As an old Hibby (53years and counting) who has lived and worked all over the world, the one thing that unites everybody (even in Covid times) is your footie team. The events that have happened in the last 48+ hours have absorbed everybody, including people who are not even into "the beautiful game" Today
my son Adam (Chelsea fan since 3years old ....loved Petr Cech) who is 15 today went for a walk (that is all you can do in Toronto hmmm) and we talked about it . It is not even 3 years since we were both at ER watching the Hibs against Molde in the Europa League as part of a footie trip that involved 5 of the EPL big 6. Molde have since gone on to play in the Champions league .. 24 games is the total according to Wikipedia ! Were Molde or Hibs not entitled to reach for the higher league just like any other team?
That is the whole point of the pyramid system, even from U-11 onwards, teams get good and they get promoted , teams get bad and get relegated . Any Mum or Dad who has watched their kids play footie through the age groups understands this . What we saw over the last 2-3 days was an arbitrary attempt by Chief Executives in TEMPORARY control of famous (even more famous than HMFC with their 400,000 supporters) clubs to set a course without consensus with their own team , coaches, shareholders and above all their fans. Woodward, the Glazers ,Fenway Group and others I forget to mention deserve all the criticism coming to them . I have lived in Toronto for 22+ years and there is no way a collective group of teams would attempt such an audacious money on grab US sports leagues (NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB) . The US leagues may not have relegation, but they do have salary cap and first draft pick to the worst teams. At least it evens up the teams chances of winning everything. Hell even the Raptors won the NBA after being REALLY BAD for years before that. The Super league never even gave smaller, poorer teams that option . It was an arbitrary choice of teams , determined not by present performance or even recent past performance. Why not have Ajax (4 times winners, best youth program in Europe) , Borussia Dortmund(Haaland ?) , Leicester (EPL winners , 3rd in league) and many more teams who have a better record into the top league ?