https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/s...ns-league.html
Interesting article in the New York Times on how the champions league is badly skewing domestic leagues across Europe.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/s...ns-league.html
Interesting article in the New York Times on how the champions league is badly skewing domestic leagues across Europe.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Celtic report record profits and have £30m sitting in the biscuit tin yet some folk think it’s good for Scottish football for them to do well in Europe.
Good article. It is strange in USA they have a team wage cap in NFL and pull revenue on merchandise yet in Europe we allow teams to over spend in their quest for glory.
A brilliant article and an interesting read for American 'soccer' fans no doubt, but preaching to the converted so far as fans of clubs in the leagues around Europe are concerned.
Nobody is pretending that certain clubs didn't dominate around Europe before the Champion's league was forced into being by the TV companies ... but as the article so succinctly points out that dominance has moved from an expectation to a near outright certainty.
What the Americans so intelligently identified years ago is still lost on the folk who run football .... a lack of competition and utter dominance by one or a tiny handful of clubs is the kiss of death to any sporting competition which wants to attract, and more importantly keep, spectators turning up.
IMO the best, the very best, thing that could happen to European football is for two things to happen:
The first is for TV audiences for the Champion's league to dwindle to unacceptable levels ... there is evidence that this is already beginning to happen and its clear to me that the drive by UEFA to guarantee the big countries more teams in the group stages is a reaction to that as much as it is a reaction to demands from those countries for more representation.
The second is for Man City to become dominant in England the way Juventus have become in Italy ..... perhaps then even fans of the hopefuls like Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal and even Man Utd will realise that finishing in the top four isn't actually success and fans of the 60% of EPL clubs who have been conned into thinking an annual battle to avoid the drop into the championship constitutes excitement and managing it by the skin of your teeth every year equates to on field success somehow makes for 'the best league in the world' will be forced to think again.
That could pave the way to a European league being formed by the giants ..... but this isn't America where rivalries since professional sport began have been formed and sustained by fans of teams thousands of miles apart on a level playing field. How long would it be before fans of Man Utd got bored with a fixture schedule of 5 home games against Feyenoord, Benfica, Borussia Dortmund, Monaco and Inter Milan before Liverpool or Man City roll around. And how long before fans of the likes of Ajax, Benfica, Juventus or even Bayern Munich, so used to winning every season, get disillusioned as the PSGs and Man Citys begin to dominate that league as well? ..... Imagine the fallout if Real Madrid and Barcelona who aren't backed by massive oil wealth start to feel the sting of failure for more than two seasons as the horrific reality that they cant compete financially with PSG and Man City begins to hit home?
If football in Europe is to be saved and even grow UEFA need to shut their eyes to the money for a second and realise that 90% of their 'customers' don't support Real Madrid, Man Utd, Bayern Munich, Juventus, PSG etc ... they support clubs like Hibs, Burnley, St Etienne, Atalanta, Malmo, Standard Liege, Rapid Vienna or Slavia Prague.
I don't see much chance of that happening ..... My one hope is that sooner rather than later fans of the dug that's being wagged by the 'big clubs' tail will gather together on social media with a message of #****thechampionsleague and make a commitment to publicly oppose it.
I posted something similar a few weeks back. Far from being an anomaly the 1 horse race that is the Scottish Premiership is fast becoming the norm. There's very few leagues in Europe that have regular Champions League participants that have more than between 1 and 3 teams who can realistically challenge for the title.
I’d disagree slightly with our values, with John McGinn being worth closer to £998m. We are number one.
Manchester City are not dominant in England this season because of the Champions League.
no. however, would the arabs have bought them without the money coming back for doing well?
would chelsea sack managers for finishing outside the top 4?
Would Wenger still be in a job at Arsenal if top 4 wasn't the priority?
It's changed the whole outlook.
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In fact, the English Premier League has been won for the past two seasons by a team not involved in the Champions League and not involved in any European competition. Leicester City won in 2015-16 and Chelsea 2016-2017. This was largely because the team concerned were only playing one macth a week when their rivals were playing two matches a week over critical parts of the season.
I can see the whole thing implode, the money just can’t go on and on at this rate
Almost certainly there will be a break away to form a European Super League, funded by TV money and top teams from England, Spain, Itlay and Germany. By invitation only, no relegation, closed shop a bit like the NFL.
Combination of all 3 - they must get massive advertising money. The CL is shown all around the world, including way down here in NZ. So, worldwide TV rights too.
I used to like it back in the 90s. Nowadays I MIGHT watch the final, but that's about the lot.
