The Owners - FSG

The Albert
1441

I’m still torn over this super league thing. This is all about money for the elite teams in Europe. Champions League is popular because of the pristige of the big clubs involve, but also the merit of smaller teams making a cup run and winning it.
I don’t like idea of the new league where all the founding teams stays forever, but I do like the concept of the league. I would like to see UEFA to adopt it in place of the champions league. Make it a 24 team elite competition that still requires team to qualify through league ranking to get in. Teams play home/away against each other and top 8 teams go into the knockout phase.

The owners are definitely looking out for themselves, no question about it. The problem is UEFA and FIFA isn’t a saint either. UEFA is panicking that they’re about to lose a big chunk of their revenues if the elite teams quit. This is gonna get really ugly before it’ll get better. Football is so commercialized nowadays, you can’t really compare it to how it was 25yrs ago. Every team is run like a mega corporation top to bottom. It’s all about the bottom line🤑. I think the big clubs have every right to maximize their revenues. Especially when 80+% of the league/tournament revenue are generated from the elite clubs. If UEFA can pass on more autonomy to the clubs and allow them to sell their own TV deals and conduct their business then this would have been avoided. However, I do think the elite clubs are responsible for growing the game, they need to do more to support the lower pyramid of the football circle.

I don’t want to see super league, but I do think a change is inevitable. If the super league does get pushed through, then I think it’s time to think about how to make the best out of a shitty situation :expressionless:.

1 Like
1442

Keep in mind that a lot of the revenue of the larger company is TV distribution of Red Sox games (and possibly Bruins and other NE teams). It would not surprise me at all to find out their purchase of us was part of a long term strategy of winning the right to shown our games on his own network.

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1443

I think it’s inevitable with foreign ownerships. Gone are the days with local ownerships that connects with the local community. It’s all about making money for foreign owners.

1444

Great article by Matt Ladson

Liverpool and the Super League: We’re all ‘FSG Out’ now

No matter how this plays out, and even if the ‘Super League’ doesn’t happen, Liverpool’s owners have lost their fanbase and trust.**

Fenway Sports Group have, until now, been relatively good owners for Liverpool FC – they’ve delivered a lot and put Liverpool back among Europe’s elite.

They have done that by sporting achievement, appointing a manager, growing the club sensibly, improving infrastructure and working hard to achieve that.

But to be a key player in making Liverpool one of the ‘Super Clubs’ they have proven they have no understanding of Liverpool as a city, a football club, or its supporters.

Even if there was to be an eventual backtrack – something FSG have been masters in during their time in control of the club – there is no coming back from this. The trust is broken, lost forever.

What the American ownership group, headed by principal owner John W. Henry, do not seem to understand is that their desired changes would render the actual sport of football relatively meaningless.

Liverpool FC could finish bottom of the proposed new ‘Super League’ but it would not matter, they would be in it again next season, and the season after, and the season after.

Even as Liverpool supporters, we don’t want that. We want our team to achieve things based on sporting merit, not because they happened to have the most clout when the league was set up.

Meanwhile, due to the increased number of games in the ‘Super League’ it would be impossible to play the strongest team in both that and the Premier League and so winning the Premier League would no longer be celebrated in the same manner. ‘Super Clubs’ would be focussed on winning the ‘Super League’ and play rotated teams in the domestic competition.

Liverpool fans were denied a title celebration due to the pandemic, now they would never feel that elation of achievement ever again. The sporting merit is gone, lost forever.

Even if you win the ‘Super League’ there would be no meritocracy – you didn’t qualify for it, you did nothing to warrant being in the competition in the first place.

Liverpool FC could finish bottom of a Super League, 17th in the [Premier League], and it would not matter because they would still be in the ‘elite’ competition the following season. Why bother?

What they seem to have misunderstood is that sporting integrity matters in England and Europe. Even if a ‘Super League’ model benefits Liverpool by them being in the ‘founding members’ and forever entrenched among the ‘elite’, why bother then if you’re guaranteed that?

