The European Leagues & Competitions Thread V2

[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 6,370]

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. 

[chippy 342]

9 hours ago, DDA said:

Be careful what you wish for. Just look at Arsenal. That's all I'm going to say.

Last year I read something from a Chelsea fan who claimed to know a journo who''s one of those who has an "insider" at the club.

According to the journo, behind the scenes without Roman's presence at the place, the club is a unhappy shambles.. Could well have been made up BS, but from the outside there might be some truth in it.

i just think we need a hands on owner now to get us going in the right direction again, and lets face it, Roman won't ever be hands on again.

[MoroccanBlue 5,296]

So on top of bashing our youth and wanting them gone, you've moved on to Roman. 😂

Edited April 21, 2021 by MoroccanBlue

[Tomo 21,733]

11 minutes ago, Superblue_1986 said:

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. 

What has baffled me is I'm on a group on Facebook, only about 30 people but we're all passionate football fans and earlier this week 10 were shouting anti ESL stuff from the rooftops.

This morning I posted the tweet about Uefa's new plans which sneaks two teams in based on history ESL style, every single one of those 10 have seen it and only 1 reacted.

Which begs the question, were the other 9 (and this will apply to many others around the world) actually outraged about this or were they just doing it for likes and to fit In? Because as far as I'm concerned people outraged about the ESL who are now going quiet are just as bad (if not worse) and may aswell be part of Uefa's free marketing team.

[Blues Forever 1,232]

 

[Atomiswave 6,072]

2 hours 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. 

Who gives a rats ass what they think, counts for nothing.....we know what we are.

[Atomiswave 6,072]

4 minutes ago, Tomo said:

What has baffled me is I'm on a group on Facebook, only about 30 people but we're all passionate football fans and earlier this week 10 were shouting anti ESL stuff from the rooftops.

This morning I posted the tweet about Uefa's new plans which sneaks two teams in based on history ESL style, every single one of those 10 have seen it and only 1 reacted.

Which begs the question, were the other 9 (and this will apply to many others around the world) actually outraged about this or were they just doing it for likes and to fit In? Because as far as I'm concerned people outraged about the ESL who are now going quiet are just as bad (if not worse) and may aswell be part of Uefa's free marketing team.

Sadly alot of fakers out there, bandwagonism. Uefa is just as awful as those ringleaders behind ESL, they should be shown not 1 ounce of leniency.

[chippy 342]

20 minutes ago, MoroccanBlue said:

So on top of bashing our youth and wanting them gone, you've moved on to Roman. 😂

I think a lot of our players are not of the level we need to challenge for the title. 4 consecutive years being miles away from challenging only underlines that fact. I put the importance of the team challenging for the title, well ahead of having nice things to say about players who I don't think are good enough, be they younger players or veterans. Simple as that!

As for Roman. I think I've given perfectly valid reasons why I think now would be a good time for him to move on. Again, he's been brilliant for us and given me many moments that that have been amongst the best of my life.  If that's not good enough for you, then tough titties.

[chippy 342]

41 minutes ago, Superblue_1986 said:

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. 

Good post.

 

However. Be careful what you wish for with this "fans voice" because if they ever get real power, Chelsea FC will be top of their hit list. Go on other fan forums and see for yourself how much we are being blamed for all this.

 

[Jase 43,479]

1 hour ago, chippy said:

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.

Do we really care about how other fans perceive us? It's become nothing but lazy views and tribalism when it comes to non-Chelsea talking about us. By this point, it's tiresome and not worth bothering at all.

As for Roman, make no mistake that this ESL fiasco will always be a blot in his copybook but that aside, it's easy to just forget the good work that he's actually done for the club. No need for me to go through what he's done for the Men's first team and so that aside, Roman has invested and helped bring up the best youth academy in the country, invested and helped built the most dominant Women's team in the country and one of the best in Europe, provided free accommodation to the NHS staff last year, continued to pay everyone at the club their full wages despite the ongoing pandemic, ran and supported campaigns on anti-discrimination. There are probably more but those are the ones off the top of my head. 

If you look at owners of the other big clubs around Europe, how many do you see do such things for their club? Not many, if any at all. You have clubs like Liverpool where they tried to furlough their staff last year because of the pandemic but had to make a U-turn after a backlash and ditched their women's team. You have clubs like Man United, where the Glazers continuously take money out of the club and have the club in big debts. You have clubs like Arsenal, where Stan Kroenke doesn't even give a shit about the team being successful or not. You also have clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona where the owners have put their club in such a terrible financial financial - e.g. Barcelona's debt is supposedly more than 1 billion.

Maybe it's the byproduct of modern life but is it even genuinely possible to find a "squeaky clean", rich sports owner these days? Every rich person out there will have always motive, agenda of their own. They will always be dodgy in some ways. Roman might not be the perfect or "cleanest" owner around but he's still better than a lot of the other owners. 

[Superblue 6,370]

24 minutes ago, chippy said:

Good post.

 

However. Be careful what you wish for with this "fans voice" because if they ever get real power, Chelsea FC will be top of their hit list. Go on other fan forums and see for yourself how much we are being blamed for all this.

 

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.

 

57 minutes ago, Tomo said:

What has baffled me is I'm on a group on Facebook, only about 30 people but we're all passionate football fans and earlier this week 10 were shouting anti ESL stuff from the rooftops.

This morning I posted the tweet about Uefa's new plans which sneaks two teams in based on history ESL style, every single one of those 10 have seen it and only 1 reacted.

Which begs the question, were the other 9 (and this will apply to many others around the world) actually outraged about this or were they just doing it for likes and to fit In? Because as far as I'm concerned people outraged about the ESL who are now going quiet are just as bad (if not worse) and may aswell be part of Uefa's free marketing team.

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.

[Atomiswave 6,072]

Sky BT etc all scum, bent, biased yet they think we cant see it. I hope to live to see them burn.

[chippy 342]

27 minutes ago, Atomiswave said:

Sky BT etc all scum, bent, biased yet they think we cant see it. I hope to live to see them burn.

I binned Sky donkey's years ago as soon aa they introduced their pay per view..

Again, I'm a staunch capitalist and fully support businesses  need to make a healthy profit. But I always draw the between that need for profit and a rip off.

[ZAPHOD2319 4,476]

Ings making things better for us,

[Atomiswave 6,072]

2 hours ago, chippy said:

I binned Sky donkey's years ago as soon aa they introduced their pay per view..

Again, I'm a staunch capitalist and fully support businesses  need to make a healthy profit. But I always draw the between that need for profit and a rip off.

Yeah agree

[whats happening 1,525]

any talks about possible punishment for the superleague teams?

[chippy 342]

24 minutes ago, whats happening said:

any talks about possible punishment for the superleague teams?

The 6 owners have been ordered to attend all Millwall matches for the next 3 seasons.