ESL part of the con?

sandyinroyalblue

Well-Known Member
Is the ESL fiasco an orchestrated campaign to give a worst case scenario for European football, so that whatever proposals are put foward for CL and EL changes they don't seem so bad , so are accepted as its better than the ESL?

And was this part of the marketing plan given how easily the clubs gave up on the ESL?
 
Is the ESL fiasco an orchestrated campaign to give a worst case scenario for European football, so that whatever proposals are put foward for CL and EL changes they don't seem so bad , so are accepted as its better than the ESL?

And was this part of the marketing plan given how easily the clubs gave up on the ESL?
It's a massive coincidence that this esl stuff was announced right when the champions league was being decided
 
I wouldn't think so. Rather risky move in my opinion and I think we will find it isn't going to be as simple as saying 'we don't want to play anymore ' the clubs will probably have some sort of penalty for pulling out.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not fully aware of any real details of contracts etc. Just taking a speculative guess lol
 
It's a massive coincidence that this esl stuff was announced right when the champions league was being decided

Think it's more to do with it being a few weeks after a EU court told the Spanish Government to stop giving money to Barcelona and Real Madrid, and to get back that they had given.
 
They were filing pre-emptive injunctions against FIFA, UEFA, the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A at the ECJ in an attempt to stop any legal action against them.

Their executives left the European Clubs Association and resigned from all their powerful seats on the UEFA board.

They had a corporate structure, funding and they had media broadcast partner DAZN on side.

They had been negotiating the changes to the Champions League in bad faith and designing a competition that will fail.

They also specifically timed the announcement for several things to align:
  • It was prior to the Champions League semi-finals which their teams dominated so if they were kicked out it would harm the integrity of the competition.
  • After both Perez and the Barcelona board were re-elected for four more years.
  • This summer both Serie A and Premier League TV rights are up for negotiations so they thought were going to threaten with pulling out of the leagues and tank the income if they weren't allowed to be in their super-league and domestic leagues.
No, this wasn't "part of the con", this was it. This was the con.
 
Is the ESL fiasco an orchestrated campaign to give a worst case scenario for European football, so that whatever proposals are put foward for CL and EL changes they don't seem so bad , so are accepted as its better than the ESL?

And was this part of the marketing plan given how easily the clubs gave up on the ESL?
It certainly helped push this new set up through without any problems.

When uefa and the likes of sky become the good guys, then I fully expect the krays to get a sainthood.
 
Is the ESL fiasco an orchestrated campaign to give a worst case scenario for European football, so that whatever proposals are put foward for CL and EL changes they don't seem so bad , so are accepted as its better than the ESL?

And was this part of the marketing plan given how easily the clubs gave up on the ESL?
There are men on very high wages that have had to leave their jobs for their miscalculation of fans feelings so not a chance it’s a set up
 
Is the ESL fiasco an orchestrated campaign to give a worst case scenario for European football, so that whatever proposals are put foward for CL and EL changes they don't seem so bad , so are accepted as its better than the ESL?

And was this part of the marketing plan given how easily the clubs gave up on the ESL?
To be fair mate this is exactly what I thought until some very powerful people started losing their jobs. I now think post #7 is much closer to the truth.
 
They were filing pre-emptive injunctions against FIFA, UEFA, the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A at the ECJ in an attempt to stop any legal action against them.

Their executives left the European Clubs Association and resigned from all their powerful seats on the UEFA board.

They had a corporate structure, funding and they had media broadcast partner DAZN on side.

They had been negotiating the changes to the Champions League in bad faith and designing a competition that will fail.

They also specifically timed the announcement for several things to align:
  • It was prior to the Champions League semi-finals which their teams dominated so if they were kicked out it would harm the integrity of the competition.
  • After both Perez and the Barcelona board were re-elected for four more years.
  • This summer both Serie A and Premier League TV rights are up for negotiations so they thought were going to threaten with pulling out of the leagues and tank the income if they weren't allowed to be in their super-league and domestic leagues.
No, this wasn't "part of the con", this was it. This was the con.
It's like a episode of Billions
 
Is the ESL fiasco an orchestrated campaign to give a worst case scenario for European football, so that whatever proposals are put foward for CL and EL changes they don't seem so bad , so are accepted as its better than the ESL?

