23/24 International Club Football Thread

[cheevers]

Imagine coming up with something so stupid it makes you cheer for UEFA to win.

[devo22]

they basically went from offering clubs loads of cash to "you're going to make so much money from us streaming all the games for free ... because of ad revenue. Trust me, bro!". No idea why clubs aren't lining up for something like this lol

[Matty81]

So all the english team and the prem have come out and said they won't be joining. Juve is out now. Bayern and the german league have always been against it and PSG and French league have also come out against it.

Who is actually going to be in this league that is halfway decent?

It's Barca, Real and a few mid to lower tier national league teams like Ajax and the portugese teams or something? Sounds like a piss poor product to me and not an upgrade on La Liga. Those two spanish clubs are so desperate to find a way to bail themselves out of their overspending beyond their means and huge debt it is sad to watch their scraping

[GirlySports]

Promotion and relegation within a three tiered system? All to protect traditional powers. That sounds terrible.

Barcelona are so broke that instead of taking the full 15 day La Liga winter break, they are jetting overnight after LAST night's game, to play a game against Club America TONIGHT in Dallas for $5m.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by devo22

it's basically "we'll make our own Champions League, with blackjack and hookers"

PL has already flat out rejected the idea, as have clubs like PSG and Roma.

There are 2 teams that absolutely NEED this. Barcelona and Juve, because they are a hair's breadth away from insolvency and the fact of the matter is...thats their own fault.

I love the NHL hard-cap salary system, I think its among the best and fairest in Pro sports, and yes, there is no relegation in the NHL so their revenues are more stable.

But Petrostate-Clubs aside, there are plenty of clubs that still operate profitably, great examples are United, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool, and there are plenty more, Bayern, etc.

It is nobody else's fault that Juve cooked their books or that Barca sold their future for nothing.

This is nothing more than a hare-brained scheme for the desperate old men who want one last kick at the Financial Can and are willing to flush European football to get it.

[devo22]

Originally Posted by Locke

There are 2 teams that absolutely NEED this. Barcelona and Juve, because they are a hair's breadth away from insolvency and the fact of the matter is...thats their own fault.

I love the NHL hard-cap salary system, I think its among the best and fairest in Pro sports, and yes, there is no relegation in the NHL so their revenues are more stable.

But Petrostate-Clubs aside, there are plenty of clubs that still operate profitably, great examples are United, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool, and there are plenty more, Bayern, etc.

It is nobody else's fault that Juve cooked their books or that Barca sold their future for nothing.

This is nothing more than a hare-brained scheme for the desperate old men who want one last kick at the Financial Can and are willing to flush European football to get it.

the funniest thing is, they had 2 years to come up with a good idea ... and that's the #### they want to serve? It's hilarious. The setup is a joke (14 of 16 clubs of the highest league would stay up, so the majority of the clubs would just play each other twice a year again and again), the financial aspect is even a bigger joke ... like, I know Florentino wants this and Barcelona/Juventus need this, but it's just a piss poor concept. Good luck convincing clubs that joining this is worth the fan backlash.

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Barcelona are so broke that instead of taking the full 15 day La Liga winter break, they are jetting overnight after LAST night's game, to play a game against Club America TONIGHT in Dallas for $5m.

hadn't heard about this ... that is insane.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by devo22

the funniest thing is, they had 2 years to come up with a good idea ... and that's the #### they want to serve? It's hilarious. The setup is a joke (14 of 16 clubs of the highest league would stay up, so the majority of the clubs would just play each other twice a year again and again), the financial aspect is even a bigger joke ... like, I know Florentino wants this and Barcelona/Juventus need this, but it's just a piss poor concept. Good luck convincing clubs that joining this is worth the fan backlash.

hadn't heard about this ... that is insane.

Its like...they got the report from the Court and just came up with this nonsense overnight.

Wedging the women into it seems sleazy. Leave the women alone. They are actually doing a good job growing their game, dont lump them into this BS.

[Barnet Flame]

Originally Posted by Locke

There are 2 teams that absolutely NEED this. Barcelona and Juve, because they are a hair's breadth away from insolvency and the fact of the matter is...thats their own fault.

I love the NHL hard-cap salary system, I think its among the best and fairest in Pro sports, and yes, there is no relegation in the NHL so their revenues are more stable.

