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Could someone sum up what this is about? (What is the super league, what it was supposed to accomplish, why people are unhappy - assuming I know nothing about f

Could someone sum up what this is about? (What is the super league, what it was supposed to accomplish, why people are unhappy - assuming I know nothing about football)

emptyfile 6y ago
The UEFA(European) Champions League is the most popular football club competition in the world. In its current incarnation it is a knockout tournament where the best positioned clubs in all the different national leagues come together to compete. So the basic idea is that you have to reach a certain position in your domestic league to compete in the tournament next year. Otherwise you don't get to compete, or you can compete in a lower rated Europa League. The big clubs didn't like this, the idea that they might miss out on the CL and the big TV bucks, and on the other hand they don't like the idea that small, not attractive clubs can get in the CL and basically lower the TV appeal of matches since less fans follow them. So, they decided to ignore the CL, and create their own competition which would pretty much look exactly like the American NBA,NHL,etc. model. The clubs would be fixed always the same, regardless of how they play in their national leagues. But they did expect to continue playing in the national leagues, simply abstaining from the UEFA competitions. Basically the idea of an unchanging big club Super Legaue goes against what a lot of people consider to be the biggest appeal of Europe wide football: free competition, lots of clubs from all around, a chance for everyone to win, a strict requirement to play good in your national league.
carschno 6y ago
UEFA is the European Football Association in which all national football leagues are associated. They organize European tournaments in which the top clubs of these national leagues play each other, while also playing in their national leagues. In the European Super League, a group of European top clubs wanted to establish a new league format, presumably leaving the UEFA tournaments and national competitions (although details have been vague). This would basically mean that UEFA itself would have competition by a new parallel organization. The distress has its context in the ongoing struggle between commercialization of football and its "traditional" roots in which (local) sport clubs often form part of the identity of its supporters. This identity threatens to lose its basis when the commercialization makes the clubs more and more for-profit entertainment businesses. One can argue about how far football already is down the line. But clearly, that supporter identification even with the largest clubs still persists.

Could someone sum up what this is about? (What is the super league, what it was supposed to accomplish, why people are unhappy - assuming I know nothing about football)

emptyfile 6y ago

The UEFA(European) Champions League is the most popular football club competition in the world. In its current incarnation it is a knockout tournament where the best positioned clubs in all the different national leagues come together to compete. So the basic idea is that you have to reach a certain position in your domestic league to compete in the tournament next year. Otherwise you don't get to compete, or you can compete in a lower rated Europa League. The big clubs didn't like this, the idea that they might miss out on the CL and the big TV bucks, and on the other hand they don't like the idea that small, not attractive clubs can get in the CL and basically lower the TV appeal of matches since less fans follow them. So, they decided to ignore the CL, and create their own competition which would pretty much look exactly like the American NBA,NHL,etc. model. The clubs would be fixed always the same, regardless of how they play in their national leagues. But they did expect to continue playing in the national leagues, simply abstaining from the UEFA competitions. Basically the idea of an unchanging big club Super Legaue goes against what a lot of people consider to be the biggest appeal of Europe wide football: free competition, lots of clubs from all around, a chance for everyone to win, a strict requirement to play good in your national league.

carschno 6y ago

UEFA is the European Football Association in which all national football leagues are associated. They organize European tournaments in which the top clubs of these national leagues play each other, while also playing in their national leagues. In the European Super League, a group of European top clubs wanted to establish a new league format, presumably leaving the UEFA tournaments and national competitions (although details have been vague). This would basically mean that UEFA itself would have competition by a new parallel organization. The distress has its context in the ongoing struggle between commercialization of football and its "traditional" roots in which (local) sport clubs often form part of the identity of its supporters. This identity threatens to lose its basis when the commercialization makes the clubs more and more for-profit entertainment businesses. One can argue about how far football already is down the line. But clearly, that supporter identification even with the largest clubs still persists.