And was this part of the marketing plan given how easily the clubs gave up on the ESL?
It had crossed my mind but who knows TBH.
I think what we all know though is rather being cast out as they should they will still get a bigger slice to enable them to continue paying crazy wages, going deeper into debt and moaning about their importance to football instead of like most clubs cutting their cloth to suit.

UEFA, FIFA and the so called big 12 (Spurs ffs!) really do have no shame and i feel we will more than see this in coming months.
 
It's like a episode of Billions
It was also completely insane.

They were well on the way to consolidating a "Super League" under the UEFA umbrella with their Champions League reforms and they tried to break away anyway.

All they've done is show the world that it's a completely incredible threat, the governments will stop them, the fans will riot and they really don't have any power.

It was like a hand of poker that they went all in on whilst holding a Two of Clubs, a +4 card from Uno, Colonel Mustard and a Joker.
 
Spanish clubs who can't control their costs.
American owned EPL clubs who like the closed shop idea.
Thats what led to the ESL.
 
They were filing pre-emptive injunctions against FIFA, UEFA, the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A at the ECJ in an attempt to stop any legal action against them.

Their executives left the European Clubs Association and resigned from all their powerful seats on the UEFA board.

They had a corporate structure, funding and they had media broadcast partner DAZN on side.

They had been negotiating the changes to the Champions League in bad faith and designing a competition that will fail.

They also specifically timed the announcement for several things to align:
  • It was prior to the Champions League semi-finals which their teams dominated so if they were kicked out it would harm the integrity of the competition.
  • After both Perez and the Barcelona board were re-elected for four more years.
  • This summer both Serie A and Premier League TV rights are up for negotiations so they thought were going to threaten with pulling out of the leagues and tank the income if they weren't allowed to be in their super-league and domestic leagues.
No, this wasn't "part of the con", this was it. This was the con.
What will be eye watering is the likely professional services fees for the army of lawyers, accountants, bankers and other consultants that would have been involved in pouring over these deals for both the clubs individually and the clubs collectively when negotiating with DAZN and JP Morgan.

Reports too that this has been in train since 2017. Not even worth thinking about what has been dropped on a proposal that lasted less than 48 hours.
 
I dont think American banks, lawyers, chairmen etc were willing to do all this as a ploy.
The amount of work that will have went on behind the scenes will have been huge.

And if fans loved it JP Morgan just hand over $6bn because the plot fell apart.

I will say no.
 
It is very suspicious, these people are far from stupid and would surely have risk assesed the process, SWAT analysis etc
Their PR company did extensive polling and it said that fans were overwhelmingly in favour of a super-league. Obviously they did this online and as to not tip anyone off, they did it in the far-east and America.

Their PR company wasn't ready for the rollout until after next week, it was supposed to come out halfway through the Champions League Semi-finals but The Times and the New York Times stole a march on everyone.

Also, all the information, statements for the next few weeks, threats etc were on the main page of the website in HTML5 but hidden until posting. Someone went through the source and leaked everything and the PR team went into meltdown.

Moral of the story: Don't hire Theresa May's PR team.
 
It's a massive coincidence that this esl stuff was announced right when the champions league was being decided
It wasn’t a coincidence. It was done to cause as much embarrassment to UEFA as possible before they announced the changes to the Champions League.
 
I am hoping it’s spectacular failure will wake the game up. The clubs must stop paying these wages and transfer fees and try and redistribute the money across the game more evenly. Salary and fee caps are urgently required.
 
Is the ESL fiasco an orchestrated campaign to give a worst case scenario for European football, so that whatever proposals are put foward for CL and EL changes they don't seem so bad , so are accepted as its better than the ESL?

And was this part of the marketing plan given how easily the clubs gave up on the ESL?
Bit of a PR disaster for the clubs who fake joined it just to help UEFA do what they wanted and would have anyway.
 
It was also completely insane.

They were well on the way to consolidating a "Super League" under the UEFA umbrella with their Champions League reforms and they tried to break away anyway.

All they've done is show the world that it's a completely incredible threat, the governments will stop them, the fans will riot and they really don't have any power.

