European Super League announced; collapses

[Baddar]

It's going to weird if things return to how they were pre announcement of this. When fans get back into the stadiums, they won't forget what the owners have done. Pre and post match protests I agree with, but not so much when it could affect the team on the pitch.

[Lineker]

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Hundreds of protesting Chelsea fans have now started to sit down outside Stamford Bridge as they prepare to make their feelings about the ESL clear when they greet the team coaches before their side’s match against Brighton at 8pm BST. Police are in close attendance but all is peaceful. Some flares have been let off and chants of “it’s not football anymore” can be heard. Here’s what the Chelsea staff will see on some of the banners:

• Fans not customers
• RIP Chelsea FC (1905-2021)
• Sold our Soul
• RIP Football (1862-2021)
• Buck Off Super League
• Roman, Do The Right Thing
• Super Greed
• Blue is the Colour, Money is our aim

It’s the biggest protest so far and is getting increasingly more impassioned.

 

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The European Super League has been dealt a further blow with Amazon taking the unusual step of publicly criticising the proposed competition, which effectively rules the streaming giant out as a potential international broadcast partner.

“Amazon Prime Video understands and shares the concerns raised by football fans regarding a breakaway Super League,” the company said. “We believe part of the drama and beauty of European football comes from the ability of any club to achieve success through their performance on the pitch.”

Amazon, which streams live Champions League matches in Germany and Italy and Premier League games in the UK, also made it clear its allegiance lies with existing rights holders and leagues. The move by Amazon, which has 150m users of Prime Video globally and recently splashed out $1bn on NFL rights, rules out an important potential partner for the Super League.

“We have not been involved in any discussions for this proposed Super League,” Amazon said. “We are proud to offer our Prime members the football which matters most to them.”

On Monday BT, which has spent more than £2bn on Champions League and Premier League rights in the UK, said that the proposed new competition “could have a damaging effect on the long term health of football in this country.” Late on Monday night Sky, the biggest investor in football rights across Europe, said it was “completely focussed on supporting our long term football partners in the UK and Europe.” Sky added that it had also not been in any discussions with the ESL.

 

[METALMAN]

I think my favourite reaction so far is Brendan Rodgers saying he played a part in making the super league happen because the rich clubs got so annoyed at Leicester doing well.

[Lineker]

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The Spanish banker who created the controversial new European Super League has promised the new JP Morgan-backed competition will pump €400m (£350m) into the national leagues that the elite clubs plan to leave behind.

Anas Laghari, a partner at the Madrid bank Key Capital and the newly appointed general secretary of the Super League, said the new league would reignite younger people’s love of football and end the “madness” of big money transfers.

In his first public comments since announcing the creation of the new league on Sunday night, Laghari said the competition could begin as soon as September and promised that it would “make people dream” about the beautiful game again.

Laghari, a close friend of Real Madrid’s billionaire president and majority-owner Florentino Pérez, told the French newspaper Le Parisien that the new closed league was essential to make elite football profitable for owners.

“Football is a field that does not make money,” Laghari said. Adding that the coronavirus pandemic had “accelerated the problems and the urgency of finding a solution”.

It came as public pressure mounts on the US investment bank JP Morgan Chase over its role helping get the controversial league off the ground by providing €3.25bn (£2.8bn) of debt financing. The owners of the 12 founding clubs – including Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur – are due to each receive a “welcome bonus” of between €200m and €300m.

The bank, which recently signed up the former chancellor Sajid Javid and the former shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna, was left reeling at the volume of public anger directed at it for threatening the future of the game. It emerged on Tuesday that the financing deal was investigated and approved by the bank’s “public responsibility committee”.

Neither Javid nor Umunna sit on the committee. Both failed to respond to requests for comment about their opinions on the bank’s role in financing the new league, which has been criticised by Boris Johnson, Keir Starmer and other world leaders.

Umunna leads the bank’s environmental and social responsibility governance work in Europe. Javid serves on the bank’s European advisory council. It is understood that the decision to fund the European Super League was taken at the bank’s Wall Street headquarters, not in London or Europe.

One senior Labour backbencher questioned Javid’s role with JP Morgan. Andrew Gwynne, the MP for Denton and Reddish, and a former shadow communities secretary, said: “The prime minister is talking a tough game on stopping the European Super League. But meanwhile, one of his senior MPs is advising the money men behind the whole tawdry affair. It’s a classic metaphor for this Conservative government, which seems to never be far away when sleaze is found.”

Javid’s role for JP Morgan is as a part-time adviser on general geo-political issues, with no involvement in specific projects by the bank. The former chancellor only learned about the plan for the league when it was announced in the media on Sunday, a source said.

Laghari denied accusations that the new league was an attempted power grab by the billionaire owners of Europe’s biggest clubs. He claimed that the new league would lead to better financial support grassroots football across the continent.

