epl could have 10 teams in Europe

Was it Italy that got 5 league CL places last season? I’m all for Europa winners to get a place. But it should be in place of the worst placed CL placed position in the league that they’re in. It’s made the Europa a better competition since that reward came in. Before it was treated as a joke by the bigger teams.

CL this season the league set up round offered less protection for big clubs, we were fighting it out with the likes of City, PSG and Juve around us.

6 CL teams from one league is pathetic though. 4 was too many for me. 5 from league position far too many, even when EPL didn’t get that. I like the new set up though, and I like the conference league.

But 6 from the one league? That can’t be allowed again that

 

More than half the places going to just 4 leagues….

51 countries fighting it out for the remaining 17 slots.. most automatically excluded by the ranking system.

Utterly ridiculous….

 

I'm probably in the minority, but I'd want the european superleague to go ahead. Teams from smaller leagues cannot realistically stay competitive anymore. Let the rich teams play for the money. The rest will be forced to reinvent themselves and change their priorities. For the record, Celtic might be part of the superleague in case they opt for an expanded version of the original plan.

 

At the end of the French teams you get rest of the *

 

The problem isnt just at a champions league level. The europa cup final was between two English teams that finished 15th and 17th in their league. The Conference league was won by Chelsea. Last season it would have been won by Spurs but they couldnt fulfil their games and won by west ham year before.

Im actually with you. Id rather the mega rich clubs did their own thing and make their billions, and everyone else can put their heads together and make a far more interesting set up.

 

That was the first CL with Spurs, but Spurs needed to beat Rennes at home which wasn't a given. They didn't take the competition seriously.

 

I’ll preface this post by saying that it’s long, rambling and sort of goes all over the place (so apologies in advance ), but it’s been bugging me recently and this feels like the most appropriate place for the post.

It’s not exactly a revelation, but UEFA give next to zero * about any team not from the top 5 leagues (and even then it’s mostly a handful of clubs from each league, and basically just PSG in the case of Ligue 1).

Where the Champions League is concerned, they maybe don’t mind the Dutch trio (Ajax/Feyenoord/PSV), the Portuguese trio (Benfica/Lisbon/Porto) and maybe a Club Brugge, because they’re capable of giving the ‘elite’ sides a game, but they’re unlikely to upset the apple cart and go on to win the whole thing (and if they do, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to do it consistently). When it comes to the Champions of ‘lesser’ countries, however, we’re tolerated at best. We’re fodder for ego fluffing, where they can celebrate how their beloved 4th place English team pumped a considerably less wealthy regional champion. In cases like ours, they can tout the fact that we’ve won it in the past as some sort of attempt to pretend that the competition (and state of football as a whole) is still the same as it was back in the day, and not the pseudo-Super League/‘You must be this rich to take part’ it’s been allowed to become. If we can pull off a shock win or have a particularly good run one year, it can be spun as a sort of feel good story, but they don’t want ‘smaller’ sides getting in the way of their marketing approved matchups - they don’t want to see Celtic vs. PSG in the QF (granted, I’m not sure how much I’d end up enjoying that either ), they want an ‘elite’ side so they can hang around with their fellow wealthy pals/celebrities/influencers/plastic-supporters and have a * about how wonderful they all are. They don’t really give a * about these teams as football clubs, it’s all about the brands or the franchise.

It’s very much a trivial complaint, and it would obviously be a poor decision from a branding/marketing perspective, but I’d honestly be less bothered if they just renamed the Champions League to something like the Europa Premier League (and rename the Europa League to the Europa Championship or something like that). I don’t care how wealthy they are, or how supposedly fantastic the league they play in is, it’s a farce calling something a ‘Champions’ League when it’s littered with also-rans who’ve won hee-haw.


In regard's to the Europa League or the Europa Conference League, what’s the point? What’s the identity of these competitions?

