The European Competitions Thread

[Jase 43,479]

There's an apology but it also shows how out of touch these owners are...

[nyikolajevics 2,851]

 

[Magic Lamps 11,692]

Agnelli even admitted now what we all know. SL is dead. The aftermarth will be brutal tho. Perez surely will want to refinance Real's debt with breach of contract fines from the english clubs.

[Fernando 6,743]

21 minutes ago, Magic Lamps said:

Agnelli even admitted now what we all know. SL is dead. The aftermarth will be brutal tho. Perez surely will want to refinance Real's debt with breach of contract fines from the english clubs.

They knew that this would happen. Even Perez I assumed. The question is why go ahead and do it? 

I still think something is fishy. They might be doing away with some money. As one reporter put it:

What happens with the billions of pounds in start-up money put forward by American bankers JP Morgan is anyone's guess.

Edited April 21, 2021 by Fernando

[Magic Lamps 11,692]

1 minute ago, Fernando said:

They knew that this would happen. Even Perez I assumed. The question is why go ahead and si it? 

I still think something is fishy. They might be doing away with some money. As one reporter put it:

What happens with the billions of pounds in start-up money put forward by American bankers JP Morgan is anyone's guess.

JPM will keep their money, i think they only pledged it to the clubs once they played one season.

apparently Atletico and Inter have pulled out now too. This is interesting. If there was a fine, why would they pull out now since they already know SL is not gonna happen? They could have just stayed in adn then bel ike "oh too bad" and nothing would happen to them. But apparently the little bit of fan rage they would face is harder on them than a potential fee. So maybe there is none in the end?

[Fernando 6,743]

20 minutes ago, Magic Lamps said:

JPM will keep their money, i think they only pledged it to the clubs once they played one season.

apparently Atletico and Inter have pulled out now too. This is interesting. If there was a fine, why would they pull out now since they already know SL is not gonna happen? They could have just stayed in adn then bel ike "oh too bad" and nothing would happen to them. But apparently the little bit of fan rage they would face is harder on them than a potential fee. So maybe there is none in the end?

Let's hope there is no fine and Real Madrid are not keeping no money. Because the timing of it all is so weird. They did it because they had a deadline and had to do it now. 

All this is so weird to be honest, and let's hope Real Madrid does not come benefiting by getting some type of compensation. 

Edited April 21, 2021 by Fernando

[milka 3,407]

Тhis remains as a huge stain on  Chelsea Football Club and others English Clubs .

 

 

[milka 3,407]

I think this tweet  is a good final  🙂 

 

 

[Jase 43,479]

Inter, Atletico and Milan have all also pulled out.

Only Juventus, Real and Barcelona left...

[Jase 43,479]

 

[Fernando 6,743]

28 minutes ago, milka said:

Тhis remains as a huge stain on  Chelsea Football Club and others English Clubs .

 

 

Probably, but the only image I get is that of our fans coming out in full to protest. 

For a "rent club" with "soulless fans" the world saw that it was not like that. 

I think the reason why at times our atmosphere at games is not as loud as say Liverpool is because of the price. Prices are too high and if it was lower many of these people would be in there shouting for our team. 

So yesterday showed that our fans are not dead, are not rent boys and are not soulless. 

Edited April 21, 2021 by Fernando

[Fernando 6,743]

6 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

No money at this time to pay for that 😪

If anyone does, please put the whole article so I can read, please. 

[Superblue 6,372]

19 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

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.

[Fernando 6,743]

The best banner of this whole thing: 

 

[Tomo 21,754]

This whole thing becomes utterly pointless if this is now allowed to pass through.

https://twitter.com/mjshrimper/status/1384631355573776384?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1384631355573776384|twgr^|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2F

If Neville, Linekar, Rio etc just stay quiet now and resume their custy jobs on sky/BT they're just as bad and I won't want to hear any "passionate rants" from them ever again.

[Fernando 6,743]

4 minutes ago, Tomo said:

This whole thing becomes utterly pointless if this is now allowed to pass through.

https://twitter.com/mjshrimper/status/1384631355573776384?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1384631355573776384|twgr^|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2F

If Neville, Linekar, Rio etc just stay quiet now and resume their custy jobs on sky/BT they're just as bad and I won't want to hear any "passionate rants" from them ever again.

Maybe that's why the timing of when this came out?

To pressure for that? 

Because the timing is so weird unless done with a purpose to get something else. 

[ZAPHOD2319 4,976]

Glazers are getting hammered in their local press. 

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/mike-bianchi-commentary/os-sp-tampa-bay-bucs-glazers-manchester-united-20210421-uoi4fvwtb5g2zjrvpcca55jjba-story.html

[Tomo 21,754]

14 minutes ago, Mana said:

These lot will back down. They are hired by Sky and BT who are scummy as the founders of the ESL. UEFA, FIFA...the LOT of them are as scummy as each other.

I'm very disappointed with the football fans such as ourselves who are going to let this one slide.

And that makes them just as bad as far as I'm concerned.

[chippy 342]

1 hour ago, Fernando said:

Probably, but the only image I get is that of our fans coming out in full to protest. 

For a "rent club" with "soulless fans" the world saw that it was not like that. 

I think the reason why at times our atmosphere at games is not as loud as say Liverpool is because of the price. Prices are too high and if it was lower many of these people would be in there shouting for our team. 

So yesterday showed that our fans are not dead, are not rent boys and are not soulless. 

It's not so much the fans, its the owner we have that gives us the label of being a plastic club.

Social Media is completely dominated by the left/ far left, even Chelsea fan forums. We, along with City and PSG,  will always a bad image problem while we have such controversial characters running our clubs.

Despite Liverpool and Utd being the driving forces behind the SL, the fans from the other clubs still see us, City and PSG as the real problem and the evil clubs in football.

[Superblue 6,372]

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.