John W. Henry is part of the same school of apology as Mark Zuckerberg: do a wrong thing, apologize and later start another wrong thing. Rince and repeat.
They believe apology is a performative miracle sponge that reset everything. It’s ethically wrong, but the market proves them right.
See: A Brief History Of Mark Zuckerberg Apologizing (Or Not Apologizing) Fo
I hope Linda had a say in this apology…
Isn’t that just human nature? The difference with the likes of Zuckerberg and Henry is their view on the world probably doesn’t align with common people like me and you.
We all make mistakes, we all have self-centered intrests at our core. Their mistakes just impact a hell of a lot of people then ours do.
I do find it strange that people are surprised John Henry a billionaire owner of a hedge fund is primarily motivated by money over other things…
O noes!!!
They’ve played the Blood Oath card!!!
We’re fucked now!!!
Oh the irony! Were we not just abusing this man for putting money before football? And now we’ll be demanding he spends more money to earn our forgiveness! Long live the revolution!
The thing is, they can reform solidarity payments now. They don’t need to break away to do that so the question must be, why don’t they?
The easiest way to do that is to say all players pay a % of their wages (deducted at source) earned after they turn 23 to clubs that trained them between the ages of 11 and 18 and a % of all transfer fees (both international and domestic transfers) is also distributed in the same way. Training compensation gets paid largely in accordance with the existing European model (our own PFCC needs scrapping).
So that’s one thing taken care of from that attempt to conceal greed under a veneer of virtue signalling. Next?
Welcome to the UEFA Super League… It’s like a parody… But not…
The was proposed before the ESL and the clubs didn’t seem to buy it. I don’t like it either. What happened to merit…
If we finish outside the top 4 so be it. We go again next season, with thurs nught footy, win the EL and PL and get back to the CL.
You could actually just solely concentrate on the Champions League. Wouldn’t even matter if you got relegated from your top domestic league by playing your reserves. Just keep playing an elite squad dedicated to Europe and chances are you’d easily maintain a high enough coefficient. Maybe they should make recourse to such a ‘safety net’ something that could only be done by any particular club once every few years?
It was meant to be ironic.
Is the club coefficient only calculated from UEFA matches? For example, the FA Cup and League Cup are irrelevant? Well, apart from the domestic cups allowing qualification to Ropa. Also, what the fuck is with 2 points toward co-efficient for a group win (for both CL and Ropa!!) and only one each for quarter final, semi-final and final in CL proper? That makes no sense.
Well technically it is based on merit. Do well in Europe and you qualify.
It’s a collective failure but the players’ responsibility comes last. Who would demand less than what his peers are getting?
We are where we are because clubs started living beyond their means and the domestic leagues and UEFA stood idly by. Then billionaires and sovereign funds were allowed to buy football clubs and distort the market by plunging hundreds of millions to make them competitive virtually overnight making the bubble bigger and bigger.
The players took what was on offer. They started making obscene demands because they saw that clubs and owners were all too happy to meet them.
Leeds paid for being mismanaged as did Rangers and Parma. Now as @Kopstar said it’s time for Real Madrid and Barcelona to face the consequences. The bubble has to burst.
This would be a brilliant opportunity for football to reset.
I seriously don’t know how you do it and I seriously have no optimism this will happen
Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli says the European Super League project cannot proceed following the withdrawal of the six Premier League clubs.
Agnelli was one of the chief architects of the breakaway plans, which involved 12 clubs from England, Spain and Italy.
However, with teams withdrawing, he accepts it cannot now go ahead.
“To be frank and honest no, evidently that is not the case,” said Agnelli, when asked whether the Super League could still happen.
“I remain convinced of the beauty of that project, of the value that it would have developed to the pyramid, of the creation of the best competition in the world, but evidently no. I don’t think that project is now still up and running.”
Agnelli was described as a “snake and a liar” by Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin on Monday after the announcement of the breakaway plans on Sunday evening.
Agnelli resigned his position as chairman of the European Clubs’ Association on Sunday and refused to take calls from Ceferin.
The six Premier League clubs involved all withdrew within hours of each other on Tuesday following a furious backlash to the plans.
Manchester City were the first club to pull out after Chelsea had signalled their intent to do so by preparing documentation to withdraw.
The other four sides - Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham - then followed suit late on Tuesday evening.
Italian side Inter Milan are also set to withdraw as they no longer wish to be involved with the project.
BBC Sport understands bosses at the Serie A club are preparing for their exit following Tuesday night’s dramatic developments.
The 12-team Super League, set up by the six English teams and Inter, plus Spain’s Atletico Madrid, Barcelona and Real Madrid and Italy’s AC Milan and Juventus was announced on Sunday to widespread condemnation.
“Despite the announced departure of the English clubs, forced to take such decisions due to the pressure put on them, we are convinced our proposal is fully aligned with European law and regulations,” the ESL said earlier on Wednesday, adding it was “convinced that the current status quo of European football needs to change”.
“Real Madrid president Florentino Perez is insisting on the idea of keeping the group together to push for change,” says Spanish football expert Guillem Balague.
“Barcelona say they agreed to the ESL, but only if the season ticket holders’ assembly approve it, which could be their way out.”
Balague also says Atletico Madrid are meeting on Wednesday morning to review their position.
Imagine how toxic the atmosphere is going to be (if we make it) in the champions league next season if we draw Real, Barca or Juventus… plus others but they seem to be the main players in pushing this for their own agendas
Barca have seemed baffling really, “oh we didn’t sign up we need to ask the fans anyhow” but that came out way before we pulled out.
Couldn’t care about Juve or RM and their toxicity anyhow, and Chelsea are about to square off against them anyhow.
As for UEFA’s changes, it’s not 12 teams fucking off and joining their own exclusive league and inviting a further 5 teams every year from the whole of Europe. Yes I hate the way you only play a selection of clubs of the 10 in your group, but if your a Leicester, Atalanta, Ajax,Porto and so on you still get the chance to qualify, that was at the behest of the 12 clubs under these new plans, say Leicester pissed off Man Utd in that season, would they turn around and go well this season we only see it fair to pick a Turkish club.
UEFA’s leader needs to shut his gob, the fans who were against this aren’t interested in his platitudes and the EU and other governments need to work together to force changes on UEFA, if they won’t change themselves.
For Real, Barca and Juve this is nakedly about fixing their catastrophic mismanagement of their clubs. They are the real bad guys here.
I get why people focus on John Henry, but I see FSG as in this because they see it as a way to keep LFC competitive and exert greater influence on the sport, through cost control mechanisms like a salary cap or similar.