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Is it time European football was completely overhauled?


GOAT

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The gap between the top leagues and the other leagues is rising and only going to get worse. I think it's time UEFA forced a complete overhaul to help the smaller nations out, by merging some leagues. The days of a proud club like Ajax being European champions again are long gone, the days of Porto and Monaco playing each other in the CL final are over. IMO it's time that leagues were merged in some way or another. I mean surely we could have a set up in UEFA were we have 8 top leagues and second division, then relegation and promotion into regional league set ups. For example, we have the four 'big' leagues, Spain, England, Germany and Italy. Finances are dictating these countries will always remain ahead of the game. Why can't we have an Atlantic league, British clubs (outwith English set up), Dutch, Belgian and possibly scandanavian all make up this set up. Two leagues a premier league and championship, with relegation to the regional set ups. A Central European set up, the French, the swiss, possibly the Belgians. Same again two leagues, relegation to regionals. An Eastern European set up, the Russians, the Ukranians, the Polish, the czechs, the Romanians, the Slovaks, Belarus and countries round about there etc. Same again two leagues, with relegation and promotion to and from regional set ups. Then a southern European league, Israeli, Turkey, Greece, Crotia, Bulgaria, serbia, Georgie and countries round about there. Same again two leagues, promotion and relegation to regional set up.

Obviously the political theatre could play a problem in this, I can't imagine Russian and Ukranian teams being too friendly with each other, the Israeli's and the Muslim countries in their league i.e. Turkey being too friendly. The Bosnians, the serbs or Croats etc, being too friendly, but if these countries can meet each other in club football or international football, then they can certainly do it in league football.

So I've managed to get 8 league set ups there. The usual rules apply from then on, top four qualify for the CL, the next set for the Europa League etc. I'd also bring back the cup winners cup, all these leagues have access to two cups, a league cup and FA cup. The winners of both qualify for the CWC.

It doesn't mean the death of the leagues the way they are now, it just means they form part of a regional set up.

I just think this is the way European football needs to go otherwise it's just going to be dominated by the Germans, the Spanish, the English and the Italians.

Who knows, maybe that suits UEFA right enough.

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Yes it needs changed and it will radically change soon with the natural evolution. We will end up with a European league of the top 16 clubs leaving all other leagues meaningless.

The champions league is a money making bore fest that is on its knees. The upcoming fans of the biggesr teams have no desire to see them continue to stuff local irrelevant competitiors

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Yes it needs changed and it will radically change soon with the natural evolution. We will end up with a European league of the top 16 clubs leaving all other leagues meaningless.

The champions league is a money making bore fest that is on its knees. The upcoming fans of the biggesr teams have no desire to see them continue to stuff local irrelevant competitiors

I don't agree with any of that at all. The CL is still where everyone wants to be. However, the group stages are fastly becoming boring for the bigger teams, the bigger domestic leagues aren't really a problem either.

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Yes it needs changed and it will radically change soon with the natural evolution. We will end up with a European league of the top 16 clubs leaving all other leagues meaningless.

The champions league is a money making bore fest that is on its knees. The upcoming fans of the biggesr teams have no desire to see them continue to stuff local irrelevant competitiors

That's what I always thought will happen. The top 16-20 clubs becoming bigger and bigger due to their own and tv commercial interest to the point they become rich and influential enough to break in to their own league, which would then be similar to the American NFL where the teams are bigger than their cities (And could even move around, for example "Ajax, could be bought out by PSG and become Paris Ajax). Cities and commercial interests would then bid for the big names i.e. the likes of Abramovich could take the "Porto" franchise to Moscow etc. The top 8 or so (you know who they are) would be unlikely to move cities but the other 8 would potentially franchise to cities willing to invest, or to gain more TV revenue.

(Look at the Steaua Bucharest thread in other topics, the last of the smaller teams to win the European Cup they are now gone ! And other traditional great teams like Porto, Ajax and the Italian teams outside of Juventus are even struggling to be successful)

It's all about the money, money, money at the end of the day, and I believe the top 16 or so teams in Europe now hold all the cards.

An elite league of 20, split in to two leagues with a play off ,could look like this.