The sooner a "big" club in the EPL or Germany or Spain or Italy, goes bust trying to seek out the holy grail of the Champions League, the better. Only then will UEFA and/or the national leagues around Europe maybe sit up and take notice and realise that this set up where the rich just keep getting richer and richer isn't all it's cracked up to be. Even then I doubt it though. Sadly.
I think the US system has lots of good points, but its no panacea. Its also a system where xlubs move aroubd to find markets and players and clubs are owned centrally.
The ironic thing is that wr here in scotland no better than many the difficulties of a competition without actual competition- it kills spectacle and competition.
But equally wr cant get all dewy eyed... in ghe last few years Leicester, Dortmund, Atletico and hooefully Napoli this year have all won leagues.
Pre champions league in the 80s and 90s, Milan and Juve, Man U and Arsenal, and Barca and Real all dominated their leagues.
Even the relative openness of the 2000s only sae teams like roma, lazio, depor and Valencia challenge because they almost went bust spending money. Sinilarly Blackburn Rovers in England, and then Chelsea and now Man City. It was ever thus.
I really dont know what the solutiob is, a combination of bosman and tv money has loaded the dice in favour of fhe big clubs, and thats a genie not easiy put back in the bottle.
Also, lets not blame the TV companies, uefa and the FA only set uo the champions league / premier league becaus the clubs held a gun to their head to make them. The clubs did this.
Not really when you think about it. The Americans a long way back appear to have identified that the product wasn't the individual clubs, it was the league itself. In order to protect that product they took steps to ensure that no one club could destroy it by dominating the league.
That's probably why, unlike in European football they haven't been stupid enough to introduce seeding ..... the only nod they give to that is giving the most successful regular season clubs 'home field advantage' in the playoffs. Seeding works in tennis for example because eventually even the very best players get replaced by younger fitter guys ( unless you are superhuman like Roger Federer, but even his time will come ) in football its a joke because the biggest clubs will always be the biggest clubs and the biggest countries will always be the biggest countries ... seeding them only serves to give clubs and countries who will already always have the advantage an even bigger advantage ... its turning the big competitions into a bore, with the small clubs and countries reduced to a supporting act for the progression to the latter stages of the giants.
It's a great article and points out what i've been saying for years.
One of the biggest causes of the CL Money causing the domestic dominance is the introduction of the 'Champions Route' Qualifying in 2009.
This has made it alot easier for these clubs to get in to the CL Group Stages as they don't play anyone from the big leagues, enabling inferior quality sides to Qualify.
It's pretty much the same sides every year competing in that side of the draw. APOEL, BATE Borisov, Celtic, Dinamo Zagreb, Ludogorets, Malmo, Maribor etc are pretty much guaranteed to be playing each other in the 3rd Qualifying round every season.
As a result of that, it's a lot easier for them to get the cash. They aren't going to play a Dortmund, Napoli, Sevilla, Monaco, Arsenal, Liverpool, Atletico Madrid etc.
Now i'd rather more countries got the opportunity to compete in the group stages but t since the Champions Route was introduced 8 years ago, only 4 of the 40 qualifiers have ever made it to the last 16 as opposed to 22 out of 40 from the non-champions route.
So though the benefit is we get more countries in, the stats prove they aren't good enough to compete. The CL money alone is not enough to build a side to get out of the group.
The negatives far outway it.
Dull domestic leagues as the CL money enables clubs to dominate.
Uncompetitive CL group games
In the EPL that's true, but I remember reading an article a few years back about the champions league. Apparently what happened was that a big German TV company gave Bayern Munich a huge wad of cash for the rights to their European campaign .. they were to put it mildly not best pleased when Bayern got knocked out early doors meaning they had spent millions for a couple of games. That German TV company got together with a few of the other European big boys and put pressure on UEFA to come up with a system which ensured the big clubs would be around throughout the competition ............ 'Bingo' ...... the champions league was born.
In return for this 'fix' the TV companies have poured billions into UEFA's coffers .. the vast majority of which is passed on to clubs who were already rich before the gravy train started rolling. TV isn't to blame for the fact that the European giant are dominating domestic and continental competitions, to an extent that was always the case, but they sure as hell are to blame for taking a sad song and making it worse.
Best way to impact change is stop watching the Champions League. If fans of non CL clubs done this on mass then there would be a dramatic fall in the TV audience and therefore the sponsorship and TV money would plummet. But sadly it’s not going to happen as we are heading for a European super league with big clubs hovering up millions
Remember its not all great in American sports as someone pointed out teams move at the wim of an owner. Gaints from New York to San Fran, Dodgers to LA, currently I believe St Lois owner trying to move to LA, its happened in NFL & baseball.