Appleyard
Registered User
I view any and all sports as businesses it’s how my brain works.
UEFA and FIFA are also unbelievably corrupt. They just don’t want to lose money with these statements about the Champions League, World Cup, etc with bans. They don’t actually care about the spirit of the game.
EDIT: There is a major difference between how North Americans and Europeans view their sports.
They are both corrupt. At least major "arms" of them are. (they also do some good work, mainly on the foundation side of things, which is very seperate) have spoken to several of the people involved in that work and also kind of worked alongside them at times and outside of the top level some good work. Even if core is rotten.
BUT at same time football is not just just 15 teams. It is thousands of teams. The pyramid structure across Europe is the lifeblood of so many towns. And UEFA, national bodies etc help ensure that smaller teams can keep running, keep developing players, keep a towns identity, culture etc.
The talk about "trickle down" from those clubs is just comedy. Like... how are Oldham Athletic or Rochdale Town going to benefit from the Super League? Yeh... once every 10 years they get £500,000 from a bigger club for a Micah Richards or Danny Philliskirk... that fee might be £750,000 if Super League goes ahead... but way less money from other sources as a result. How is women's football going to benefit?
Imagine if the Original Six engineered it so they were guaranteed play-offs every year no matter where they finished? And then refused to put money in to pot, and did not have to have a salary cap when everyone else did? And refused to participate in draft and signed all players from their areas instead? The NHL would be a joke. And ofc the NHL does not directly help support ~5 other professional leagues in a pyramid, or women's and disabled hockey.
Most people in Europe dont grow up dreaming of playing for Real Madrid... or Liverpool... or in a World Cup. They grow up wanting to wear a Carlisle United shirt... or a Estrella da Amadora shirt.
In the UK our 2nd tier is almost as well attended as top tier. (14 million vs 11 million a year)
Our FOURTH tier gets 2.5 million a year attending. Like 6000 people per team every week. That is more popular than the AHL.
And with Super League? A lot of the money is diverted away from those hundreds of clubs and towns to make the rich richer.
Germany has arguably the most successful club structure in Europe in terms of finances, are one of best leagues in world (with several of the biggest clubs), and is cheapest major league to attend, with best atmospheres … they have in effect fan ownership. We need to go more towards that instead of toward how US do things.