The Global Quest for a New European Super League 2.0 - 2023 and Beyond

It’s time for a new thread anyway, so here goes plus the originator of the old thread from 2021 is not updating it any more anyway.

Here are two articles out today on the matter as the battle rages from multiple armies in multiple theatres now.

The second one via The Athletic looks excellent but is behind a paywall.

As an outstanding hack and puppet for UEFA, the following views as expressed by LaLiga’s president, Javier Tebas, indicate the height of the UEFA et al hypocrisy.

It’s as if what happened via Chelsea (with the Russian oligarch and in January via the new American owner after the Russian oligarch) and Manchester City (again after acquittal years later the first time years ago but not after benefiting in outstanding fashion regardless) in the Premier League, and what happened at Juventus recently amidst all the other examples of Financial Foul Play under UEFA’s not careful watch for supposed Financial Fair Play, can all together be ignored as one major fundamental reason we are even here again!

This point goes even beyond the billions that will be invested anew whether by JP Morgan Chase again or other interested global investors.

Tebas added: “Mr Reichart is the new face of a coup by the big clubs to seize full control and turn European football into a sport for the elite, not for everyone… Do Mr Reichart and his friends think they are the smartest, and the rest - UEFA, federations, leagues, clubs and fans - the dumbest?”

Furthermore, Tebas believes the big clubs are holding the governing bodies European football “hostage” to secure more money and power for themselves. Tebas has been a vocal critic of the ESL since its initial launch in April 2021.

Here’s the cross-link to the first post, which was done after the second campaign was launched just over a week ago, from the old 2021 thread.

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This was the chatter in the Media Echo Chamber of London in the UK today.

A new independent regulator for men’s teams at elite level will be established in law for the first time, after the government accepted recommendations of a review led by former Sports Minister Tracey Crouch.

The regulator will oversee a new licensing system requiring clubs to demonstrate sound financial business models and good corporate governance before being allowed to compete.

Insert the laugh track now, for it’s as if Chelsea and Man City on two fronts each never happened!

There is nothing “independent” or “for the fans” about this new scheme, but that’s what they are going to pitch now I suppose given realistic underlying concerns, though they will not admit it, to Saudi, Qatari, Emirati and other global non-British capital that is likely to be swayed by the concept of the Super League.

Soon enough I figure we’ll see exactly which clubs or powers are behind such opposition and propaganda, and which are not, as they pitch that government regulation in this situation is for the average pub fan, whom you would think knows better. I am afraid many simply do not even between benders.

More exhibition games and cups have already been scheduled in countries in the Middle East which involve also Premier League sides, so this business about “protecting English football from (insert whatever imaginary phantom)” is utter hooey.

By contrast if you watched some of the UEFA Champions League games earlier this week, the average fan would want to see just that exciting action every week, mid-week over the course of perhaps 8 weeks in autumn, with for example a 24-team tournament in the spring with say the first round a play-in for a remaining slot for ultimately a Round of 16 tournament.

The days of lacklustre group games and the crap that is Europa and Europa Conference League, also known as Euro Football Diarrhoea, would be replaced with billions already behind just this concept.

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I always find it interesting that the Europeans are more politically socialist than Americans but the Americans are much more socialist in their sports with drafts and salary caps. The American answer to all this is to put in an NFL/NBA style salary cap for the EPL and go from there, but the big clubs would have to change their tactics to compete with the smaller clubs.

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Part of this reality is one I understand on both sides of the Atlantic.

One of the root inspirations for the pseudo-capitalist European model for professional sport that is without salary caps and drafts, though plenty of government weighing in at times for the larger enterprises like usual, is ancestral, cultural, and modern regionalism.

In some areas, autonomous culture and movements, along with often minority languages and dialects, have always been the reality.

Within almost all countries in modern Europe, the history of any given region or city dates back centuries such that the separation between regions or areas is far more polarized beyond the political differences like in much of the US.

Amidst the owners of the largest sports teams and organizations, their major interests include pandering heavily to the heavy local or regional base and in no way shape or form having a system in which the smaller players can find their way into the top circle of teams.

UEFA of course pander this line of catering to all such as via the stupid Euro Football Diarrhoea divisions 1 and 2 as noted above, but far fewer buy that propaganda than will admit to it.

Even in the Premier League, the Top 6 sides of the 20 meet on their own once per month. Nobody in the London media will call out such an exclusive caucus for one element that must be at hand to at least some degree - collusion.

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Here’s more for whenever you hear the next Premier League hack or hypocrite, or worse yet the uninformed puppet American media type or soccer fan, try to present the fallacious argument that the Premier League is magically and morally above all others in not engaging in various corruption and in the breaking of long-established league and/or UEFA rules.

