Superblue

Yeah I didn't necessarily mean targeting specific clubs, it's challenging the hypocrisy within the football community that we've seen in the past couple of days but completely understand your point. That all boils down to jealousy for me. Everybody said that Roman would get bored after a couple of years and bail and leave the club ruined but I would assume amongst the top clubs he's actually now one of the longest serving owners. I was listening to TalkSport earlier. Although he likes the sound of his own voice, I like listening to Simon Jordan because he firstly talks a lot of sense and secondly looks at things from a business perspective and not an emotional one. He made a very valid and fair point that the ESL was never going to work in it's current format as a closed shop. However if the Yanks hadn't have placed that train of thought into the mix, the purpose behind the league was actually a very good one which was the clubs taking back control over UEFA and the likes of Sky and running it in the most profitable, revenue driven way possible to feed then down the pyramid. As soon as talking down of Sky is involved he's immediately cut off by Jim White, Mr sleeping in both beds who wouldn't dare let a bad word be said of Sky. Sky's control and power over the game is scary. Under Gary Neville they've performed a PR masterstroke in the last 48 hours or so and are almost at a point of being untouchable, very much like how UEFA probably feel right now.

This will probably end up becoming a jumbled rant but whatever. Apologies in advance. I'd like to hope that this isn't the end. At the very least fans have found a voice in all of this, but let's be brutally frank this situation is no more than the tip of the iceberg. The two corporations that seem to be coming out of this debacle, if anything, with greater credibility are Sky and UEFA which is quite frankly embarrassing. UEFA have managed to slip under the radar in all this a new format for European competition which on paper, looks dreadful and essentially boils down to a bigger money maker for themselves. Bamford also got it spot on, this has proven that they are more than capable of making decisions quickly and trying to use their influence to make a stand on things, unfortunately it seems to only come when money and power are concerned. Then you have Sky and the likes of Gary Neville attempting to establish themselves as the voice of the people. Like UEFA, their primary concern is their own position within football. They were the first to throw their toys out the pram when the pandemic struck and rather than try and help matters, effectively did their best to strong arm the Premier League to get their act together or be penalised. They were complicit in an ill-conceived PPV model and since then I assume have benefitted hugely from televising every Premier League game (along side BT Sport). Are they paying extra for this privilege? Or is this a means to appease them? Their original package should have been retained and the other games were offered across BBC and ITV so they are free to watch. And when fans start to return, will they still have the same consideration and voice of the people when they exert their power on the fixture scheduling and end up putting on United vs Chelsea as the late Sunday afternoon kick off, or similar examples on Monday night and now Friday night football with no care of some of the travel issues and restrictions which can be put in place at these sort of times? I wonder if this would be mentioned in the same emotion by Neville or Carragher when their hosting Monday Night Football...I would expect not! Moving on to those poor 14 other Premier League clubs. The "Big 6" have shot themselves in the foot and that's their own problem but every one of them is in it for themselves and for many, their sole effort is on retaining their position on the gravy train. Many have bent the FFP rules when in the Championship to get into the Premier League because the rewards are far greater than the penalties for doing this. Absolutely none of them are any different to the other 6 in that money will always play it's part. If anything they're even worse because their own business model is built around the success and commercial pull of other clubs rather than their own. Players also shouldn't get a free pass through the last 12 months or so. Yes a number of them have done some great charitable work and that shouldn't be discredited. But I think, players and the PFA (a trade union that pays it's CEO an annual salary comparable to some footballers at £2m per annum) effectively opposing salary cuts near the start of the pandemic was a disgrace. Clubs will hopefully learn lessons of how crippling this pandemic has been from a financial perspective on their clubs, but you'd have expected players to play some sort of part in helping this whole system. The furlough scheme in this country meant a lot of people have gone this time being paid at 80% of their salary, most happy for their employers to retain the additional 20% they could choose to pay if it helps them have a job to return to in the future. Are you telling me these players couldn't look at this scheme and think maybe for the time being we'll follow suit and agree to be paid 80%? And now to top it off we have the Government. Without getting into a political debate, I think their track record across the last 12 months speaks for itself. And I say that as somebody who has previously voted for the Conservatives. When it comes to Brexit and Covid, they have made mistake after mistake, taken too long on key decisions, backtracked on others and it has cost a lot of lives, jobs, homes, etc for good people in this country. They're credibility is in tatters and just like Sky and the rest, I'm weary they view this as an incredible PR exercise to try and restore some faith in large portions of the general public. Make no mistake, like everyone else, they're banging their own drum. Whilst there are changes that could and should be made within the football community (and I think this will lead to some), they should be agreed and developed within the confines of football. They should not be forced through by the Government. Particularly this Government who have already proven incapable of a number of key decisions. But in the long term picture, any Government. Because once one wields it's power to put particular legislation across, it'll never stop.