Barcelona

Real Madrid

Athletico Madrid

Chelsea

Arsenal

Man City

Moscow FC (new)

Paris St Germain

Juventus

Roma

Inter

AC Milan

Bayern Munich

Man United

Leaving 3 spaces for smaller franchises in the likes of Lisbon, Amsterdam, Brussels and 3 spaces for potential rebrands of teams like Stuttgart, Schalke, Galatasaray, Feyenoord, Porto and Liverpool.

And that's it, very few other teams can compete with any of that lot above already.

Here's a list of Europe's curent top twenty richest. Looks familiar ? (Newcastle were twentieth last year)

http://en.wikipedia...._football_clubs

And that's it, very few other teams can compete with any of that lot above already.

(Maybe Newcastle, once we start feeding them players :pipe:)

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The champions leagues became boring.

You can pretty much guarantee that 8 of the same 13-14 teams will be in the quarters every season.

It's became a cartel

This is correct.

I stopped watching it as its the same Clubs all the time.

Sick off it.

Needs to go to knock out again.

Simple.

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Cheap flights around Europe would probably make it cheaper for most us to go see Rangers play Ajax than going to the likes of Inverness/Aberdeen.

I do think that an NFL style set up for the biggest teams in Europe won't be far away though. Broadcasters already pay over the top for the Premier League and Super Sunday yesterday had West Ham, Swansea, Villa & Leicester on it. A super league would have massive games every weekend guaranteed.

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I'd like regional set-ups. I think it's the only chance we've got. TV money in larger markets has divided footy, so the only way to compete is to go with that and try to crate a larger market. I'd love an Atlantic League.

Sadly, even in the top leagues, the top few teams are generally filtering out from the rest. It looks like it's just a natural progression in football. I'm worried that we're en-route to some sort of NFL-like structure where a top elite of 30 odd teams are supported by the rest that are essentially feeder leagues.

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I'd like regional set-ups. I think it's the only chance we've got. TV money in larger markets has divided footy, so the only way to compete is to go with that and try to crate a larger market. I'd love an Atlantic League.

Sadly, even in the top leagues, the top few teams are generally filtering out from the rest. It looks like it's just a natural progression in football. I'm worried that we're en-route to some sort of NFL-like structure where a top elite of 30 odd teams are supported by the rest that are essentially feeder leagues.

I don't think it will ever be structured like the NFL. It's just far too unique with it's College connection, draft and other such things.

But it depends what you meant by structure.

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I don't think it will ever be structured like the NFL. It's just far too unique with it's College connection, draft and other such things.

But it depends what you meant by structure.

I didn't mean exactly like it, but superficially similar, with the top few creaming off from the rest and taking all of the attention, and grouped into a league of their own.

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I actually enjoy it the way it is tbh. Teams like Atletico and Dortmund have done well recently without being as wealthy and powerful as Real, Bayern, Barca etc.

I think that isl be rare though, and will be less and less common in the future.

Not to mention the fact that for any single club outside the top elite, their time to shine like Dortmund or Atletico are now will be so, so rare. One or two clubs may do it now and again, but the chances of it being your club is so slight.

What I'm saying is, the state of European football is even worse for the supporter of an individual club outside the top few, than for a neutral looking in at a lack of varied and widespread competition.

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The NFL is totally unique though. Through natural progression an elite League would fail. A top 4 would break away giving them an unfair advantage like usual. Fans would fall away as they would get bored of losing and paying an extortionate amount of money to go to away games. Give it 10 years and you'd have the same situation on a large scale. The only reason the NFL works is because its fair. The draft makes it work and there is simply noway in hell a draft would work in football. Not to mention the short Season.

An elite League wouldn't solve the problem! The problem is money so why would you give more money to the top teams?

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Fix football by putting a money cap on everything.

A cap on TV money with fairer money distribution. A cap on wages. A cap on transfer fees that you can spend per season.

Reduce the cost of tickets and focus on making it more interesting for the fan. Ensure by law that every Club has to put a % of their annual profit back into the Club - Training grounds/ Youth team/ Stadium developments.

I couldn't think of anything worse than an elite League. Maybe an Atlantic League with smaller teams but not an elite league.

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I think that isl be rare though, and will be less and less common in the future.

Not to mention the fact that for any single club outside the top elite, their time to shine like Dortmund or Atletico are now will be so, so rare. One or two clubs may do it now and again, but the chances of it being your club is so slight.

What I'm saying is, the state of European football is even worse for the supporter of an individual club outside the top few, than for a neutral looking in at a lack of varied and widespread competition.

