AyeDubbleYoo

There'll still be a hierarchy. People are signing up to be a mid-table club in a different league.

Football clubs should be protected public assets, it would be like deciding to move Big Ben or paint it a different colour for a corporate sponsor. Just shouldn't be allowed.

Yep, everyone I play football with supports Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs and they're all absolutely furious.

Still nobody

Of course not, but the Trust's proposal isn't the significant fan ownership and control that we really need. It's just something they think is achievable.

Yeah, you have to have a kind of morbid admiration for such a small group of rich people ripping the absolute piss out of the world’s most beloved sport. Takes some type of cunt.

Even trying to be as objective as I can, surely it’s going to be shit? The point of European football is that it’s a battle and it’s tribal, the point of the champions league is that when you win it you’re crowned the best of the best. What is the jeopardy that’s going to make this compelling to watch? FWIW I would actually like to see more games between European teams at all levels, if the logistics could work. It’s not much different to travelling from Toronto to California to play a basketball game, for example But not like this, it’s more like WWE than football.

Surely it would be pointless or impossible to have ‘merit based’ teams in it anyway, since it would imply that people will be able to join and therefore leave? If nobody can leave, how can they add teams?

I’m shocked but not shocked I suppose. I’m not shocked the owners want something like this, but I’m a bit shocked they actually have so little appreciation for anything about the sport.

It doesn’t seem real at all. A leak, followed by a website done by an 8 year-old and a badly written press release. And this is for the elite of the elite in world sport? Football is absolutely riddled with cowboys and people with much more money than brain cells. Insane.

They’ve given what would happen as a theoretical haven’t they? Not that it’s happening now.

I can’t see anything on BBC confirming the cancellation of those games, even though they’re quoted as a source.

It’s kind of entertaining in a way, to see if a group of absolutely mental old men really can destroy the world’s favourite sport.

I’m not 100% sure they’re that professional. Look at how FIFA do their deals... seat of the pants and brown envelopes all over the place. The launch of this doesn't bode well at all.

The website looks like they didn’t expect to have to launch it, was the initial thing a leak?

Jesus

Tend to agree, it seems too absolutely mental to actually take place. Who knows obviously, but that’s the way I’m leaning at the moment.

I don’t think I would watch the remaining Premier League either TBH, the integrity of it would be absolutely wrecked. Good excuse to move on from football completely.

Are Spurs supported widely around the world? Why?

I guess stuff like the IPL in cricket works because there’s not the history or money in the rest of the domestic game? Given we already have incredibly rich leagues and European cups, it’s hard to picture how clubs and players would be better off. I could live with more regular games between clubs from different countries though, if it didn’t replace the domestic leagues.

Yeah, that’s what I was asking really. Are there enough interested fans and will they pay enough for the subscriptions? Guess there must be. TBH there is a certain enjoyment to American sports with no promotion and relegation. You can just enjoy the game and it doesn’t really matter that much if you have a bad season. Obviously that removes a lot of the drama as well.

The Premier League is an ironic body to be making a stand against money in football, but I do agree.

But even on TV. I’m not buying Sky to watch it, presumably vast amounts of other fans would be the same.

What on earth is that cap?

Who would actually want to watch? Does the Chinese TV audience (or whatever) deliver enough money to replace all the existing fans?