Football (Soccer) Thread

[Jacob]

Danish news are reporting that there's going to be an extraordinary board meeting at UEFA on Friday. The head of the Danish FA expects that instigator clubs will be removed from the Champions league (including  Real Madrid, Chelsea, and Man. City in the semi-finals). Furthermore, he says there's one interpretation that says that player contracts are automatically nullified if the clubs leave. He also says that he expects that UEFA will give players the choice between continuing in the breakaway clubs or being released from their contracts.

That's an interesting point, actually. To what degree are the player contracts predicated on being part of national leagues and UEFA?

Fun times ahead.

[Sheilbh]

What does that have to do with anything?

Yeah I don't get it

I appreciate Tamas' great performance playing the villain in the last few pages. He's probably the best suited to it as a Chelsea fan born abroad

Tamas's take is very appreciated for diversity of thought/bit of disagreement in the thread.

Very classic Chelsea:

In rugby union, Six Nations was opened to Italy to recognize its improving status and keep on improving, so yes I don't see the point as well. Plus national vs club sport.

The better comparison is probably actually rugby league which has a closed Anglo-French league system (in the Northern hemisphere) with franchises.

Add Portugal to your list, 7 players:

Yeah - although you'd always have Wolves

I'd love to see Brazil without players from the dirty dozen just for the utter carnage of their defence

[Sheilbh]

Danish news are reporting that there's going to be an extraordinary board meeting at UEFA on Friday. The head of the Danish FA expects that instigator clubs will be removed from the Champions league (including  Real Madrid, Chelsea, and Man. City in the semi-finals). Furthermore, he says there's one interpretation that says that player contracts are automatically nullified if the clubs leave. He also says that he expects that UEFA will give players the choice between continuing in the breakaway clubs or being released from their contracts.

That's an interesting point, actually. To what degree are the player contracts predicated on being part of national leagues and UEFA?

Fun times ahead.

Lots of players' contracts have things around being able to leave if they don't qualify for Champions League - but I always assumed these clubs would include language to cover a super league given that they've always been planning this. If they don't then that could be utter carnage.

I have no idea but I wonder if the best comparison is actually some English clubs that have gone bust/into administration and been removed from the league because there's arguably something similar there if the clubs basically get disqualified/expelled from certain leagues. Thinking about it I think City were concerned about the consequences if they were banned from the Champions League for FFP breach because it does impact on whether players can leave or not.

[The Larch]

Model of the ESL is the NBA and the like, without salary caps and draft, not to mention a completely different sport culture.

It's not really the NBA, even if it makes for an easy analogy. It's closer to the basketball EuroLeague, which also created a controversy with FIBA (and for a couple of seasons there were even competing top continental competitions).

[Tamas]

So what, you can relegate from the Six Nations competition? You can get promoted into it?

[Tamas]

Also: Abramovich for years have been small potatoes compared to other third world and American owners in the Premier League.

[Tamas]

One further point: unless UEFA manages to coerce the clubs to back down this is going to be like other big outrages in football, be it VAR, offside rule changes, etc. People cry foul then the season starts and they watch it regardless and in a couple of years it will be the new normal to be defended against the forces of consumerism.

[Jacob]

So what, you can relegate from the Six Nations competition? You can get promoted into it?

Do you understand the difference between a Nation and a club?

Do you understand that Rugby and Association Football are two different sports?

[Sheilbh]

Also: Abramovich for years have been small potatoes compared to other third world and American owners in the Premier League.

How is he small beer compared to the Yanks? They treat it as a pure investment and expect a return - FSG, Kroenke and the Glazers have put lots of debt on their companies and make lots of money out of them.

I agree on nation state owners.

Government here says they'll do "whatever it takes" to stop this. So far they're just giving full backing to football associations and will see what they can do:

Football authorities had "a wide range of sanctions and measures", and the full backing of ministers, Dowden told MPs in the Commons.

He said: "But be in no doubt: if they can't act, we will. We will put everything on the table to prevent this from happening. We are examining every option from governance reform to competition law, and mechanisms that allow football to take place."