I must give high credit to Sky Sports for not performing yet another hack job or yet another attempt to sugar-coat the matter like almost all of the London sports media.

A similar matter arose in 2017 via UEFA, but in the end after two years all parties were absolved of all charges. We’ll see what “integrity” is at hand with the Premier League given the four years of investigation to find violations of its own rules by the same side, Manchester City FC.

Of course all the while these same parties are trying to make us forget already, less than one year after his resignation, that Chelsea FC was owned for 19 years by a Russian oligarch with direct ties all along also to the top in Russia. Wow, how did that one get by City of London et al all those years hmmmm!?
:thinking:

"PSG and Man City were sanctioned by UEFA. Man City were banned from European competition. It was the Court of Arbitration for Sport that overruled and lifted the ban.

"That dates back to 2017 and we have still not moved on. The Premier League is the best competition in the world but it is important to manage its reputation in the economic sphere.

“If this had been dealt with earlier the Premier League would have had more credibility.”

UEFA and FIFA are about as corrupt as you can get, about the only outfit more corrupt than those two is the International Olympic Committee.

A few years back they tried to get rid of FreeStyle Wrestling and Greco Roman Wrestling from the Olympics. So Iran, Russia and the USA, who are the big 3 on the planet as far as wrestling goes, banded together to save wrestling.

I read an article on how these 3 groups worked together to save wrestling. The Americans did the public relations blitz, the Russian oligarchs handed out the bribes to everyone in Switzerland and the Iranians did whatever kind of crocked backdoor shit they do. Bottom line Russian Oligarchs making the bribes to get things done was a key component to the plan.

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Cross-linking this outstanding question here @JSC

This can be also a general thread about the global game and not to get into fandom or specific leagues unless of course developments relate to the dirty business of UEFA and FIFA or relate to the battle for or against the Super League.

Normally I would not mention this result from today in the Champions League.

Chelsea took it 2-0 to defeat Borussia Dortmund of the Bundesliga 2-1 on aggregate and advance so as to the quarterfinals of the 2022-2023 UEFA Champions League.

The reason this result is relevant is because what Chelsea did with its spending in January, so as to outspend all clubs combined on the continent, upset the apple cart and helped to ignite the fuse on this attempt at the Super League after the proponents prevailed in litigation in Spain.

Financially for sake of the Chelsea brand in the aftermath of a chaotic 2022 and for the clout of Premier League sides against the Super League, the win was huge.

Two of other Premier League sides that remain in the tournament remain in some reasonable position to further their destiny this season.

Tottenham / Spurs have their future on the line as hosts for AC Milan down 0-1, which in my opinion is a secret partner of this new initiative.

Manchester City will host RB Leipzig next week for all the marbles, for they are even 1-1.

Otherwise Real Madrid up 5-2 already, one of the three open proponents of the Super League 2.0 and often also the lead in public communications, are in a position to close matters out against Liverpool next week so as to advance to the quarterfinals.

In my view depending on which of these sides and others not mentioned here win next week, there is also some impact off the pitch later here in 2023 for sake of the cause for or against the Super League.

Today's Champions League action in the Round of 16 was somewhat underwhelming, with one winner dominating the opposition totally and another game that was evenly-matched to a scoreless draw with exciting action in extra time.

Anyway, today's action was an example of what I believe will be largely in the past before too long. Global financial interests are already behind more regular exciting midweek games than via the current tired FIFA framework, which expands starting in autumn 2024.

People watching games midweek want to see solid match-ups as often as possible, including most especially in the elimination rounds of play. We are just not getting that reality midweek MOST of the time.

It's interesting and telling that both teams based in Milan have advanced to the final 8 in Champions League, and otherwise it's Real Madrid's doing to advance or not via play tomorrow much as it is for Napoli.

In my opinion, these are all sides who would readily go along with a Super League 2.0 proposition, which is being led openly by Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Juventus. That's six right there before we get to likely Atletico Madrid and I would think Paris Saint Germain given their situation often alone at the top in France.

Foreign ownership of clubs has abounded for some time, so there's plenty more global money still on the sidelines ready for a more concrete proposition that will be even bigger than the first-run in 2021 that had $5B via JP Morgan Chase backing it.

Ultimately it feels already like the City of London against the world again.

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In this article about a larger matter as concerns Comcast, I had heard the following information about Serie A previously via YouTube via a production by The Athletic.

This is writing on the wall, though we are likely to have more disruption now given the global fallout of some banks of course, that the banks are lining up all the more and working together to back up more soccer deals.