This will be thoroughly disappointing if the case. How is Bruce Buck seriously supposed to represent us on committee's for the Premier League, Europe, etc after this?! One thing I'm almost certain the other Premier League clubs will push for is sanctions in place to ban these likes of being on the committee, representing their club. It's common sense anyway. To start the process of earning that trust back, there has to be changes made at that level and new faces to represent the club.

On one hand they're statement is no different to everyone else's besides Arsenal's and as I've mentioned before, I think us and City have leaked/briefed the press pretty well the last couple of days to try and navigate this mess and exonerate our involvements as best as humanly possible. But I'd love the club to just own the mistake and make a proper apology. Maybe there's something to come tomorrow, it's incredibly late and maybe they felt they just needed something put out there. Ultimately though the feeling is somebody needs to be held accountable within the club for this...and it won't be Roman!

Statement has just come in from the club. "As reported earlier this evening..." @Jason must have checked our conversation first I guess?! Pretty poor effort to be honest. The "Having joined late last week" has been spun out already and seems to be an attempt to try and wash our hands of the set up of this (which I still think us and City will be forgiven much easier than the others). I'd like to hope something a bit more detailed is released tomorrow which is less formal and a genuine apology to our fanbase and the wider football community. I said it earlier, to be fair to Arsenal, they're the only ones currently to really apologise properly.

Yep, like I said before, one league of 36 teams so you won't even play everybody. How is that remotely fair? If you're competing against teams in a league format you have to play everybody in it for fairness. And I saw point 2 the other day. That was UEFA's pathetic attempt to pander to these elite clubs. Like has been argued over the last couple of days everything should be achieved on merit. I hope they retract that one.

Perhaps but that may have been enough as a collective to announce this plan. The league always seemed at least a couple of seasons away (I think an exit was likely planned at the point of the Champions League reforms), so its possible that such legal bindings would have come in at a later date. Either way, the fact everyone seems to be bailing out now on it will probably help any potential legal matters should there be any.

Honestly the Champions League in its current format is fine. The way it's now ranked in terms of league champions being pooled in pot 1 is fairer than it used to be and helps throw up some more exciting groups (some poor ones too though). This one big league sounds rubbish, especially when you don't play everyone in it - how is that expected to work for fairness and integrity? It sounds worse than the format when we first played in 99/00 when you had to get through two group stages to reach the knockouts! The only other viable option in my opinion would be a full league format, say 10 teams in each league and you could have 4, 5, 6, 10 leagues that could be worked up and down. I actually though initially this may be the type of format these breakaway teams may look to do but obviously not! I don't really see an issue with the current Champions League format though, I think the mix of groups then knockouts is good.

More information will follow but legally binding has come from Perez's interview yesterday. There's lots of speculation it was a letter of intention. I'm sure we'll see in due course. If there are financial repercussions then it teaches a lesson. I'd be very surprised though if there are European bans. UEFA would secretly probably love to make an example, but they will not want to water down their premier competition to that degree next season. At the end of the day that's the whole reason this has kicked off in the first place! I think the biggest punishments will come politically from UEFA. PSG and Bayern will be the big dogs now in terms of positions of power and quite frankly rightly so.

I must say fair play to Arsenal. They're mostly a complete shit-show nowadays but their statement is actually excellent and very apologetic. I'd like to hope what we do end up officially announcing is of a similar sentiment. Spurs though, Levy has expressed regret but no form of apology and basically just a statement trying to justify themselves.

It'll be interesting to see whether Bruce Buck leaves the club shortly. I think his position is untenable now. Reports suggest Roman wasn't keen on this as it was so it must have been driven by someone and has left the club now with so much negative publicity to deal with. Buck is about 75 years old now too, he's not going to last forever. It can be done in an amicable way similar to that of Woodward. There's been all sorts of talks about punishments in the Premier League but I don't think point deductions will happen. Instead I think heads will roll in high up positions in these 6 clubs and new committee members will be introduced to rebuild trusts and relationships. I like the way that the likes of Bayern have ex players in these sorts of positions to represent the club. It screams of Cech to act for us in this capacity moving forward.

We always take forever to announce anything. If the club are that bothered about the timing they can word it as "As reported earlier this evening..." or "Earlier today we...". I think it's been made clear though throughout the last couple of days and today that City and Chelsea have made a mistake following everyone else into this and been planning to remove themselves since. Not that this exonerates either from blame, but it's pretty clear who the drivers of this were.

Briefing the press that we're out earlier was enough initially. Everyone knew as a result we were dropping out regardless of the official statement but was never going to be announced by the club with the game on tonight.

The club wouldn't release a statement whilst the game is on, think ours will follow later tonight.

To be honest as long as we're out of it I really couldn't care less, let the rest deal with it.

