I wish the clubs would actually go ahead break away from their national associations and form the damn Super League. I'd much rather see a competitive Premier League with Aston Villa, Everton, Spurs and several others competing for the title than the current procession.

A 6ft 5 bodybuilder looks much more impressive standing next to an average person than another 6ft 5 bodybuilder. The worldwide support the top Premier League clubs are seeking have no deep connection to the club, unlike the communities they once sprung out of. When post-Ferguson Man Utd finish their fifth consecutive potless season mid-table in the 16 team European Super League, have their best players again wrenched away by Barcelona and Real Madrid, will they still be pulling in the same number of global fans and even be able to command the same television deals?

Perhaps it is a naive view but big clubs need small clubs and, ultimately, a competitive league is in the long-term benefit of everyone.

Question of when not if this will happen. If successful it will eclipse international football.
Perhaps a better analogy than Packer is the PDO/WDC schism in darts where large numbers of spectators ignore the premier talent and settle for a lower quality product with tradition?

No team that finishes bottom of a league can ever be called a 'super team'. But that is what will happen every year to one team in any 'European Super League'. Is that really what these big teams (and their supporters - let's not forget them), all of them used to having things more or less their own way in domestic competition, want to risk? And who'll be interested when, in week 28, eighth-placed Chelsea host ninth-placed Bayern Munich? Especially when, not far away, Spurs are playing Everton in a match that will decide who wins the English league and Crystal Palace are playing Burnley to determine who stays up.

It's probably all a bluff anyway, and UEFA and or FIFA should have the guts to unmask it (and at the same time demonstrate who is actually supposed to be running football). If it isn't, good luck and good riddance.

All that is at threat here is international football. The sooner FIFAs and UEFAs circus of irrelevant international tournaments come crashing down the better. Why should the football clubs who are the lifeblood of the game line Blatter Platini and Cos pockets every 2 years with ridiculous tournaments in non football countries like Switzerland and Qatar along with perpetual tournaments in France and Germany whos leagues are relatively low in quality compared to Englands and Spains?

The large clubs breaking away will end FIFAs UEFAs blatant anti English bias at least. With a more professional outlook the referees would be accountable for appalling decisions. Video technology could be used so to minimise the ridiculous refereeing decisions which of course FIFA are opposed to because the purpose of FIFA is seemingly to blight every generation of England players.

Football clubs are the bread and butter of the game. This breakaway league could work well if constructed imaginatively it doesnt necessarily have to be round robin league format and teams should suffer relegation if they finish in last place with possibly a play off system. Existing domestic competitions could survive with possibly weakened teams of the big clubs still eligible. Promotion to superleague could involve a high profile play off system such as in the football league.

The money would at least remain within the clubs not in brown paper bags to some corrupt administrator CONCAF idiot voting for World Cup 2030 to take place in Kazakhstan or whatever.
FIFA destroyed. Problem solved. Playing field levelled.

? ^ Help I seem to have wandered onto the Talksport website

Really? I had no idea that Talksport shared this view. Sorry for this outrage. Consider myself thoroughly ashamed. I can assure that my preference is 5 live.

However, the more I think about it the more this superleague makes sense. Consider the situation where Man Utd A are in a two horse race for the superleague title and Man U B are teetering on the brink of relegation from the English top flight. That could be a very real possibility that seemed utterly impossible during the big 4 days. The top clubs would be spreading themselves thinly over 2 leagues as they will have to keep the B team running in case of relegation of team A from Superleague.

The only sacrificial lamb would be the current international football calendar which I would happily see revamped. Why not have International league or two legged football? You could still keep a World Cup Final which must be played at a neutral venue.

This insantly removes the politics and corruption of the bidding process for tournaments. And with it the likes of Blatter.

I don't mind K.-H. Rummenigge giving some grief to Zurich (FIFA) and Nyon (UEFA) over various issues, particularly with focus on FIFA's many, many missteps (and publicly known corruption).

After all (and Kalle Rummenigge knows this all too well), how much blundering can FIFA do? Executive members openly accept bribes to vote for Qatar to host the World Cup in year 2022 knowing that the scalding, oppressive heat in June/July forces a calendar move to January/February to pull off the tournament there.

