A European Super League: The future of football?

[jamieccfc]

The whole point of wanting and getting promotion to the Premier League in the first place is so that your team can play against the big teams like Liverpool, Man Utd etc. Take that away and the whole thing becones meaningless and pointless. If the best reward for getting into the top league was to play against teams like Wolves and Bournemouth then I would pack it in tomorrow. Playing against the big 6 gives you something to aspire to, to try to get to their level, like Leicester did a few years ago. Teams like Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea etc havent always been 'big' either. They all started at lower levels and been relegated in between as well. Why cant clubs like us get to their level. Even if it takes 20 years, it would be worth it.

exactly as I feel about it

[The Lone Gunman]

I'm all for the Top 6 plastics fecking off and joining a European Super league Would make the Premiership a much better and far more competitive league, with none of this same old/same old teams winning it and coming in the Top 6 constantly, season after season, year after year.

Top 6 plastics? You reckon clubs like Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United are 'plastic'?

[The Lone Gunman]

So far this season, Cardiff City have beaten a grand total of six teams - Fulham, Brighton, Wolves, Leicester, Bournemouth and Southampton (twice). Each of those victories has been greeted with great celebrations by City supporters and there's a very good reason for that.

Anyone who has supported Cardiff for any length of time will have previously seen their team beat the six clubs listed above, and beat some of them on plenty of previous occasions in the lower divisions. But this season's victories are viewed very differently by most fans as they have provided points in the battle to remain in the top flight of English football - the Premier League. And the Premier League holds the fascination that it does because it contains the likes of Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal.

Remove those huge clubs and the attraction of the Premier League would diminish rapidly. Does anyone seriously believe that Cardiff City would be attracting averaging attendances of approximately 31,000 in a division where the most glamorous opposition was the likes of Everton, West Ham and Newcastle?

If you took the top six out of the Premier League, it would be no more interesting than the Championship to most football fans. Indeed, I firmly believe both the Premier League and the Championship would prove far less attractive to almost everyone if competing against the big guns was no longer the target.

[Duggie]

I would love to see our top 4/6 go into a Euro Super League only for no broadcasters to pay to show it in the UK. The plastics would explode. I know I’m just dreaming, but that would be great.

[blue matt]

Can't see the top 6 clubs fans licking their lips for a European Super league ........ how many of their true supporters would be able to afford away games every couple of weeks all over Europe !!!!!!

No away fans its coming i tell you

[Optimistic Nick]

I must admit, for me, it was never about playing against the best 6 clubs - let's face it, some of us remember when Man Utd, Spurs and Chelsea were in Div 2, and it's only 20 years ago that Man City were in the 3rd tier of football. Top sixes change, albeit a bit more slowly these days.

For me, it's about seeing my team succeed. You can only sicceed against the teams that you are facing, if that means no Man C, Man U, Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal or Liverpool, then so be it. Wouldn't bother me one bit. But then, I've seen us play more dungeon games than top level football.

Exactly this. Barcelona are a great team but it doesn't bother me that we won't get to play them. The gap between the elite and the rest is so cavernous now that the only way to cross it is to spend the sort of money that has distorted the competition in the first place, and I don't want that. So let them disappear into a European super league designed for the armchair supporter and leave the rest of us to enjoy a proper competition back here.

[JDerrida]

If it did happen, then every country that has more than one team in the ESL will be affected in the same way as the PL.

At the moment the top 6 are used to winning most of the time and being the top 6 (in PL). In the ESL, some of those 6 or certainly some of the ESL, will become the cannon fodder for the top 4 or 6 of the ESL.

Fans of those teams will go from regularly winning to regularly losing. How will they cope?
What impact will that have on their sponsors and the potential to buy significant players?
What impact will it have wage structures and transfer fees just for the ESL teams?
What other impacts does it have on the remnants of the domestic leagues?

[fugsyphil]

The European super League concept doesn't work because nobody will be interested when the team in fifteenth play at home to the team in sixteenth if the two clubs are 1000+ miles apart

[Bluebirdman Of Alcathays]

If the ground is half full for Arsenal v Atletico Madrid but there are still millions of people watching and paying their subscriptions globally, no-one running the ESL will be that bothered.