Yeah, I'm just talking as someone who enjoys watching the best players in the world compete against each other. It's not a perfect situation by any means but I don't think there's an easy solution either.

If I we were competing regularly in the CL again, I might feel differently.

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The NFL is totally unique though. Through natural progression an elite League would fail. A top 4 would break away giving them an unfair advantage like usual. Fans would fall away as they would get bored of losing and paying an extortionate amount of money to go to away games. Give it 10 years and you'd have the same situation on a large scale. The only reason the NFL works is because its fair. The draft makes it work and there is simply noway in hell a draft would work in football. Not to mention the short Season.

An elite League wouldn't solve the problem! The problem is money so why would you give more money to the top teams?

I don't think that's necessarily so. I think if there are a limited number of clubs with a variety of reasons for them being powerful, possibly tapping slightly different markets or supported by different wealthy backers or something like that, it could be like the NFL in the sense that small changes can mean different teams are able to win amongst that elite, because they are all of a similar level. I don't think that that kind of competitive equality necessarily has to come from a draft system, I could imagine other theoretical circumstances where it might happen.

I think it's feasible that at a certain level and with a limited number of clubs it could level out like that. Especially if a league system like the NFL was adopted, so that there is not going to be so much obvious distance from top to bottom. Not necessarily exactly that format, but something like it.

On the other hand, it could happen then collapse. But I do think it will happen. In a sense it already is, in the champions League (the smaller teams there are generally just tokens now), and in the leagues where the top few teams mostly dominate. We're just missing a last complete physical separation.

Could it even happen that the top teams go off and leave a B team in the national leagues?

Whatever happens, football is elitist, narrow and dull now.

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I don't think that's necessarily so. I think if there are a limited number of clubs with a variety of reasons for them being powerful, possibly tapping slightly different markets or supported by different wealthy backers or something like that, it could be like the NFL in the sense that small changes can mean different teams are able to win amongst that elite, because they are all of a similar level. I don't think that that kind of competitive equality necessarily has to come from a draft system, I could imagine other theoretical circumstances where it might happen.

I think it's feasible that at a certain level and with a limited number of clubs it could level out like that. Especially if a league system like the NFL was adopted, so that there is not going to be so much obvious distance from top to bottom. Not necessarily exactly that format, but something like it.

On the other hand, it could happen then collapse. But I do think it will happen. In a sense it already is, in the champions League (the smaller teams there are generally just tokens now), and in the leagues where the top few teams mostly dominate. We're just missing a last complete physical separation.

Could it even happen that the top teams go off and leave a B team in the national leagues?

Whatever happens, football is elitist, narrow and dull now.

Your last sentence is definitely right.

I'm just not sure it would work. The draft system does such a good job at regulating the best players not going to the same teams over and over again like in football. It also takes the power completely away from Clubs and the players. Which is the reason something like that wouldn't happen.

If we were to go by Tannerall's example I couldn't see it working.

Franchises in football wouldn't work now, football fans are too loyal to their Club. Just look at Cardiff and to an extent what nearly happened with the Hull (Hull City Tigers). That was only small scale and there was outrage from the fans and parts of the media. Let alone moving a Club to a different country. Clubs are steeped in traditions and history. What about Red Bull Salazburg, a staunch section of their fans went and created a smaller team which has a fantastic turnout every week with thousands attending a small League game, similar to FC United of Manchester.

Fans are a huge difference between the NFL and football. In one aspect people would argue our fans saved our Club. And in a totally different aspect people enjoy going to live football because of the fans. The rivalry and banter (sorry for using that word couldn't think of another one right now) between them. If you had Clubs going all over Europe every other week you'd lose a huge part of the Club for me. I would imagine it would just be home fans at games, which would be terrible.

What about owners who would get bored similar to Monaco? What would happen there? Or even if a Club just had a slump similar to Manchester United's? They'd get left behind.

When money is so hugely involved in football I just think there will never be an even keel. Especially if you are just consolidating it between the richest few.

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Football in general is pretty predictable/boring.

Out of the top 5 leagues you can already pretty much predict who'll win the league.

EPL - Chelsea/City

Serie A - Juventus

La Liga - Real Madrid/Barcelona

Ligue 1 - PSG

Germany - Bayern, every year.

Those same teams will be the teams in the latter stages of the cl as well, every year.