But Petrostate-Clubs aside, there are plenty of clubs that still operate profitably, great examples are United, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool, and there are plenty more, Bayern, etc.

It is nobody else's fault that Juve cooked their books or that Barca sold their future for nothing.

This is nothing more than a hare-brained scheme for the desperate old men who want one last kick at the Financial Can and are willing to flush European football to get it.

I do take a bit of pride in that we are amongst a number of clubs that although financially well off - it was generated organically.

Spurs are in the same category - if they won something, I’d ####ing hate it, but I’d respect it.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Barnet Flame

I do take a bit of pride in that we are amongst a number of clubs that although financially well off - it was generated organically.

Spurs are in the same category - if they won something, I’d ####ing hate it, but I’d respect it.

Exactly, and so you should.

Arsenal and Spurs self-funded their Stadiums and operated prudently in terms of Finances to get it done. It may have cost them some success in terms of tighter money for players but there should be some pride in that.

On one hand we're all rivals but on the other its good for the sustainability of the sport and the League.

In a sense I feel bad for 'Business Teams' because its hard to do in order to operate as a viable business when you're up against Oligarchs and Petro-States.

I'm pretty proud of what Liverpool have accomplished since the FSG takeover. I lived through goddamned Hicks & Gillette FFS. That was a nightmare, at least we didnt have to build a stadium, but they tried at one point.

The Glazers havent had to do much because United are essentially a Juggernaut that just rolls along but they're still operating it as a viable business.

In a way I feel bad for clubs like Arsenal and Spurs because they operate as Businesses and what they did to build their stadiums took risk and sacrifice and now you just get Clubs with 'Magic Money' who skip all the hard work.

Its not fair, but its not a fair game.

Respect.

Thats a good term. We may resent their success because they're not 'our' team, but at least they earned it the hard way. The right way.

[Matty81]

I tend to agree as I feel like the NHL salary cap and draft system is sad without any lasting competitive reward for success, everybody gets a turn to win soulless smoke and mirror show to momentarily distract simpletons from their D2D. No connection to the community and no meritocracy. The natural advantages of having more fans attend your games, making good decisions on and off the pitch and having a bigger domestic support needs to stay.

But I think the financial gaps right now are becoming a real concern and even more magnified due to the financial doping you referenced Locke and maybe it should be toned down a little. The doping needs to be addressed first and foremost, but also because of the global appeal of the product and lemming/bandwagon fan effect the gap is becoming unnaturally magnified due to a sort of globalization effect.

You go on social media these days and if you support a smaller club even your own club's social media posts are infested with reams of toxic, intolerable big six club fans spewing bile from NA, africa, the mideast, asia, etc and I think that also reflects that the growing commercial might of the big teams is being amplified and the gap to compete with them is getting even wider.

The more those teams win in a global environment the more they can strangle the competition because most of those fans without a local team or geographic tether within England will just choose a big team due to the glory hound principle, you don't have any way to access that group of fans as a smaller club like you do with locals. You end up with those clubs being able to do 20-50 million dollar preasons tours and having massive merch revenues. It's like a snowball rolling down hill as they win more and more, and the appeal of the prem is the history and differences between the clubs, but also the competitiveness, when the smaller clubs turn into jokes you get leagues like Spain and Italy that become way less interesting as much as I am sure that is satisfying for the big club fans who sometimes seem that they feel entitled to win.

I think a soft cap, potentially on salaries, but definitely on commercial revenues counting as part of the financial fair play equation is needed. Or maybe even more radically, any non-domestic generated revenues should be pooled and distributed throughout the pyramid. A cap would reduce the risk of fake sponsorships by the state owned teams and level the playing field ever so slightly in a good way without sanitizing the product too much. Big clubs will still be way bigger and better, success and good investment is rewarded, but you need an occasional Leicester and Wigan story every 2-3 years to keep the product compelling and to give fans of the Norwich, WBA and Watfords of the world some degree of hope to keep coming out or the support for those clubs is going to dry up like you're seeing in leagues like Scotland.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Salary caps of any kind will probably never happen. They happened in North American sports because of owner initiated labour stoppages. At this stage there doesn't appear to be an appetite from club owners to do that. And we know the players will never push for capping their own salaries, they'll need to be forced into it. If there's any room for maneuvering it might be on instituting transfer caps. When money is the only consideration the big clubs will never care, but if they were forced to give up top talent as well then that would change things. When Man City got Grealish is was £100 million, but what if it was £50 million + Foden? Probably doesn't happen.

