Super League, is it time for one.

Hello all. I noticed for the first time today the goal difference between Everton 7th and Southampton 8th, 1 place, 26 goals. Everton on plus 20, Southampton on -6. There's an enormous disparity between the clubs in the PL and I imagine with our new 750 million pound stadium a huge difference in stature too. Is it time for a super league of some description?

 

No. Chances are we would be left behind if there were, it would be down to money. Even if we were involved it would become a closed shop and very dull with the same teams every year. Never have a Leicester again.

 

So you liked the change at the top with a smallish club winning it then SD?

 

I'd have preferred it to be Spurs, but yes better than the usual suspects.

 

I considered it a travesty but hey ho. I can't see us being left behind at all. Swish new stadium, CL football to attract top names in players and managers etc, I think we'd be alright. But look at the difference between 7th and 8th, 26 goals, it's HUGE.

 

Didnt we finish with a minus goal difference 2 seasons ago?

 

Possibly but not 17 points adrift from the team one place above us I believe as Saints are to Everton. With Southampton's paucity of goals in the last few home matches and Watford's plunge down the table I'd place them both as relegation candidates next year.

 

I agree with SD it's already to excluding. The Spanish League, and Scottish League have in common their domination by 2 clubs. The PL is a bit better and although I disliked Leicester's form of football I was very pleased to see them beat the odds and confound the media by winning.

 

the whole Premier League is a joke regarding the top 6/7 and the rest - Mickey Mouse League - in fact football in most countries is the same - time for a salary cap

 

I don't like the idea of a salary cap simply because it will concentrate the wealth of the club into the hands of the owners. Football clubs are going to continue to drive up revenues through television, merchandise and tickets because that's just the nature of capitalism. As ugly as wages rising above the £300,000 pw mark is, surely players deserve their cut from those rising revenues?

The Premiership is fairly egalitarian anyway when it comes to television revenue, which has a lot to do with why we have a top seven and not a top 2 or 3 like Spain or France, and why games against Stoke or Swansea are trickier to navagate than games against the likes of Eibar or Deportivo.

 

Massive wages are taking money away from fans (because the amount of money in the game should mean that we pay less gor ticket to see our club.
The clubs pay massive wages to players yet refuse to fairly pay other staff. Clubs should be forced to pay the living wage to their regular staff yet no premier league club does this. In London the living wage is £9.75 per hour in the rest of the country it is £8.45 per hour.

That means London clubs are refusing to pay some staff just £17,445 per year and clubs outside London are refusing to pay staff just £15,379 per year.

In my view a bigger slice of money should be passed to the lower divisions to help with keeping those clubs afloat. Without lower division clubs football would die yet most are seriously struggling due to a lack of money. West Ham were allowed to move nearer to Leyton Orient. In order to fill their ground they massively discounted prices meaning that it was cheaper to see Premier league football that League 2 football. And now football faces losing Orient.

In my view 2 wage rules must be brought in;
1) All club staff must be paid the living wage
2) There should be a maximum amount each club can pay in wages to players in total (including bonuses and image rights).
If each premier league club had a limit of being able to pay £100m in wages and bonuses to playing staff it would mean that the best players would still make a fortune but if a club pays £20m to one player then they have to be careful how they spend the remaining money on thd rest of their squads wages.
Clubs currently following a sane business logic on wages are at a massive disadvantage as they would have to take enormous risks to match the wages paid by the most wealthy clubs.
A wage cap per club would make the league more competitive imo.

Finally players not clubs dhould havd to pay agents fees as these fees are training hundreds of millions out of the game.

 

I don't disagree with most of what you've said there, in fact I think its outragous that an organisation that pays one employee £70,000 pw could pay another under £7. And I agree that a larger slice of the pie should be redistributed down the leagues and outwards towards the grassroots game.

But if Joe Lewis or Malcom Glazer is told that he can't exeed a certain wage barrier, while his profits continue to mount, do you really think he's going to slash prices on merchandise or tickets? You may get the occassional benevolant owner who will, but the nature of business means most owners will run to the bank with their extra £££ boosted by the reduce in expenditure and continuing increase in revenues. I don't see why the players shouldn't take their fair portion from the revenues that they themselves generate. Fans aren't in it to make billionaires richer, we're in it to watch football.

One solution might be the league or the FA retaining a larger portion of the TV revenue so as to distribute more money, but I can't see that going down well with the teams or owners at the top. Another could be to introduce a salary ratio, so the highest earner at a club can't earn more than 10 or 20 times more than the lowest earners. I can't see either idea picking up any political willpower from the teams or the league though, and ultimately that's what would be required to get either idea off the ground.

 

I'm all in on the top 4 clubs from the bigger countries and ratioed down for smaller top flight teams from smaller countries to create a super league . Take all their money and go have fun and lets get back to more level playing field .

 

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Perhaps this should be on the politics thread. Your first paragraph has made me think. I'm what I describe as a socialist tory, I believe in helping people to help themselves.

Nevertheless, the target must be the living wage rather than the minimum wage. The issue with this is that companies struggling or even making a loss would be sent to the wall if the living wage was imposed resulting in unemployment. However, many companies who could afford to pay the living wage don't. A solution might be to put a corporation tax surcharge on companies that dont pay the living wage, say 10%. Companies making large profits would very quickly pay the living wage because it would save them money and companies making a loss would not be affected as their corporation tax would be next to zero/zero.

What needs to be done is to create an environment where it is in a companies interest to pay the living wage if they can afford it. I once worked for a company who won a contract on Crossrail. One of the terms of the contract was that anyone working on Crossrail had to be earning the London living wage. Many of the juniors in the company were not at that level and the management had to use seniors to do juniors work. Very quickly, the juniors salaries were increased.

 

Getting back to the OP.......
I think that there may be a need to reduce the size of the PL, but only by 2 or maybe a maximum of 4 clubs.
For those clubs engaged in CL and EL games in addition to competing in both FAC and LC, 38 games provides little or no leeway.
Certainly not an 'elitist' argument, just think that English PL clubs are running at a disadvantage to European counterparts.
A reduction to 15 clubs would also allow for a Mid-season break.

 

The proliferation of cup games is certainly something that needs to be addressed, and it's worth pointing out that most of Europe's top leagues either have just the one cup competition (La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, Eredivisie) while Ligue 1 has two cup competitions, but the majority of matches in both competitions are played during the league's winter break rather than get bolted onto the league schedule - and there's no such thing as replays in either competition.

 

A Super League would attract more and more plastics and an increased amount of tickets would be given to corporate, the working class would suffer further. It would suck the life out of football - which has already been drained by the increased reliance on money nowadays.

 

Take it, that's a 'no' then??

 

Nah, all for it mate