BORING.

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Your last sentence is definitely right.

I'm just not sure it would work. The draft system does such a good job at regulating the best players not going to the same teams over and over again like in football. It also takes the power completely away from Clubs and the players. Which is the reason something like that wouldn't happen.

If we were to go by Tannerall's example I couldn't see it working.

Franchises in football wouldn't work now, football fans are too loyal to their Club. Just look at Cardiff and to an extent what nearly happened with the Hull (Hull City Tigers). That was only small scale and there was outrage from the fans and parts of the media. Let alone moving a Club to a different country. Clubs are steeped in traditions and history. What about Red Bull Salazburg, a staunch section of their fans went and created a smaller team which has a fantastic turnout every week with thousands attending a small League game, similar to FC United of Manchester.

Fans are a huge difference between the NFL and football. In one aspect people would argue our fans saved our Club. And in a totally different aspect people enjoy going to live football because of the fans. The rivalry and banter (sorry for using that word couldn't think of another one right now) between them. If you had Clubs going all over Europe every other week you'd lose a huge part of the Club for me. I would imagine it would just be home fans at games, which would be terrible.

What about owners who would get bored similar to Monaco? What would happen there? Or even if a Club just had a slump similar to Manchester United's? They'd get left behind.

When money is so hugely involved in football I just think there will never be an even keel. Especially if you are just consolidating it between the richest few.

I don't see the draft system coming in. Definitely not. I'm saying I can see that other things could level things in a similar way. I could see some sort of natural, rough equilibrium being reached that has no draft involved.

As regards fans, I think these top clubs have already become more than their local fanbase and are looking beyond that tradition of following your club around various grounds. I don't think they'd care about losing it. I would care, I don't think it sounds good at all but I doubt they do.

With slumps, like Man United have had, I think they'd spend money, as they have done, and get out of it. Or they'd slump for a few years then come back, as happens throughout football, because many small changes make a cumulative big difference. Injuries, luck, good and bad decisions and so on. I think it could be more like football used to be, except all clubs being rich, rather than poor. I think it seems intuitively the case that a limited number of clubs are more likely to maintain a mutually beneficial equilibrium, in some sort of Adam Smith, invisible hand kind of way, than an entire continent of clubs.

I can also imagine them coming up with systems that enhance this equilibrium, so that the elite survives at the expense of others. A kind of competitive cooperation.

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I don't see the draft system coming in. Definitely not. I'm saying I can see that other things could level things in a similar way. I could see some sort of natural, rough equilibrium being reached that has no draft involved.

As regards fans, I think these top clubs have already become more than their local fanbase and are looking beyond that tradition of following your club around various grounds. I don't think they'd care about losing it. I would care, I don't think it sounds good at all but I doubt they do.

With slumps, like Man United have had, I think they'd spend money, as they have done, and get out of it. Or they'd slump for a few years then come back, as happens throughout football, because many small changes make a cumulative big difference. Injuries, luck, good and bad decisions and so on. I think it could be more like football used to be, except all clubs being rich, rather than poor. I think it seems intuitively the case that a limited number of clubs are more likely to maintain a mutually beneficial equilibrium, in some sort of Adam Smith, invisible hand kind of way, than an entire continent of clubs.

I can also imagine them coming up with systems that enhance this equilibrium, so that the elite survives at the expense of others. A kind of competitive cooperation.

If you are going to have an equilibrium it needs to be done now in the current format. Money in football needs capped or it will just end up losing fans. There'll be an optimum, which I think is coming soon, when fans will turn to lower League teams just to feel that passion and connection with a Club again. I already see boys that have followed Rangers going to Junior games. I know we're a unique example but it's not just us. Noel Gallagher said that Ricky Hatton wishes City could go back to pre Arab money at City and I'm sure he's not the only City fan with that thought. Talking about City look at them, they can't even sell our their stadium and we're supposed to believe franchises would work because they have loads of money? Football doesn't work that way. Not for the most part anyway.

Back to the NFL system, would we have a short Season? That's what helps make it interesting, but I couldn't see a football side only playing for 4 months of the year. It's either that or playing every team four times, which we know from the SPL, becomes fairly tedious. But I get it'll be the best teams in the World but that would wear down after 5 or 6 years of the same repetitive games.

I just think it needs to go the other way, but when has football ever turned down money.

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