The article on the Beeb about Seedorf suggesting that an ESL would be a good thing has caused the expected backlash. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/chrisbevan/2012/02/seedorf_predicts_the_shape_of.html Putting aside the rights or wrongs for a moment how could such a league function and preserve some of the principles and traditions that we hold dear. Here's my idea. Euro Super League 20 teams playing each other home and away to decide the European League champion - this team goes to the World Club Cup. Bottom 4 teams relegated back to their respective domestic league (domestic relegation/promotion adjusted accordingly). Initially formed by specifying a final year for current Euro competitions - last 16 of that year's CL and last 4 of the EL qualify for the 1st ESL. European Cup Get it back to its roots - the champions of the domestic leagues plus the 20 ESL teams in a straight knockout cup (~6 rounds) - winners qualify for the ESL if they are not already there relegating the 5th bottom ESL team in the process. Europa League Top teams from the domestic leagues/domestic cup winners + the relegated ESL teams play a knockout format up to Xmas to get down to 16 teams. After Xmas the 16 teams go into 4 groups of 4 who play home and away over the rest of the season - group winners get promoted to the ESL. Domestic Cups ESL teams still enter their premier domestic cup competition. Pluses: Retains the principle of the football pyramid. Moves the European Cup back towards its roots and retains a showpiece European final. Gives the Europa League a real reward. Gives teams outside the usual suspects a shot at domestic glory. Elite competition for Europe's top clubs that isn't a closed shop for the chosen few. Rewards domestic cup winners with a shot at getting in the ESL. Minuses: Devalues domestic leagues Screws up domestic relegation/promotion waiting for the outcome of ESL relegation/Europa League promotion Fixture overload for domestic champions - league, 2 domestic cups, 2 euro cups (although these are mainly knockout) Loss of some local rivalries
Your idea looks pretty good, with the Super League and the European Cup running in parallel, much like the PL and CL do now. So you have a European Cup that is the Super League clubs plus the champions of each domestic league, with the Europa League still there for clubs that win their domestic cups or come 2nd in their domestic league. And clubs still enter their domestic trophies just like they do now. So the only thing that would change for Utd is that we would go from playing in the PL, CL and cups to playing in the ESL, EC and cups. That looks to me like the simplest option. Tho I think the promotion / relegation thing would have to be weighted across the leagues to ensure that one team moves up and down from each major domestic league each year, as well as the standard promotion and relegation of the lowest clubs. Otherwise I think you'll end up with the media money being so skewed that the teams that avoid relegation in the first year will be able to embed themselves in the ESL and you'll just have five new teams joining and all getting relegated straight away pretty much every year. The money is pretty skewed now, but if you take all the top clubs out of the top leagues it will be ridiculous and the ESL will be completely uncompetitive without some way of dropping the big clubs out every so often. You could also end up with no new English teams able to enter the ESL through the league route forever if all the current English teams don't ever get relegated. Also not sure how the Europa thing will work - the way you've set it up you could potentially one year end up with Utd, City, Chelsea and Arsenal, for example, already in the ESL then have Spurs, Liverpool, Newcastle and Everton as the four EL group winners thus putting eight English clubs in the ESL next season. Then if they all stay up and English clubs win the EL groups again it could just end up full of English teams. Which may not be bad for the competitiveness of the league if the English teams turn out to be the best, but will probably not be great for the whole "Europeness" of it. Tho' it would make Blatter throw a fit which can only be a good thing
I didn't want to preserve any particular quota for countries so promotion and relegation is purely on merit. If you preserve quotas you could have a situation where the teams from a country finish 1-2-3 and the 3rd place team is relegated or because no team from a particular country finishes in the ESL relegation zone, there is no promotion from that country. I'd have domestic champions in both euro competitions as the easier route would be the Europa League and champions shouldn't be disadvantaged although that could create massive fixture overload if they do well in all competitions.
I see what you mean. Sounds like a decent enough idea, although somehow I think the top clubs would only agree to a non relegation Super League - no point creating the uber gravy train if you are going to risk falling off it...
Yup, that'd be the final nail in the soul of football though. That dream of starting from nothing and reaching the top is pretty much unique. Most other sports have abandoned it or never had it.
I actually would like to see this. It seems like the logical step forward. But it CANNOT be a super league and must have relegation and promotion. Unlike you I would like the european cup and europa league scraped in this case. So you could have the european super league with 20 teams. And a European championship league wit the next 20 teams. Then 3 up and 3 down from each league every year. Then below the euro championship league (the second tier of football) you would have the domestic leagues. I would recommend that 4 teams get relegated from this league back to their respective countires every year. Meanwhile each domestic league top dvision has to be 10 teams and runs over 18 games. Thus by xmas those leagues will be over and the champions of each (I would have 16 leagues - combining the domestic leagues of smaller nations if neccessary). These 16 teams would get split up into groups of 4. They would need play a round robin. Home and away twice vs each other team. Thats 12 games. After this the winner of each group gets put in european championship league (second tier) and the clubs from there get moved down to their domestic leagues. There would be big prize money for each win in this league to avoid any corruption. So even a team out of qualification would want to get the win.
I keep the European cup competitions and don't have a 2nd tier Euro league though. Your domestic league idea is far too disruptive - domestic leagues have to retain their own value, not just serve as feeder leagues.
It would then mean possibly that the champins of the previous season in the league will not be there to defend their league title if they got into the ESL, personally its eliting football even more and we#ll see wages and transfers go up in this ESL, there will be an even bigger gap, more congestion, with viewing hours on TV limited the ESL will dominate PPV and others will get screwed on exposure. It all points towards a giant fking pyramid alright, a money pyrramid That would be balls
Read the OP again. Domestic champions wouldn't directly enter the ESL. They qualify for Euro competitions the following season and still play in their own league. It's the winners of the Euro competitions that would enter the ESL. But agreed on the money front - that's what will really drive the idea of an ESL and it likely won't be as merit-based as I've suggested it could be.
Problem is though what happens if the bottom 4 (relegated) are all from one country? More than likely to all be the Prem teams at the moment as we're all ****e
Could happen. If they are the bottom 4 then they are not good enough and send them back to their domestic league with the knock on effect of either relegating more teams to the domestic 2nd tier or promoting fewer. That is one of the minuses that I suggested - that it screws up domestic relegation/promotion. But think of the permutations and extra interest that could come out of wondering whether being 4th or 5th from bottom is good enough to stay up in the cases where your ESL representatives are not performing.