Liverpool’s game against Leeds United this evening was a key game of seven remaining fixtures for Jurgen Klopp‘s side to achieve qualification for next season’s Champions League. Under the ‘Super League’ model there is nothing to play for.

In normal times it would be a passionate atmosphere at Elland Road this evening, a win would be celebrated, the fans would be part of the game. Under the new model, would a win really be as important or significant? Would the players even need to work that hard – what difference really does a draw or defeat even mean?

This is summed up today by Liverpool’s official Twitter account – a key communication tool for the club – has no mention of this evening’s game. The football is pointless.

And then, what happens when the Premier League TV deals are completely and utterly obliterated by this and the impact it has on the other teams in England (and other domestic leagues around Europe)?

The ‘Super Clubs’ would need to carry bigger squads, do they just swallow up all the best players, devaluing the domestic leagues further?

So non-‘Super Clubs’ suffer further, the overall sport is devalued further. What ambitions do teams like Leicester, Everton, West Hamand Co. have? Why would [Everton] bother with a new stadium? Where would the funding for that come from now? Their ambitions are forever limited.

The disparity becomes greater, the dreams and ambitions of the many become broken. Even as Liverpool supporters, we want other clubs to have that dream.

What is also abhorrent about the situation is that there is a clear attempt to take advantage of the pandemic and empty stadiums. The backlash is already ferocious, with the Spion Kop 1906 supporters’ group announcing they will be removing their banners from the Kop, and banners instead have already been displayed outside of Anfield against the ‘Super League’.

If this was being done in normal times, the protests would be huge.

This is an attempt by already extremely wealthy businessmen to completely destroy the sporting integrity of English and European football.

John Henry and Co. have hidden behind statements and showed absolute cowardice, complete disregard for the supporters who create and make their ‘product’ unique. In a business sense, they are killing their own ‘unique selling point’.

Managers have not been consulted over these plans, yet we’re told that this ‘Super League’ is to begin in August. How can Jurgen Klopp not be told of a complete change to his job that will require massive planning, with four months to go?

It’s utter contempt for the managers, players, supporters and everybody involved in this sport. A few wealthy businessmen making decisions to rip up the sporting institutions that have been around for centuries.

An Italian newspaper editorial on Monday writes that “the Super League is the antithesis of football: they want to kill the passion for the game in the name of profit… and to turn fans into mere consumers.”

Sporting integrity matters in sport.

And I will add the words of one of the greatest in Liverpool’s history.

‘‘The socialism I believe in isn’t really politics. It is a way of living. It is humanity. I believe the only way to live and to be truly successful is by collective effort, with everyone working for each other, everyone helping each other, and everyone having a share of the rewards at the end of the day. That might be asking a lot, but it’s the way I see football and the way I see life.’’

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1445

That is an astonishingly stupid quite from the TIA article.

Also, by my calculation it adds only 1 game to the schedule to get the QFs compared to the current model, so don’t know I see the argument about the PL being diminished by the sides selected for those games.

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1446

This was in making for a long time. The transfer fees have been rising, the players’ wages have been rising, the fixtures became more congested leading to bigger squad and more expenses in injury & rehabilitations. The gate-receipts are (somewhat) fixed so the clubs/owners increasingly had to rely on TV money and commercial deals, leading them away from core/indigenous fans.

1447

Hyperbolic, myopic and full of an outrage that is just outraged for the sake of being outraged because everyone is outraged without really being sure what to be outraged about and finally realising that ‘sporting integrity’ is just about all he could come up with. So no, not so great.

If this goes ahead, FSG will probably meet with SoS and outline the why, the where and the how, they will somehow find reconciliation with it and everyone else outraged will feel like right tits because, you know, Spirit of Shankly…

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1448

Great post on most of the ills of football that need to be addressed.

I just want to comment on the bolder part, and the ability of government to run elite football well. I am not confident in the government to do so! At all.

