I'm with Solid and Jimmy, I find the hypocrisy astounding too. As for the tshirts, maybe get one printed up that says Hands Off Our Game. Show solidarity. Using the Earn It one as a taunt for the 6 teams is out of order. Let's face it they are the 6 (except Spurs actually) because they have earned it! Even Spurs are in the top rich bracket guess why ...... because they earned it. The players have done nothing wrong.
I can agree with you but this proposed step was too far. Before it was about making more money without affecting the sporting nature of football in this country. But the ESL would have damaged the pyramid structure and affected dreams of all fans however remote these were becoming.
I find the comparison with the formation of the PL disingenuous tbh. This was nothing like that plan. For one, that had the support and backing of the English FA. Secondly it remained open to all, there’s around 40 clubs who’ve been part of the PL, and it was just a rebranded product that still sat at the pinnacle of the pyramid. It’s success has been unrivalled and the crying over the disparity of funds is flawed, as the 9% of revenue that goes to the EFL now equates to over £300m a year.
i had nothing against the Leeds players wearing them but find it bizarre if all clubs keep it up for the rest of the season .
Leeds, smaller clubs, big clubs, Sky, media etc etc. They're all hypocrites lol. Another bunch of parasites are the journalists at The Athletic - they wrote countless articles about the Super League and the devious American owners - but the Athletic is a US owned company, that broke into the UK market by spending loads of money poaching the best journalists across Europe, charging a subscription fee to the users, and their own CEO said he wanted to 'bleed local papers dry'. The smaller clubs are the funniest because as it evidenced by the link I posted earlier, even these clubs wanted to breakaway and get more money. Some of these same clubs wanted to null and void the PL last season to avoid relegation lol. And guarantee - if these lower clubs were also invited, how many of them would have said no ...
Quote from Alex Ferguson on the breakaway league: A piece of nonsense...has done the reputation of clubs no good, and has in fact alienated a great many supporters...sells them right down the river....you can't disregard your fans and customers." This isn't about the Super League by the way. This was about the Premier League when it was formed in 1992.
To me it seems like there have been two separate reasons for the owners/investors of these clubs joining the ESL. And it's obvious it's all been driven by those people. Firstly there will be people within these structures and hierarchies who do actually want a different model for football and are invested in that idea. It seems like the push is for a very Americanised model of sport, similar to the NFL, where obviously it will be the same teams competing season after season in regional divisions. But it probably wouldn't even surprise me if those people wanted to do something ridiculous like start taking teams away from their actual home cities and having PSG based in Liverpool and Liverpool based in Milan, similar to how some NFL teams operate as franchises and move states. Secondly I think there are others involved for whom it's all about using this as leverage against UEFA and their domestic authorities to try and grasp some power and control back, and who perhaps thought all along that it would fold but that the threat would be enough to regain greater say in their team's affairs. Personally I don't really get the massive level of outrage, a move like this just isn’t surprising to me, but I mean I do understand the furore and I know I know they're screwing the fans again, all the teams who would have been excluded and not permanent members, plus the underhanded way they’ve gone about it, that’s all regrettable. But football as a sport has changed massively even since I started supporting and following it as a kid, it's hardly the same game as it was 20, 30, 40 years ago. Stuff like rule changes, VAR. So if it had gone through and an ESL turned out to be total **** and not really workable as a format I'd probably honestly just stop watching anyway and go watch other sports instead. They're stupid if they think they deserve that much loyalty from their audience. Fans will only be pushed so far and accept so much
Lol agreed. Bojo talking about integrity and not letting multi billionaire capitalists ruin our game. The irony ...
The FA came on board after the plan was in place so my point stands about big clubs forcing through the changes they want to their benefit and the FA role in that was a pretty naked power grab against the football league .
The fact that those people organisations and clubs are hypocrites doesn’t negate the fact that the ESL project would have hugely damaged the concept of football as a sport.
That’s not true though. The F.A. were consulted from the off and backed the plan, it bears no relation to what’s happened here with the ESL on any level.
I watched a joint fan tv video call on YouTube last night with Robbie and Mark Goldbridge and four others and they were unanimous in agreement over the PL forming being the start of this. They are right.
Maybe so, but then people should be arguing against those organisations as well as the ESL. Picking and choosing battles ...
100% - letting Sky come in, pump loads of money, push the PL brand, they effectively created this 'Big 6' tag. Then the PL allowing foreign investment as well. It was all brought on by themselves. Then Sky and PL got worried when they thought they would lose control... Make no mistake about it - PL, FA, Sky, BT, UEFA, FIFA don't give a sh*t about the fans. They were concerned because their pockets were going to be hurt by this. I stand by this.
You are right. More battles should be fought for and by the fans. But one thing at a time. The greedy owners were the immediate and urgent enemy. The organisations are next.
I don't think we can discount it personally. In 1990 this super league was mooted and the FA saw it as an opportunity to put the football league in its place. the main thing is that promotion and relegation were preserved after negotiation and were really the price of having the premier league which was in the end all about money and rights. You have a ESL breakway based on money and the only real difference is it was a fight between uefa proposal and thier version with really that special status crap as the unsupportable step. In the end the Prem and ESL and CL were all about money. we need to be clear the FA were a more than willing conspirator as it suited them to break the EFL power.