The club will be tarnished with this and rightly so, but the leaks started before an official announcement that us and City weren't driving this and it's pretty obvious both have made a panicked mistake in signing up. I think getting out first (and I think City will also to some extent) at least gives us a bit more credibility that we have realised our mistake and rectified it rather than carry on ignoring and driving this like other clubs. From what it sounds from the Premier League meeting today, Chelsea and City have been pretty much exonerated from this debacle and everyone knows which clubs are behind this. They will be the ones that take the brunt of this. I think we'll get away relatively unscathed in the long term. I'm hoping that it doesn't fall apart immediately and the likes of Liverpool and Man Utd try holding their ground for a few more days because it'll only look even worse for them. Juventus, Real, United and Liverpool I think have really screwed themselves with this.

This to me is the biggest problem. If they had planned a proper league system I would have been seriously interested as it is then something completely new and fresh (say it was 20 teams initially and broke into a division 1 and 2 with promotion and relegation each season) and I think that would then have the potential to grow even further once established as a third division could be eventually added through domestic qualification and then these clubs have an opportunity to remain in the competition and qualify up the leagues and in turn others can slip down and be relegated out. The problem is the proposed Champions League and this ESL are barely any different and both pretty rubbish ideas to be honest.

Clubs such as Porto and Benfica have been quick to distance themselves from rumours of joining the ESL. I'd be surprised with the current outcry, what other clubs would have the nerve to join this league currently. It could end up just 12 teams or some really watered down European clubs making up the numbers, so we'd be back to average clubs involved like the Champions League.

Whilst Roman would have the final say on such big decisions at the club, this screams of Bruce Buck's influence. He is American which seems to be a big warning light at present, given the influence of United and Liverpool in this league and my understanding is he is our representative for things such as the Premier League. Roman has and probably even more so nowadays, relied on the advice and support of a select inner circle of people to help run Chelsea. I would bet my cold, hard cash that this has been heavily influenced and advised by Buck. For all Roman has been hammered with down the years with regards to how he built his fortune, and his issues with the UK Government, I firmly believe by and large he's been a bloody good owner. Mistakes have been made like at any club, but he's done and invested huge amounts into the wider community, the long term infrastructure of the club, built the academy and women's teams from basically nothing, brought back into the fold a host of club legends who had been banished by Ken Bates and has ensured the club have placed themselves at the forefront of charitable support and anti racism/semitism. I'd like to think that he'll make a decision off the back of this with the whole football club in his thinking.

It certainly doesn't just return things to normal but City and Chelsea could right a lot of wrongs here if they genuinely are considering backing out. The two could end up being the biggest influencers in this whole power struggle, because I think the two together are enough to legitimise the Premier League and Champions League still if the others don't follow. Ironic considering both have felt they've been treated unfairly and unequally in the past by UEFA compared to other established big clubs, and neither seemingly have had any real serious input into this Super League yet could end up with both sides begging for our loyalty.

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From the bits and pieces that have been leaked, it seems that Chelsea and City were reluctant to join as money wasn't really a factor for either of them. Their worry was if the top 15-20 teams end up joining this competition, what are they left to compete in? A potentially 2 horse Premier League, and a Champions League which is nothing more than a glorified Europa League. From that perspective I can understand the position both clubs have been placed. In recent years, both have just set out to win trophies and create a legacy. If this was to take off with the top teams then it could quite easily end up evolving into THE place the top players want to play. At present that might sound stupid but it's not beyond reality if that brand develops with the money and clubs involved in it and I think as a result Chelsea and City caved in off the back of that. From what it sounds they were the last two to sign up and I wouldn't be surprised if they did this on the assumption that PSG and Bayern would be joining too. I think the stance made by the French and German leagues will have a bearing on Chelsea and City potentially U-Turning.

Oliver Holt has tweeted that two English teams are considering backing out and there's been rumours all day that Chelsea and City have had massive reservations about joining. You'd love a crystal ball to see what the future holds if Chelsea and City pull out but the competition carries on without them.

Fair play to Bamford. One of the biggest issues in this is that UEFA are being portrayed as the good guys which couldn't be further from the truth. They are culpable in their own right for this debacle through the years of their own greed, corruption and lack of morality. Yesterday when this was coming out, I was at least open to the ideas and the main reason would have been the potential to break the monopoly that UEFA hold over European football. Now I'm leaning the other way. I wouldn't be necessarily against a breakaway league of some form because I think in time it would potentially bring in more clubs and grow independent of UEFA who have done so little to hold faith in. However, the closed shop setup is farcical and like others, I'd be quite frankly pissed off missing out on potentially winning the FA Cup and Champions League this season if we were excluded from them. More so for the players and Tuchel who have earned these chances from hard work and from the looks of things are being thrown under the bus.

One thing that I don't think has been brought up yet - is there any power that the CPO have to prevent Chelsea playing at Stamford Bridge in this format? I would assume not and that the club have already ensured they're covered with this but would be interesting to know for sure. Would be a wild scenario if the CPO and club's fans pulled away from the club and retained a version of Chelsea to remain in the Premier League that was fan owned.