Obviously if they demonstrate that they can run the health service well, pay nurses, value teachers, fight a pandemic, help lift people out of poverty with proper jobs and opportunities - and whatever else we are looking for government to do, then yes… expand their remit to straighten out football too.

But as things stand, I want the government sorting out bigger stuff than football, and much as football is important to me, it is just a game and not a matter of life and death.

The point is well made that club owners will not have altruistic intentions. They are in it for the money. But so are all the other various governing bodies in football. They all have their noses in the tough, and what this is, among other things, is a wrestling match over who runs the show, and thus makes the dough.

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1449

About sums it up. Spirit of Shankly have a history of knee-jerkery. Very similar to the ticket price outcry where their fume about a small minority of tickets that wouldn’t have affected them costing £79 leading to fans staging walk-outs and resulting in a revised pricing strategy that actually caused ticket prices to be increased for the average fan. Something SOS somehow managed to sell as a victory and a climb down by the club. All because they got rid of that very highest price bracket. Whoop whoop.

I wish they were more considered and a lot less reactionary. They might even find the club took them more seriously if they were.

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1450

And I’m a scouser and I’m not up in arms about it! We should accept that people will have their viewpoints no matter where they live or come from. I’m slightly wary of the proximity to L4 sort of angle in the debate.

The issue is ultimately about ownership, and club owners are pushing back because they want more say so, and revenue.

I’m sure a compromise will be reached, and what is in play right now won’t be the final word.

Domestic football will remain intact.
Money will go down the football pyramid.
Elite clubs will get more autonomy to make more money, especially TV revenue.
People in power will continue to pocket lots of money.

And the world will keep on spinning.

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1451

Another sensible post… everyone jockeying for power position before the real negotiations begin

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1452

Forgive me, I wasn’t suggesting that the government took over the running of football. I was simply saying that they are the only ones that can actually intervene and bring about the reset that is so desperately needed.

National governments need to get together and build a consensus about how to run sporting competitions from grass roots to the elite. Work with stakeholders and lawmakers to construct a governance framework that deals with aspects from contracts, wages, transfer fees, licensing of intermediaries, staff salaries, community investment, safe-standing etc. Much of this framework is already there, it just requires re-working and this can only be initiated by the government. The other stakeholders have either shown themselves to be incapable, would introduce changes solely to act in their self-interest, or are otherwise impotent.

Basically, revise the structure and regulatory working environment of the national associations and league bodies for them to then run the sport within.

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1453

I’m reasonably supportive of the owners on this not because I think the ESL is a good thing or agree with the format but that UEFA needed breaking away from.

Perhaps UEFA (and FIFA for that matter) needs a little competition to get its act together and reform… and perhaps it won’t even be beneficial for the club.

But this act of trying or threatening to breakaway might just achieve some reform that has been long overdue.

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1454

Great post :100: agree :+1:

1455

Free market capitalism in action; never going to happen.

Governments aren’t going to introduce a maximum wage; the only thing which could be used to curb ever-rising wages is a salary cap, but that’s for the sport’s governing bodies to implement.

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1456

Doesn’t FIFA prohibit interferences from the politicians (who form the governments)?

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1457

Wouldn’t have minded a European League that sits above domestic leagues and lasts an entire season with relegation and promotion from the domestic leagues. I realise that, that would be unacceptable to most fans but just my opinion.

What doesn’t sit well with me at all is permanent Founding Clubs a la NFL. Would want the team I follow to fight to win and to survive.

1458

Alongside ensuring that it doesn’t break the law (hence why governments need to be involved). Sports governing bodies can only introduce a wage cap within the constrains of the law. Same with any action with regard to transfer fees and agents fees.

1460

The common law has helped this along a bit over the years (eg Eastham v Newcaste United 1964) in respect to the old retain and transfer system. But the main issue is that it needs to be coordinated internationally otherwise players will just go to where there are less constraints on what they can earn. It’s not impossible to introduce wage caps (as we’ve seen with Rugby) and discussions have been going on about scrapping transfer fees for decades.

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1461

There’s my answer about tonight’s match.