Now a luxury tax, that I could maybe see. But even that won't make much of a difference to a Man City or Newcastle when there isn't a true limit to how much they can afford. Maybe everyone buying EVs is the solution, crash that price of oil lol.

[Matty81]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Salary caps of any kind will probably never happen. They happened in North American sports because of owner initiated labour stoppages. At this stage there doesn't appear to be an appetite from club owners to do that. And we know the players will never push for capping their own salaries, they'll need to be forced into it. If there's any room for maneuvering it might be on instituting transfer caps. When money is the only consideration the big clubs will never care, but if they were forced to give up top talent as well then that would change things. When Man City got Grealish is was £100 million, but what if it was £50 million + Foden? Probably doesn't happen.

Now a luxury tax, that I could maybe see. But even that won't make much of a difference to a Man City or Newcastle when there isn't a true limit to how much they can afford. Maybe everyone buying EVs is the solution, crash that price of oil lol.

They've been debating it for about a year now, it was tabled this summer at the AGM. That's not to say it will happen but I could see some form of financial regulation happening soon. The elite group isn't big enough to block it if the other 12-14 teams push hard or the new regulator pushes it forward from a legislative perspective. I also strongly dislike the idea of a hard cap, but something more creative that doesn't strangle competitive advantage would be good. Luxury tax makes some sense too

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/p...tive-zq8bd0lbh

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Salary caps of any kind will probably never happen. They happened in North American sports because of owner initiated labour stoppages. At this stage there doesn't appear to be an appetite from club owners to do that. And we know the players will never push for capping their own salaries, they'll need to be forced into it. If there's any room for maneuvering it might be on instituting transfer caps. When money is the only consideration the big clubs will never care, but if they were forced to give up top talent as well then that would change things. When Man City got Grealish is was £100 million, but what if it was £50 million + Foden? Probably doesn't happen.

Now a luxury tax, that I could maybe see. But even that won't make much of a difference to a Man City or Newcastle when there isn't a true limit to how much they can afford. Maybe everyone buying EVs is the solution, crash that price of oil lol.

I dont know man, while I agree that an NHL-style Salary Cap will almost never happen, the Spanish league is trying hard to institute financial responsibility.

Its still relative to the team's revenue which, again, in the realm of Petro-State clubs is somewhat irrelevant, but at least its something.

But the doping from teams like City and PSG...you've got to put some kind of brakes on that. City especially is so blatant and obvious, they've been rubbing people's faces in it for over a decade now and they've been caught over 100 times and never a real, serious, sincere penalty. Not once.

At least something to try and make them be slick about it, but every time they just whip out some more cash and everyone forgets all about it.

I've said it before, a Major club is going to go insolvent and they're going to have to figure something out.

[GirlySports]

why? You want villians like PSG to fall flat on their faces. Even at huge levels of spending there's spending smartly or not. Why is Man City succeeding and PSG not?

I find NHL parity blah...

[Locke]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

why? You want villians like PSG to fall flat on their faces. Even at huge levels of spending there's spending smartly or not. Why is Man City succeeding and PSG not?

I find NHL parity blah...

Management.

[Ozy_Flame]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1739660879895912925

[devo22]

Never a dull moment in Turkish football. Their supercup between Fenerbahce and Galatasaray was supposed to be on today ... in Saudi Arabia, because of course. Well, the game has now been cancelled, after Saudi Arabia wanted to ban any shirts and banners refering to Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish republic. Both teams wanted to wear special shirts with an inscription on it, as a protest against having the game in Saudi Arabia in the first place. Saudi Arabia didn't budge, so both teams agreed to cancel the game and just fly home.

Exactly what Saudi Arabia deserves. Get wrecked with your sportswashing.

[Locke]

Decent match between Bayern and Hoffenheim.

I like the 'Danke Franz' jerseys.

Its nice to see Davies playing, he looks like he's back in the groove again.

[Locke]

If you want to piss me off keep taking short corners.

Davies with an amazing shot but parried with an even better save.

[Locke]

Looks like Sancho starting on the bench for Dortmund.