Apparently there was no consultation or warning with the government or the FA before this was announced which has probably particularly pissed everyone off - especially after the last year. The Tories did promise reform of football to give fans a stronger voice in the last election - they've announced that review will be moved forward and launched now.

Edit: So the scope of the review includes:
- Financial sustainability of game
- Governance
- Regulation
- Merits of an independent regulator
- Fans having greater say over game

The government are explicitly considering a German style 50%+1 reserved for fans - Tim Farron suggests that fans have a veto on moving to a new league like this and the minister doesn't disagree that might be an option. MPs on all sides are furious about this (and I think that will reflect what they're hearing from voters). The government also won't rule out changing the law to stop English clubs joining a super league possibly in the next few months if football associations can't stop it.

Culture Secretary also pointed out that football clubs "benefited enormously" from state support during covid and should think very carefully of the duty they owe to taxpayers.

A Labour MP asked if football could be referred to the competition authority, denied any further public funds and if the tax status of image rights could be reviewed - the Culture Secretary said all of those are under consideration.

I think the "big six" may regret this because if nothing else it looks likely to prompt quite a sweeping look at how football operates after years of self-regulation and after decades of these owners not finding a red-line, they might have crossed one

[Jacob]

So reading, it seems like UEFA has the following potential actions under consideration:

• Excluding players from playing on the national teams for the World Cup and European Cups.
• Allowing players to exit their contracts with the Super League clubs
• Ejecting the clubs from the Champions League immediately (so a hit to three of the clubs).
• Ejecting the clubs from regular league and cup play

My questions right now are:

Can UEFA implement all of these (they're consulting with their lawyers ATM)?

If they can, is this going to be enough to deter the super friends?

Is the potential revenue gain from the Super League enough to make up for the revenue loss from other areas?

Will the prestige of the new Super League - if they can't have national players and they can't play regular league games - be enough to sustain the projected revenue streams?

Is it enough to make some of the clubs back down, but not all? What's the level of solidarity between the twelve super friends? Will the Super League survive if one, two, or four of the clubs withdraw?

[Admiral Yi]

Yeah, I think the origin point of all this was when Russian oligarchs, oil sheikhs, and American investors began buying up clubs, so more like early 2000s.

I'm curious, do you know what the ownership profile of these clubs was when the evil foreigners bought them out?  The members?  Local big men?

It seems only natural that there was going to be a divergence of interests between the ownership and the local fan base.

The local fans of big teams are a little delusional in that their side wouldn't be able to afford the same level of mercenary on field talent if ownership wasn't selling lots of jersies and broadcast rights internationally.

[Duque de Bragança]

In rugby union, Six Nations was opened to Italy to recognize its improving status and keep on improving, so yes I don't see the point as well. Plus national vs club sport.

The better comparison is probably actually rugby league which has a closed Anglo-French league system (in the Northern hemisphere) with franchises.

Rugby league is nowhere near popular in France as it is in England, or part of it (™Norf™?), except the Catalonian part (for celedhring).

Add Portugal to your list, 7 players:
Yeah - although you'd always have Wolves

Yay, praise Mendes' FC! Of those, not all are regulars in the Selecção though.

I'd love to see Brazil without players from the dirty dozen just for the utter carnage of their defence

As if it would change anything versus Germany. 

[Tamas]

So what, you can relegate from the Six Nations competition? You can get promoted into it?

Do you understand the difference between a Nation and a club?

Do you understand that Rugby and Association Football are two different sports?

So it's not against the spirit of sport to restrict who can participate if its done to nations?

[Duque de Bragança]

So what, you can relegate from the Six Nations competition? You can get promoted into it?

It used to be the Five Nations Tournament. Italy got promoted, following lots of test matches vs the Big 5. 

[Jacob]

As an aside, when I did my MBA we had an interesting corporate finance case study (which we had to do in 24 hours, because time pressure and sleep deprivation makes everything better) for a Premiership club analysing their finances. The question on the table was whether to invest in a top tier striker, in building a new stadium, neither, or both - based on the finances of the club. After we analyzed and made the recommendation (my group said yes to both), we learned that it was based on the Spurs.

Was fascinating.