“We have a solidarity committee that will supervise the distribution of funds and guarantee transparency,” he said. “We are talking about €400m, which is huge.” Laghari said that payment compared with just €130m that Uefa currently distributes.

However, he said the new money would not be handed over until Uefa agreed to the plans. Uefa and Fifa have threatened to ban the breakaway clubs from international competitions. This could also cover players, meaning they could be prevented from representing their countries at the postponed Euro 2020 competition due to start this summer.

Laghari said there was “real frustration” among the billionaire owners of Europe’s biggest clubs over the unpredictability of the games’s current “unstable system” based on a club’s results in the Champions League. “A manager makes a three-year plan but he can have a difference of several hundred million euros depending on his results,” he added.

The Super League is designed as a “closed” competition similar to American sports leagues, without promotion and relegation so that the owners of founding teams can receive consistent revenue and profits. The new league is also expected to cap players’ wages as a percentage of overall revenue to prevent runaway salaries.

Pérez, the president of Real Madrid and the Super League’s chairman, said the new competition was the only option to “save football”, adding that “€5bn has been lost by the clubs; we’re on the edge of ruin”. “We don’t want the rich to be richer and the poor poorer. We have to save football. Everything I do is for the good of football, which is in a critical moment.”

 

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Chelsea and Manchester City are wavering about joining the European Super League, according to a well-placed executive at another club approached to join the breakaway league.

The Guardian also understands there were discussions in the wings of the Uefa congress in Montreux on Tuesday about whether the two clubs might do a U-turn after the negative public backlash and growing pressure from governments and leagues since the announcement.

Those opposed to the breakaway believe that fewer than half the 12 clubs are considered “fanatics”, who will back the Super League no matter what. The others have joined because they believe they will be financially better off – either if it goes ahead or by wrangling concessions from Uefa – or they reluctantly entered because they feared missing out. Chelsea and Manchester City are believed to be in the latter camp.

However another well-placed source, from an organisation opposed to the Super League, was more circumspect saying that while he hoped some clubs would reconsider he had no direct evidence they would.

 

[Hobo]

3 hours ago, metalman said:

I also think people should be banned from supporting football teams in another country.

but that would leave Robbie Keane only 20 boyhood clubs to choose from

[DavidMarrio]

13 minutes ago, metalman said:

I think my favourite reaction so far is Brendan Rodgers saying he played a part in making the super league happen because the rich clubs got so annoyed at Leicester doing well.

How very Deluded Brendan of him

[lanky316]

Well that's one down apparently 🤣

[Szumi]

 

 

 

[Lineker]

Huge protests at Chelsea tonight.

[METALMAN]

well that was fun while it lasted.

Now to properly reform the game. Salary caps, spending limits, the lot. 

[stokeriño]

 

 

If Chelsea actually do withdraw now, I'm so proud of all the guys who went to protest at the Bridge this afternoon. Obviously it's unlikely that they were the crucial factor - amongst everything else that has exploded over the past couple of days - but it's brilliant nonetheless.

[Lineker]

 

[Bobfoc]

While it's good that Chelsea are withdrawing, they can still get in the bin for considering it in the first place.

[Rich]

Just now, Bobfoc said:

While it's good that Chelsea are withdrawing, they can still get in the bin for considering it in the first place.

Don't think any one will disagree with you

[LL!]

4 minutes ago, metalman said:

well that was fun while it lasted.

Now to properly reform the game. Salary caps, spending limits, the lot. 

I put you in charge of this. 

[stokeriño]

Just now, Bobfoc said:

While it's good that Chelsea are withdrawing, they can still get in the bin for considering it in the first place.

Oh sure. I just hope there's a chain reaction that comes after it.

I'm also wondering if the Chelsea Pitch Owners' possible ability to deny the club use of the name 'Chelsea Football Club' might have crossed their minds at some point.

[gunnar hendershow]

Chelsea's ownership and decision makers are going to walk around like they're heroes now aren't they?

[DavidMarrio]

Just now, stokeriño said:

Oh sure. I just hope there's a chain reaction that comes after it.

I'm also wondering if the Chelsea Pitch Owners' possible ability to deny the club use of the name 'Chelsea Football Club' might have crossed their minds at some point.

That's my big hope. One dropping out hopefully putting pressure on the others. I think City will be the next to do so 

[LL!]

Just now, damshow said:

Chelsea's ownership and decision makers are going to walk around like they're heroes now aren't they?

So nothing new. 

[METALMAN]

1 minute ago, stokeriño said:

Oh sure. I just hope there's a chain reaction that comes after it.

I'm also wondering if the Chelsea Pitch Owners' possible ability to deny the club use of the name 'Chelsea Football Club' might have crossed their minds at some point.

Chelsea are quite lucky they have those old duffers keeping them right. The other teams could do with that.