Liverpool and Manchester United in talks to join European Premier League

[Rousseau 9,357]

Liverpool and Manchester United are in talks about a bombshell plot involving Europe's biggest football clubs to join a new FIFA-backed tournament that would reshape the sport's global landscape.

 

Sky News has learned that financiers are assembling a $6 billion (£4.6 billion) funding package to assist the creation of what could become known as the European Premier League.

 

More than a dozen teams from England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are in negotiations about becoming founder members of the competition.

 

As many as five English clubs could sign up to join it, with a provisional start date said to have been discussed as early as 2022.

 

Sources said that FIFA, football's world governing body, had been involved in developing the new format, which is expected to comprise up to 18 teams, and involve fixtures played during the regular European season.

The top-placed teams in the league would then play in a knockout format to conclude the tournament, with prize money for the winners expected to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds each year.

 

Continues here:

 

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12109174/european-premier-league-liverpool-and-manchester-united-in-talks-for-fifa-backed-tournament

 

 

[compo 6,107]

Manchester United aren't even the biggest club in Manchester they are getting a bit above themselves 

[MacK1950 2,230]

Greedy bastads soon to become an elitist supported sport outwith the finances of ordinary fans.☠️?

[Bill 13,717]

This might impress the big sponsors and media companies but it might finally alienate football fans. 

[ian1964 10,409]

 

[Scott7 5,133]

If it goes ahead up to five clubs might leave the EPL. The remainder might not want a full twenty but looking at Championship clubs it would be surprising if Rangers and possibly another Scottish team weren’t invited to the new UKL.

[ChelseaBoy 2,232]

On 20/10/2020 at 18:17, ian1964 said:

 

WTF would we want Sellick in the EPL, they don't like anything to do with the UK so can stay where they are. 

 

There are some English fans who are oblivious to what Sellick really are about. 

 

Would love to see Rangers in the EPL/EFL anyday, and I had hoped it would have happened when we were stitched up by the SPL and individual clubs. That other lot must laugh when they hear clowns like this. 

[ChelseaBoy 2,232]

On 20/10/2020 at 17:46, Bill said:

This might impress the big sponsors and media companies but it might finally alienate football fans. 

It will die on it's arse, as we have seen quite clearly over the last few months, without fans football is shite. No self respecting fan would want to see this and fans groups would be on the warpath.

[Bill 13,717]

1 minute ago, ChelseaBoy said:

It will die on it's arse, as we have seen quite clearly over the last few months, without fans football is shite. No self respecting fan would want to see this and fans groups would be on the warpath.

I'm not against change. In fact some changes are badly overdue but not changes that are so obviously intended only to increase and concentrate wealth within a small number of elite clubs, especially when the decisions to change are taken exclusively by those recipient clubs themselves. The structure of football in my lifetime has been dictated by a wish to accrue wealth and power and deny the same to the vast majority of clubs in all countries. The upshot is an almost total lack of competition and a ridiculously uneven distribution of wealth.

 

Before I start to sound like a convert to socialism, I should make it clear that competition should reward winners more than losers and equality of outcomes would kill the game stone dead. What's wrong isn't about the game on the park, it's about TV rights and global marketing. It's about farces like the "Champions" League allowing more clubs from some countries to snout in the trough while actual champions from other countries have to squabble among themselves for a couple of months for the right to be cannon fodder. So much of football isn't about football at all, with most clubs being assigned second or third class status before they even kick a ball. Decisions are being taken solely for the purposes of excluding most clubs from any chance of competing, any chance of putting the already-rich at risk of losing their money-status in the even they can't win on the park. 

 

It's so corrupt, so far removed from any sense of sport or fair play that if this is what you think football is about then you should seriously consider your priorities. Unless Rangers are involved, I wouldn't even consider turning the TV on to watch European football.

 

 

[Thinker 851]

On 20/10/2020 at 18:17, ian1964 said:

 

Going by the following article, the proposal doesn't involve clubs leaving their domestic leagues. The plan is to ditch the Champions League for a stitched-up, invitation only, big money, midweek league:

 

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12109353/european-premier-league-what-we-know-about-fifa-backed-plans-for-cross-continental-super-tournament

 

The so-called "Champions" League is already a joke. (4th place teams getting an automatic place?). UEFA thought they'd appeased the greedy bastards who own the "elite clubs" by practically guaranteeing group stage participation, but no.

 

Rather than the European Premier League, they should just have done with and brand it the Rich C*nts Who Don't Really Get What Football Is About League. I expect even the "European" aspect of it would be negotiable if it became lucrative to have a team from say, New York or Dubai, take part.