It was like a hand of poker that they went all in on whilst holding a Two of Clubs, a +4 card from Uno, Colonel Mustard and a Joker.
It's ironic that they felt that they had to do it because of plummeting audiences and lack of competition, seemingly oblivious to the fact that these issues have arisen from the fact that the finances these clubs have been getting and way the system has been skewed in their favour has been the contributing factor.

We are in a world where Sunderland can buy players from Barcelona, players leave the top teams in Holland, Portugal, Belgium and even Scotland to play for diddy teams in big nations.

Of course people don't want to watch Bayern vs Basel or Man U vs Galatasary or Juventus vs Stauea. The gap between them is too big. In the early days of the champions league, Man U had to go to Gothenburg, Istanbul, places like that and you really didn't know how they would get on. Now they can send their reserves and win 4 nil. By obliterating the competition, they have killed the competitions.

The dumbest part is that even if the clubs doubled their income, all that would happen is transfer fees and salaries would increase along with it, same as always.

It used to be that the best teams in the world had 4 or 5 World class players. Now they have 2 for every position. They hoover up all the talent and it's slim pickings for everyone else. The standard hss never been higher at the top but it's not as entertaining as it was.

Uefa will never have a better opportunity to reign in these clubs but it will never happen.
 
This breakaway as rich owners thinking everyone would love a soccer superbowl.

Parties. Kiss cam. Adverts at every injury.
Adverts at every var review.
Fouls sponsored by Duncan Coffee and Pepsi, for the replays.

This was corporate America doing us a favour and expecting thanks.

They had no idea the man on the street would be appalled by it, because after 100 million of research, contracts, fines and clauses they forgot to ask us, or didn't think it necessary.

Idiots.

Oh, and City, Liverpool, United, Spurs and Chelsea will hand over 20-50 million in penalties and Madrid and Barca will save themselves a months interest by sticking it into their current accounts.

And not an eye lid will bat.
 
It's ironic that they felt that they had to do it because of plummeting audiences and lack of competition, seemingly oblivious to the fact that these issues have arisen from the fact that the finances these clubs have been getting and way the system has been skewed in their favour has been the contributing factor.

We are in a world where Sunderland can buy players from Barcelona, players leave the top teams in Holland, Portugal, Belgium and even Scotland to play for diddy teams in big nations.

Of course people don't want to watch Bayern vs Basel or Man U vs Galatasary or Juventus vs Stauea. The gap between them is too big. In the early days of the champions league, Man U had to go to Gothenburg, Istanbul, places like that and you really didn't know how they would get on. Now they can send their reserves and win 4 nil. By obliterating the competition, they have killed the competitions.

The dumbest part is that even if the clubs doubled their income, all that would happen is transfer fees and salaries would increase along with it, same as always.

It used to be that the best teams in the world had 4 or 5 World class players. Now they have 2 for every position. They hoover up all the talent and it's slim pickings for everyone else. The standard hss never been higher at the top but it's not as entertaining as it was.

Uefa will never have a better opportunity to reign in these clubs but it will never happen.
I think the fundamental problems being shown throughout this entire shitshow comes down to the conflict between actual fans of the club and their absent landlords on two questions:
  1. Who is the sports main audience?
  2. What is the point of the sport?
On the first question, ask any Manchester United fan who pays £1000+ for their season book who the main audience of the Manchester derby is and they'll say "ourselves". They'll say it's all about bragging rights in the city, talk in the office over a brew, the feeling in the stands, noising up the others, deciding who wins the title etc. etc.

Talk to the owners and they would say "Well, we scheduled the game at a time that maximises domestic audience whilst the timeslot suits the far east and American audiences". The fans are nothing but a backdrop for the "entertainment experience" they want to sell on Pay-per-view (Project Big Picture)

So if you said "Right, your Champions League group is Manchester United, Ajax, Rangers, Steaua Bucharest!" there would be two responses. Fans would cheer because "Battle of Britain", Bucharest is a great night out and somewhere they haven't been for ages and Ajax is a traditionally massive side.

The owners/the online fans overseas the owners want to attract would groan about loss of income, viewership amongst emerging markets and fearful about the prospect of a loss against a "lesser" side.

On the second question it's clear that the fans want it to be about competition first (even/especially if it's skewed in their favour due to the financial disparity) whilst the owners want it to be about entertainment first. These two viewpoints are completely incompatable and I think this is probably the reason that this defeat of the initial outing of a "Super League" feels like the first in a long series of confrontations about the future of the sport rather than winning the war against it.
 