While Comcast’s management has touted deeper integration and increased cooperation across Comcast Cable, NBCU and Sky and the successful sharing of expertise, executives and technology between them, for example in the streaming space, chatter about the sale of the one or the other part of Sky has kept creeping up.

Since late last year, there has particularly been widespread speculation that Comcast could sell off Sky’s German division, Sky Deutschland. Then, earlier this week, the Italian media reported that Serie A, Italy’s professional soccer league, was eyeing a bid for Sky Italia, with JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Barclays and Citi among the banks reported to be ready to help negotiate a possible deal.

Even with the lurking banking situation, once it settles down perhaps after this year, I have zero doubt those banks and others will line up to back the Super League 2.0 with even larger sums than the $5B that was behind it in 2021 via JPMorgan, which is already one of the key players here.

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@Paolo_X A lot of these European leagues remind me of the Big 8 and SWC back in the day. Where you had Nebraska and Oklahoma beating the hell out of Kansas, Missouri and OK State. Or Texas and the Aggies beating up on Rice, Texas Tech, Baylor and TCU. Fans back in the day might have enjoyed that but most consumers don’t want to see noncompetitive match-ups. I really think that this is just a natural progression of how sports and industries work.

The Europeans want to have it both ways with their sports, unrestrained capitalism and then this facade that everything is equal and every team has an equal shot at winning the title.

They want unrestrained capitalism - then they are getting it and money is going to find a way to win, as you say the big banks are lining up to make a run at this.

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This is a noteworthy example of excellent big-picture, graphic intensive but simple, presentations via the Tifo Football series by The Athetic.

Beyond as noted in the documentary, there is yet a third vision that faces otherwise the fiercest opposition from both FIFA and UEFA - a European Super League for starters that does not involve either FIFA or UEFA.

Certainly those with the capital might feel that either cannot be trusted with their vast billions at risk, and they'd have more evidence on that front now than ever.

As we know via the failed Super League 1.0 and as explained further here, the vast billions to back such an endeavour had already been pledged in 2018, and there is plenty more at hand.

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@Paolo_X that was freaking awesome - I know little bits about soccer but that was a super awesome look behind the curtain. Thanks

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After I saw this video, I understood all the more why Infantino of FIFA behaved as he did in Qatar and even moved there early before the World Cup to behave in such feeble fashion as if a puppet.

Infantino answers to those who effectively are trying to buy FIFA, which was outlined at the beginning with the attempted coup in early 2018 via those “confidential” interests.

Now I am all for otherwise a European Super League however it is funded and that would be only with the consent of all participating sides, but for me a Super League has to be without UEFA or FIFA involved given their track record. ALL parties who are funding such a league must be fully disclosed as well.

Such an attempt was made in the spring of 2021 by fully-disclosed parties, and it was foiled of course.

If any given shell companies are used by those funding such a league, all beneficial interests must be disclosed. There cannot be any of this secret crap, which FIFA attempted to orchestrate in 2018, or there will be of course amply more corruption than is at hand already via FIFA and UEFA.

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Thank you for this link! Oh I could say more, but I will hold off about Infantino for now, for he is just simply trash as he conducts himself and as described so well in that article.

May they find a way to get rid of him for good for sake of soccer worldwide.

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I liked the video that explained the UEFA vs FIFA battle, there is a ton of money in soccer and most of it is in Europe as the video stated. Good luck fighting UEFA and the big money leagues in Europe.

There might be clubs in the USA, Africa, China and South America but none of them have any following that approaches what there is in Europe.

I love how FIFA tried to keep everything hidden about where the money was coming from. That is such a sneaky dirty sleazy thing, which is par for the course for anything associated with FIFA.

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There’s also this reality in the global game for sake of the massively growing interest in the US and in Canada.

If you want to meet some angry fools, talk to the rotten lot of otherwise decent MLS fans, who mysteriously hate Premier League fans and fans of other leagues though we have been here all our lives even before MLS. Trash. There’s also heavy cross-over with other objectionable views by this same lot.

Not that NBC or Fox see the big picture as CBS sure does, but MLS is second-tier and that’s not going to change for the game on the ground or for even broadcast viewership.

Unreal mistake here given the mammoth price tag and that is after all those costs of litigation and settlement with the City of Saint Louis for sake of moving the team!

Sources close to the 2026 organising committee say in order to comply with Fifa’s regulations, the width of the field would have to be increased — possibly by as much as 63ft — which would mean removing some of the seats close to the pitch and raising the playing surface.

Fifa normally expects a stadium that can hold at least 80,000 people for the final, but losing seats would reduce the capacity of the SoFi Stadium to below 70,000, which may prove a step too far.

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