The Europa League was an opportunity for clubs in our sort of position to realistically compete for a European trophy in an era where the Champions League is effectively locked down; While the Conference League seemed like it was designed for clubs at the level (or levels) below us to have a crack at European competition.

But look at what this season offered up: An EL final contested between two absolutely * dismal ‘elite’ sides (that arguably only really cared as a make good for their domestic form) and an ECL final that was won by another ‘elite’ team that throws money around likes it’s going out of fashion and basically treated the competition like a less serious version of the Carabao Cup. The sort of clubs that should be benefiting from these competitions aren’t, and what we’ve ultimately ended up with is a situation where even the secondary and tertiary European tournaments feel like they’re designed to keep the wealthy teams, who don’t even particularly want to be there, happy.

It’s like UEFA are saying to these clubs “Well you didn’t get good grades in your exams this year, so we’re not going to let you go to the party with all your mates, but we feel kinda bad, so we’ll let you go to your Aunt’s birthday where you can hang around play Mario Kart with your wee cousins”. Maybe they do ultimately end up having some fun, but they’ve still spent most of the evening sitting around with a stroppy face.



Maybe I’m delusional, but I honestly believe the Super League as it was initially being pitched would’ve probably ended up benefiting sides like ourselves in the long run. At the very least, it would’ve forced UEFA in to doing an actual restructure that isn’t primarily based around keeping the teams with the largest bank accounts happy.

While I concede that there were some people being earnest in the fears of your average supporter being left behind (the so called ‘legacy fans’), most of the outrage surrounding the Super League was the hanger-on English sides getting nervy about the long term impact on the EPL. For all that the focus was on it potentially supplanting the Champions League, they know it was just first step in these sides fully breaking away from the traditional footballing structure.

We’re probably not too far away from another attempt, where they’ll probably end up inviting some of their other pals. I eagerly await the day where we’re being told that Inter Miami vs. Al-Hilal is one of the great rivalries in football.

 

That's actually not true... Ferguson at Utd helped spearhead a movement of clubs that insisted that a larger share moved down the leagues to support the infrastructure of the game... That's why we saw the global growth of ALL the English leagues, all the way to proper televisation of the * Conference... It's why their Championship and League 1 teams are as financially strong as most top tier clubs across Europe...

The EPL has it's flaws, but grassroots level investments isn't one of them...

 

It is true. They created it so they could negotiate their own TV deal rather than a shared one with the EFL.

English teams may have gotten wealthy down the line but that wasn't the purpose. Although I don't think league 1 or the Championship are as wealthy as you think.

 

I agree that Sky and Fifa have destroyed football but the biggest blame imo is on the players in the big leagues and clubs in these leagues. They are egomaniacs and disgusting human beings being greedy to the * extreme. They would just go play in Singapore och Saudi Arabia or anywhere where they would get paid more, so that is what forces the inflation. FIFA are just desperate to keep the players playing in the good leagues.

Even * players like Karamoko Dembele runs around in snake-skin pants with diamonds on buffalo shoes. They literally don't even know what to do with all the money. Its just greed.

I hate the excuse of almost feeling sorry for players earning 40k a week playing outside of the big leagues. Its money that will guarantee you luxury for the rest of you're life even playing for Celtic. Our players are * loaded with cash.

 

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cy8qzn94ye7o#:~:text=League One and League Two,payments from the Premier League

 

That's not an article about why the PL was formed

 

Mate, if you think I'm gonna argue that ANY premier league was set up with an intention other than making more money for the clubs in it you've got me wrong... What I'm saying is that they have been responsible for increasing the money made by all the other leagues since they did, that that was deliberate, and that there's no real grounds for complaining about how they've treated other English leagues/teams at pretty much any stage of proceedings...

Sky would never have offered them this much money if not for the way the handled a small group of teams over an entire infrastructure of a country. Compare to how other structures like La Liga etc favour individual "prize assets" over the greater good of the national game and it's night and day...