Think it's more to do with it being a few weeks after a EU court told the Spanish Government to stop giving money to Barcelona and Real Madrid, and to get back that they had given.
Wow!!! Really? Missed that. Could make life interesting in La Liga
 
Wow!!! Really? Missed that. Could make life interesting in La Liga
Let me lay out the extreme depth to which Barcelona are financially fucked. Remember, this is from June 2020 :
  • Total debt of 1.179Bn Euro's
  • Net debt of 488m Euro's
  • 730m in short term debt to financial institutions & European Union
  • 266m must be paid before June 30th 2021
  • Owe 196m to other clubs for transfers
  • Expenses outstrip revenue by 99.8m Euro's in 19-20
  • Net Loss before corporation tax of 128m Euro's
  • Revenue down 135m Euro's year on year. Expenditure only down 19m year on year
  • Staff costs at 636m Euro's, 74% of total revenue
  • The Gross Debt/EBITDA ratio as stipulated by Article 67 of those Statutes is 3.64 (well above the limit of 2)
  • Equity of 35m, Net debt/Equity ratio 13.94
  • Yearly Debt costs as a percentage of revenue: 59.7% (increase of 37 percentage points from 2018-19)
  • Expected drop in Revenue from 2020-21 of 199m (expectation based on partial fans by December 2020 and full fans by January 2021, that has not happened)
  • Year on year increases in amoritization costs of 177m, will continue until they reach 600m
And the EU has called in it's debts

They are so, so fucked it's almost unreal.
 
I think I must be largely missing the point but it was a huge" so what?" From me. Rangers were not going to take part and I saw little impact on the SPFL resulting. Our recent runs in the UEFA have shown the excitement from European Competition doesn't need any of those clubs.
So was quite happy to see them go off and do whatever it is they wanted to do and leave the rest of us to get on with some real competition. I can understand why their fans were upset but the reality is despite what these clubs may think football doesn't need them. It is much bigger than that.
 
I think I must be largely missing the point but it was a huge" so what?" From me. Rangers were not going to take part and I saw little impact on the SPFL resulting. Our recent runs in the UEFA have shown the excitement from European Competition doesn't need any of those clubs.
So was quite happy to see them go off and do whatever it is they wanted to do and leave the rest of us to get on with some real competition. I can understand why their fans were upset but the reality is despite what these clubs may think football doesn't need them. It is much bigger than that.
 
I think I must be largely missing the point but it was a huge" so what?" From me. Rangers were not going to take part and I saw little impact on the SPFL resulting. Our recent runs in the UEFA have shown the excitement from European Competition doesn't need any of those clubs.
So was quite happy to see them go off and do whatever it is they wanted to do and leave the rest of us to get on with some real competition. I can understand why their fans were upset but the reality is despite what these clubs may think football doesn't need them. It is much bigger than that.
 
They were filing pre-emptive injunctions against FIFA, UEFA, the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A at the ECJ in an attempt to stop any legal action against them.

Their executives left the European Clubs Association and resigned from all their powerful seats on the UEFA board.

They had a corporate structure, funding and they had media broadcast partner DAZN on side.

They had been negotiating the changes to the Champions League in bad faith and designing a competition that will fail.

They also specifically timed the announcement for several things to align:
  • It was prior to the Champions League semi-finals which their teams dominated so if they were kicked out it would harm the integrity of the competition.
  • After both Perez and the Barcelona board were re-elected for four more years.
  • This summer both Serie A and Premier League TV rights are up for negotiations so they thought were going to threaten with pulling out of the leagues and tank the income if they weren't allowed to be in their super-league and domestic leagues.
No, this wasn't "part of the con", this was it. This was the con.
Exactly this.
Yes they did back down quick but after initial rise to all their share prices they shat it at the outcry because they didn’t want their shares to nosedive.
The arrogant b’stards in their ivory tower didn’t expect such an outcry and with Boris talking about windfall taxes and fans groups wanting to pressure sponsors in this social media campaign age it was doomed.
 
