Kentucky fried football

Biggus

Foreign owners want to increase the value of their investment by closing up shop.

http://www.football365.com/news/21554/7247371/Foreign-Owners-Want-End-To-Relegation...

If a competition is run like this it quickly becomes as stale as the two party system.
Other sports get around this by having a draft system which means the loser teams get first pick of the best up and coming players.
Although this is imperfect and unfair, is it any better than the yearly feeding of the promoted lambs to the wolves in the premiership?
My personal feeling is that there is something that is intrinsically plastic and unpalatable about a franchise system.
Instead of being a ancient blood sporting hunting culture, our game becomes a modern mechanised process and for me that is unacceptable.

It also leaves out the possibility that sometimes the promoted teams survive to become a wolf themselves, as whats happened with err Wolves and many others.

kamikaze

the american owners have made it clear that they want to form a closed european superleague. they see enormous financial potential - they dont understand, nor care for the game's traditions.

Claudius

it won't happen for two reasons.
1) the fans will not allow it to happen. it's that simple.
it would destroy dozens of teams. imagine Wednesday, Forest and Leeds United with no hope of ever returning to the top flight.

2) the only reason to have such a league is to prevent relegation. simple. the only foreign owners who legitimately face that risk are those Venkys and possibly Tony Fernandes. the rich owners at United, City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Villa do not face this concern.

Captain

Sounds like Richard Bevan made up the whole thing.

kamikaze

i hope it doesnt happen, too, but money talks. i guess i'm a cynic (or a realist).

fans can cry all they want, but they'll still go to all the matches. as for wednesday, leeds, etc, do you think the glazers, kroenke, and various scumbags from russia and the UAE give a crap? they'll be making hundreds of millions playing against barca, milan and united every week. maybe they'll add ajax as a token gesture to history and "inclusiveness".

banduan

Not a hoot from any owner. All own Bevan's word.

Claudius

At some point, football fans will stand up and say 'enough'. We all like to watch Milan vs Real Madrid and games of high quality every week, but football fans of G20 clubs are going to wonder about their domestic rivalries, ticket prices; and fans of lesser clubs will hate the idea that they can't have a Saturday out at the Emirates or the Anfield and they will go nuts.

I think rich clubs are this type of initiative away from creating real fan revolt.

That said, imagine the quality of a league where the games were only amongst this lot:

Arsenal
United
Liverpool
Chelsea
PSG
Marseilles
Lyon
Milan
Inter
Juventus
Roma
Bayern
Dortmund
Barcelona
Valencia
Real Madrid
Atletico
Ajax
Porto
Benfica

Biggus

Arsenal would be perfect candidates for such a super-league, big modern stadium, rich, uncertain of European qualification........

Captain

Sad to say, but I'd rather watch Spurs than half of that lot.

Burnwinter

The thing worse than being in such a league would be being shut out of it. I'd be more than worried about the inevitability of our inclusion.

Not having relegation would be daft in the extreme, though, the vicious relegation and promotion battles to and from a "super league" at season's end would funnel massive interest and revenue into both that league and all the feeder leagues.