Time for a European Superleague?

On this site we get a few horrible visitors from other clubs but also some excellent ones who give us useful and entertaining insight into how rival clubs' fans see things. You're definitely one of the excellent ones, Moonie! Do visit us again (but preferably bring a weaker team with you next time).

 

This is true up to a point, but it's not the way Americans like to see things. Let the strong get stronger, but redistribution of wealth - no way, except with sport.

I think a draft or financing system that favours the bottom club is the only way a closed-shop sport could be acceptable to us, but under our present system, where any club can (in theory) get from the National League to the Prem if it has a rich enough sugar-daddy and good enough management, this arrangement would be truly horrible. I do believe though that TV money should be shared out equally in domestic leagues, and in knockout competitions there should be equal shares in each round for clubs surviving that far. You can't have sport without opponents, so TV money shouldn't be hogged by the glamour clubs

 

I think you'll find we've done our bit to help Yeovil out on the pitch!

 

Why has this got anything to do with a vampire-slayer ?

 

Lots of points here to reply to;

Of course it will never be 100% level and fair. I have no problem with a club with more fans, bigger sponsors etc having more money to spend. It’s just the size of the gap that’s happened over time. Back in the day a big club would buy a good player from someone smaller and he’d be in their starting 11 all season. The guy who’s place he took would then generally move on. Now you have a player like Mahrez, bought for £60m(?) who sits on the bench for you. In the final your subs bench cost over 5 times more than our starting 11! That’s insane. Ag*ero didn’t even get on. When both teams made subs in the final me and the guy next to me genuinely just turned to each other and started laughing.

You’ve mentioned our 3rd round opponents (it was Woking). No obviously not every professional football club across the country can be equal. But we are in the same league as you, we were fighting for 7th place not relegation.

Leicester. Yep the impossible became possible. Wonderful that was and quite possibly one of the worst things to happen to make people see what’s going on in front of their eyes. How many vardys do you think are out there? If it’s that simple why pay £60m for a player when you could have paid £1m? I don’t think I need to spell out that answer.

I agree on Brighton.

Long goal kicks? Fairly standard practice still, we have Mariappa and Cathcart to try and casually play the ball around the opposition. Probably speaks for itself. But that’s an element where I’d say you’re becoming spoilt by what you’re being served up. Do you think Pep could have had us playing total football if he was in our dugout on Saturday??

Anyway, you’re coming across as a good bloke and I’m enjoying the conversation. This isn’t a Man City thing, any of the top 6 getting on their high horse about your money is laughable. You should enjoy these great times. Let’s hope I’m wrong and actually we’ll see other teams breaking the top 6 and maybe winning the cups and the score lines become a little more football and a little less cricket.

 

A good read.....we all have different points of view. That's why we love and hate football ! We over paid for Mahrez and he has had a truly average season. C+ must do better. Predictable in possession . Doesn't work hard enough without the ball and decision making is below average.......would like him moved on for me.
City aren't pushing up transfer cost. We are forced to pay what clubs ask! We actually sell on cheap! Man Utd with huge money for Lucacu and 75 million pound goalies at Klanfield!

On the goal kick front....neither of us are top coaches but actually common sense would dictate ...if you can't score without the ball, why would your first action when in possession be to kick it away !!
Why didn't English football think of it years ago!

Going back to 2009 champions league final barca v man Utd . It ended 3-0 to Barca but more startling......this was a fergie side at the peak of its powers. They failed to win ONE corner the whole match! Think about that ! And yet English football still didn't catch on with what was best way to play.
Even when Pep arrived the media were giving it his pass,pass,pass won't work here?
Well they were wrong......just saying the manager needs to demand more from your lads. Not just kick it away?
There will have been many fine margins over the season that didn't go your way , but had they you could have had another 10 points....how would that look?
You need to watch the first 10 minutes of the second half in cup final.......you were playing well and more than a match. Fine margins! I certainly witnessed enough to say if you do that more often than not you will get back to a big final sooner rather than later......

 

I only racked up cos I was humbled by your epic support at 5-0 down.......

When loser pool came to our place and lost 5-0 last season...they had all gone at 3-0 down!
Kind of you'll never walk alone.....as long as your winning!

We all have different perspectives...that's good..........some people now hate city......but honestly we can still eff things up from the most rediculous situations....watching us week to week can be SCAREY !!

 

Knock it up to the big man/Get it in the mixer.

 

.......

 

The swear filter must turned up to 11 if Ag*ero is being censored.

Great player.

 

Bump

**** off city.

 

Norwich fans think otherwise!

 

Without looking it up I’d imagine the stats would show it was still fairly one sided. Of course the only important stat is the score but you get my point.

 

One of the principle problems of a European Superleague would always be which teams to accept. In England we have 6 big teams of which either you accept all 6 or basically you kill the team that doesn’t make it. Would you pick teams by financial weight or by history or size. Liverpool and Man Utd would be guaranteed to get in but of the other 4.
I watched a bit of Liverpool v Napoli in the champions league this week and the stadium was half empty and the fact is it’s the English teams that have all the support and probably the Germans could the fans afford to go to away games week in week out how would Old Trafford feel with only 280 Juventus fans.

 

A major problem would be how to handle promotion to and relegation from a SuperLeague. There must be an incentive to stay in it as well as to reach it, surely. If there is no relegation then how do you sustain interest for, say, half a season for those clubs that are middle to bottom?

 

Personally I'd go with no promotion / relegation. You have the superleague as a separate sport to the rest of us. Let them play their we've got more money than you league. If it fails, tough, no returning to the domestic game without an agreement on some fair and sensible financial guidelines. How can we have the 'best league in the world' where one teams subs bench costs more than their opponents entire squad?

The rest of us carry on with the domestic leagues, promotions / relegation's - but a much much stricter ruling on finances, salary caps for example. A much more even playing field, where decisions on who someone plays for is more down to where they want to live, who the manager is, which clubs they have an affiliation with. A top flight where the title could realistically go to one of a dozen sides at the start of the season and where winning comes down to good management, work rate of players etc.

 

I was talking to a Portuguese friend weekend before last as he was watching a Benfica game on his phone, I asked him whether fans travelled to away games like they do here. He said that other than Benfica or Porto fans, very few travel to away games.

I don't know how away day travel compares across Europe, I am under the impression that Germans like to go to away games but is less likely in Italy (remember the Udinese One?) and Spain.

 

It would be like the mls, lack of atmosphere and lots of games with no rivalry. Like you say German and English teams would probably have the support but even with 2 teams playing from these countries towards the end of season in mid table obscurity would struggle to get interest from traveling fans. Never mind the games involving the likes of shaktar away to Porto for example.


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I suggest that it's not only the away fans that would lose interest in mid- to lower-table European SuperLeague Clubs during a season. It's hardly a recipe for sustained interest even for home fans, especially without the spice of relegation back to the respective national league.

 

If this league ever did happen (I don’t think it ever will) I wouldn’t be surprised if half the games weren’t at ‘home’ anyway. Matches in Asia, the states etc. Plus I don’t support one of them so I couldn’t care less how it ends up, as long as the rest of us have a fairer and more even league with even a small chance of actually competing for the league title. But it’s all fairy tale stuff, what we have is what we have and will probably get a little bit unfairer if anything. The one time in 30 odd games we do actually beat City will be a great day.