European super league

I'm disappointed it didn't happen I was looking forward to watching these teams fold and go out of business due to them never been able to come back into English leagues ones European super league failed, oh well better luck next time

 

Have we not won promotion then?

*reverses open top bus back into garage

 

I wonder how much of a back hander they've been given to pull out

 

WTF was all that about then?

The whole thing has more questions than answers.

 

I doubt there has been a single backhander.
For once the greedy b******s have over-reached, and over valued themselves, and felt a backlash they never saw coming
because,( particularly with the American owned clubs) they cannot understand that football is not a commodity,or a product
akin to soap powder or a film franchise that can be manipulated and sold in the manner of any other sales and publicity
campaign....football is not a question of Coke or Pepsi...McDonalds or Burger King, although strangely enough there is more
true competition in that than the franchise model of the NFL etc.
For all the shortcomings of the FA, UEFA or FIFA, the game itself is safer in their hands than a few soulless American snake
oil salesmen...the most disappointing aspect is that some of the most venerated European owned clubs bought into it, to be fair the yanks
only understand franchise, but it's never been that way in Europe, those clubs obviously thought they were bigger than the game itself.
Thankfully a realisation has hit them and under no circumstances must there be a fudge or compromise that saves their face, it must
be demonstrated once and for all that the game is bigger than them. and that they are only participants.

 

Doubt it tbh. That wouldn't be enough because it's nowhere near enough to cover what they would have been making from the league.

I think the reason this happened is the players. No point having a team in a super league with no players.

 

All this nonsense has made the atrocious new Champions League format look quite inoffensive. Nobody has even mentioned just how bad a 48 team World Cup is going to be, either. The biggest "achievement" of the ESL is that they've managed to make the incompetents at FIFA and UEFA look like knights in shining armour, which is pretty impressive going.

 

I've just watched the "apology" from John Henry, the Liverpool owner. What a pile of disingenuous rubbish. The brass neck these people have to try and pass off the hunt for greed just like its a slight moral slip and temporary aberration and thank goodness the fans corrected them before it got too far. Henry speaking of "we" "our city" "our club".... as he sits in some multi million dollar pad thousands of miles away in another continent. His practiced facial expressions of sorrow, of remorse, his tone... just to give the perception he really does care, and oh goodness, those poor multi million pound players and manager, how dreadfully he's made them "work". Shocking and duplicitous.

I think these owners are going to be surprised how little trust and goodwill they have left and even if the PL is its own pile of greed and power lust, it might give the 14 chance to overturn some of the powergrabs that have gone on in recent years.

And i very much hope this starts to rid these leeches from football ownership. If there is a legal way to strip the power of these owners and dilute their stakes in clubs, then thats precisely what I would be doing. Until their absolute control is stripped away, football clubs aren't for the fans at all. Thats just another lie, just another platitude.

Football is about whats on the pitch and in the seats and terraces. We shouldn't even have to discuss over spending, debt and multi million pound losses. Breaking even every season should be the norm and the expected.

This is the time to reclaim our clubs. All of them. At every level. Including ours.

 

Agree with all that, except your very last few words.

I don't think we need to reclaim our club. Not yet anyway. I'm as cautious as the next bloke, but we seem to be OK do we not?

 

Yeah, I'm not really sure why all clubs need to be reclaimed from all owners. Some owners seem to be working well with their clubs, ours included in my opinion.

Mistakes are always made, but until something deeply disturbing happens with ours I'll stick by them.

If it ain't broke...

 

The beauty of this whole episode is that they put their cards on the table for all to see...and lost.
Despite seeing themselves as bigger than the game itself they now have had it brought home to them that they are not...effectively they have stripped themselves permanently of any perceived power within the game.

 

And herein lies the problem. While ever a league table shows a positive, all else is forgiven and forgotten. Liverpool fans weren't turning on Henry when they won the title and champions league. Man Utd fans had allowed the Glazers to run up their leveraged debt and criticism was tepid. Man City fans are celebrating winning things left right and centre and ignoring the mass fraud to get them there, let alone the outside acts their owners are involved in.

I won't relist what our owners have done in their time in football ownership that should make us be sceptical and questioning. It doesn't take long to research and refresh the memory.

I'm sure owners with integrity and honesty and so keen on maintaining community would have little issue in ensuring the fans always have the final say and give them 51% of the club. All they have to do is have a share issue and create a structure for those shares to sit. All they have to do is have full transparency to those shareholders. Easy.

Would they do it? I think we all have an inkling as to the answer.

 

and what do we do then? The fans can't run the club(s)

 

I was fine with our owners throughout the entirety of the last campaign, the one where we were in the bottom 3 for almost all of it.

 

Well, unless I've missed it, our owners are running on a balanced budget. Not millions in losses each month

Otherwise I'd agree with you

 

Do fans run the clubs in Germany?

 

Just look at what they did at Nice, the high percentage loan which was due to be repaid in full if they fell below a certain level which put the club in peril.

I won't repeat myself with the other things, but I find it deeply concerning people think we are run by people who aren't akin to Glazer, Henry and Kroenke.

 

I have no idea, please explain to me how it works.

 

As I understand it a private investor cannot own more than 49% of a club. This gives the impression that the fans have the final say in day to day operations of the club, which isn't the case.

 

They have corporate structures that run the clubs. Just like our owners have a CEO and employed people. They run the club, not the owners.

The ownership in Germany has fans with 50% ownership plus 1 share. Its enshrined in their law. That puts a block on the "owners" doing things that go against the fans. Like trying to move them away from their ground without consultation for example.

How the fan share structure is exactly set up, I don't know. But Germany is commonly heralded for full grounds, very low ticket prices, safe standing and generally having fans at the heart of their decision making.

Surely that can't be a bad thing and if in place, I'd have no issue with Oakwell being brought back into the holding of the football club, as protections would be in place in other ways.