Yet this would create havoc with 75% of the national leagues around the globe.

Doesn't everyone remember Sepp Blatter's 4 7 Rule that morphs eventually to 6 5 where the "6" means players who are "homegrown" talents. That was pushed by FIFA...and then died just prior to first needing to take effect in August 2010.

It is stunts like this from FIFA and the combined FIFA/UEFA gobbling up of every available spot on the yearly calendar that gets at the goats of the big clubs.

And now FIFA wants to alter everything in the calendar.

Bavarian guys are for tradition, and Kalle Rumminigge is no different.

So this "sabre-rattling" is "pushback" from Rummenigge. Rightly so.

The clubs invest all their capital in the players and the players' development/future. The clubs take on all the risks. So they want to retrieve a lot more "say-so" on what occurs in football.

Rummenigge won't quarrel too much with UEFA; he's been a board member there. He's tight with too many people there. But he will gladly jump on and pound FIFA while they're down (and while FIFA is being ridiculed by anyone paying attention).


@reddybrick, this is a side issue, but I'm not sure where you're coming from our what you are watching, but the German Bundesliga does not have to bow to any league. Its weekly open-ended matches that are much less predictable than La Liga or the EPL often outscore the other big leagues. Or you get a result that turns everything on its head. Example (where Karl-Heinz has to eat a little humble pie) FC Bayern losing the home opener to Borussia Moechengladbach 0:1. 'Gladbach has only won twice in Munich against FC Bayern in the last 46 years.

Maybe this will cool K-H Rumminigge's jets for a bit; hard to claim your club is Euro Super League ready when you've just lost at home to a team that barely avoided dropping last season.

Two things getting mixed up here.
FIFA is clearly a corrupt and morally bankrupt organisation. The sooner European clubs break away from it the better. If UEFA had a bit more about it it could take over.
The sooner Man U, Real Madrid and friends bugger off into their own little world leaving the rest of us to to watch some competitive football the better. If a Super League (TM) were to be formed it will almost certainly be a closed shop - no relegation. Why should the leagues left behind accept a Barcelona or Bayern B team in their league. Make it clear that if they go they go. There is no way back. Don't give them the option of trying it out and when it collapses about their ears they can just pick up where they left off.

Some of us 'Man U' fans can't think of much worse than a so called Super League.

Agree with Donedmundo. The primary aims aren't just that the larger clubs want to build a self-serving league where the cash just keeps on coming and that their fans want to see the same 'stars' every week competing with each other, the other - perhaps not so much stated - aim is to sever all ties with the riff-raff who can't attract the best, who don't have megastores in every corner of the globe and who potter along in their own unlucrative way, being only of use when they have a 'wonderkid' in their ranks whom they can snatch and offer them a bigger pay packet than they've had in their lives, even though the most they'll do is appear in a cup round or just play in the reserves.

The wheat, it seems, want to rub shoulders with their own kind instead of remaining around with the chaff (if wheat had shoulders, obviously) and so anticipate a future where only the likes of Barca are worth sharing room with. If that's not their stated intent, then it would be an indulgent perk of a super-league.

So why should they treat the domestic league as if it was a pair of comfy slippers they can easily slip on and off for their own benefit? When they mean to sever ties then it should be as complete a severance that can be created. I would even accept that they cannot cherry-pick buys from that club's country of origin and look at other areas of the world to make their player acquisitions. Yep, I know that other countries would sniff around, but I don't think the need to 'smash-and-grab' talent as our larger outfits are adept at doing would be so intense.

Or maybe that's an unworkable idea. But then a concept where the biggest clubs can create their own little fiefdom of money and power and supposedly leave every other outfit to pick up the pieces after them is just as dopey.

To me the most frustrsting thing is the morons who will buy into all this with their TV subscriptions, trips to the megastores and stuff. You know who I mean, the Man U fans who've never been to Manchester, or seen them play anywhere else, or the Real Madrid fans who can't speak Spanish.

Yes the clubs behave badly, but only because people are stupid and let them.