The Future Thread of Divine Prediction

I had a thought the other day - with all the "rules" imposed by UEFA around FFP, is there anything huge stopping the "superclubs" from forming their own mini league and competition? Either following an NFL style format, or just one league with some kind of play off at the end, but ultimately no relegation?

What would it take to set something like that up? With Middle East money in France/England and serious cash in Spain/Germany, why wouldn't they? The FFP makes it elitist anyway, more or less.

Part of me then got a bit skeptical - what if all this FFP stuff is to prepare for this eventuality? With a "Super League", the amount of cash available in the PL will suddenly dip, but if everyone's nicely solvent no-one really loses out. The money to sell players to the SuperClubs will still exist, the players can hold registrations in multiple codes, I would assume, so is this new age of football nothing more than a hazy dream, or is it an inevitability and what are the wider impacts?

Please refrain from using words such as Pardew (or any variant), Transfers or Mike Ashley (or any variant)!!!!

 

I would like a European super league, but it would ravage the domestic game. In an ideal world, everyone would be included, but there would need to be about a billion leagues to incorporate all the teams, and how exactly would Port Vale afford to traverse Europe to fulfill fixtures?

So it'd just be rich teams with big followings, and the smaller clubs would be left to play themselves...

 

I think the only thing that has stopped this happening years ago, and still does, is that any players who played in it would be giving up their international career and also giving up the opportunity to play for a team that wasn't part of the breakaway league once they were no longer deemed good enough. FIFA prohibits any player from playing in a non FIFA sanctioned league (delegated down through local associations) and any player who does would be banned from playing in FIFA sanctioned competitions. Any team or country who then played such a player would also be sanctioned, and so on.

I would be sorry to see the creation of any sort of franchise system without promotion or relegation. Money makes it difficult to dream of rising through the system but not impossible. I'd hate those dreams to be killed off entirely, but then I'm just an old fashioned fart I guess.

 

Best FIFA rule I ever heard of.

Having grown up on North American sports where franchises are bought for tens of millions of dollars and are no more capable of being won by having a good season or lost by having a bad one, I think relegation and promotion are the best concepts ever developed. Removing them would kill half the thrill of the game.

 

If its not broken do not fix it.

I still dont buy into this FFP lark. There has always been money spent at the so called bigger clubs historically and it will continue. The problem lies with the ones that try to match it. I think the FFP rules need tweaked. If a club can afford to buy the players then so be it. If the funding comes from the owners... IMO so be it.

Its when clubs that cannot afford it (including owners) and spend the money they do not have is where the problem lies.

All this money coming into the game where the top clubs buy the best players supports the whole football league. Yes the mid to lower table clubs lose their best players but they get a shed load of money to reinvest. The reinvestment then goes into buying players further down the leagues.

Meh my head has just exploded!

 

Sure this has been talked about in the past and some of the big boys will still fancy it to further line their pockets but as Sir Alan says FIFA hold the trump cards at the moment and i hope it stays as it is.
After the novelty of season one how many travelling fans would there be at the games producing an atmosphere?
Half way through the season most of the teams would have nothing to play for which would lead to a dramatic loss of interest/finance.
The very big teams would still dominate leading to another new level of haves and have nots.
With FIFA rules as they are any team losing money through being average at best in the new "Super League" would be trapped there unable to return so would eventually go out of existance and who would want to replace them? You would be left with a super league of about six to ten teams, yawn.

 

Some good points here.