I think I must be largely missing the point but it was a huge" so what?" From me. Rangers were not going to take part and I saw little impact on the SPFL resulting. Our recent runs in the UEFA have shown the excitement from European Competition doesn't need any of those clubs.
So was quite happy to see them go off and do whatever it is they wanted to do and leave the rest of us to get on with some real competition. I can understand why their fans were upset but the reality is despite what these clubs may think football doesn't need them. It is much bigger than that.
I agree with your post. But you largely missed the point 3 times by the looks of it. :))
 
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No grand conspiracy IMO, and certainly not one involving UEFA.

What I am convinced of is that part of their thought process/planning was that the worst case scenario would be that the even if the ESL is blown out the water the top clubs would have an even stronger hand in shaping any revamp of the CL to suit their own finances while f*cking over smaller clubs and smaller countries.

They’ve gone into this knowing that the threat of the ESL would strengthen the hand of the top clubs in ensuring any revamp of the CL ring fenced even further the vast majority of the cash involved for themselves and making qualification for them almost impossible to make an arse of.
 
No grand conspiracy IMO, and certainly not one involving UEFA.

What I am convinced of is that part of their thought process/planning was that the worst case scenario would be that the even if the ESL is blown out the water the top clubs would have an even stronger hand in shaping any revamp of the CL to suit their own finances while f*cking over smaller clubs and smaller countries.

They’ve gone into this knowing that the threat of the ESL would strengthen the hand of the top clubs in ensuring any revamp of the CL ring fenced even further the vast majority of the cash involved for themselves and making qualification for them almost impossible to make an arse of.
This is exactly right. No, it’s not a smart PR campaign to make the current proposals seem brilliant by comparison. But it is a way of ramping up pressure to get what the want.

The clubs know that even if they don’t get all the way to the ESL, then they will end up with concessions from UEFA. So, either way they win. It’s happened before and will happen again. It’s really win or win bigger for them.
 
I don't know the full story but it was fake as %^*&.

These people don't back down this fast.
I don’t think it was fake at all. Right from the very start there were noises that the Man City and Chelsea owners were very uncomfortable with it, and once one English club withdrew it was always going to fall apart. Perez admitted himself that one club showed very little interest in it although he didn’t say which one.

Organising £4bn in funding from JPMorgan is no joke either. Barcelona and Real Madrid are heavily in debt and badly needed something like this.
 
No.

The ESL was nothing more than the continued UEFA appeasement of the big clubs taken to it's natural conclusion. There's only so far UEFA would go. The 12 breakaway clubs felt that they deserved more. Somebody always wants more.

We'll be here again in the future when a few mega clubs believe that neither their domestic leagues nor UEFA can deliver the money they expect.
 
Let me lay out the extreme depth to which Barcelona are financially fucked. Remember, this is from June 2020 :
  • Total debt of 1.179Bn Euro's
  • Net debt of 488m Euro's
  • 730m in short term debt to financial institutions & European Union
  • 266m must be paid before June 30th 2021
  • Owe 196m to other clubs for transfers
  • Expenses outstrip revenue by 99.8m Euro's in 19-20
  • Net Loss before corporation tax of 128m Euro's
  • Revenue down 135m Euro's year on year. Expenditure only down 19m year on year
  • Staff costs at 636m Euro's, 74% of total revenue
  • The Gross Debt/EBITDA ratio as stipulated by Article 67 of those Statutes is 3.64 (well above the limit of 2)
  • Equity of 35m, Net debt/Equity ratio 13.94
  • Yearly Debt costs as a percentage of revenue: 59.7% (increase of 37 percentage points from 2018-19)
  • Expected drop in Revenue from 2020-21 of 199m (expectation based on partial fans by December 2020 and full fans by January 2021, that has not happened)
  • Year on year increases in amoritization costs of 177m, will continue until they reach 600m
And the EU has called in it's debts

They are so, so fucked it's almost unreal.
Errrr, wow. Just, wow. How the feck do they NOT go bust here?

I cannot believe their board let them get into that state. Con men.
 
Given the effect this had on share price, no club would do this.

It would probably actually be illegal under Company Law perhaps (lying to boost share price)? Not sure
 
UEFA's hand-wringing has been hilarious.

Their CL plans (which mean clubs can qualify based on historical record even if they finish poorly in their league) is just ESL-lite.

Astounding how many idiots have bought the 'the fans have won' line.
 
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