it, but I think it might have something to do with us selling them the league's best striker.

We have played 2 more top team games though

When they beat us and Chelsea, the table will be where it should be.

Is it possible to invest in and coach a squad that while overmatched against the big sides would typically be able to beat the smaller sides? I.e., can we be flat track bullies?