Listening to the Price of Football podcast today Kieran Maguire seems convinced the big clubs still want to expand the Champions League and that the only way to fit in the extra fixtures is by scrapping the League Cup and cutting the Premiership to 18 clubs; clearly neither of these would be good for City.
Can't see how expanding the CL would affect us, Cutting the PL number from 20 to 18 will affect maybe for a couple of seasons, The main thing for all divisions is to keep promotion and relegation, As for scrapping the League Cup, I wouldn't do that, I'd scrap the EFL Trophy and keep the League Cup, That means the cup is just for the FL. Let's be honest, The EFL trophy is unless you get anywhere close to the final is very low down on clubs radar, Most put out fringe and youth players for the early rounds and attendances are very poor, Probably costs more to run the stadium than the amount of fans that attend. The PL treat the League Cup the same way as we treat the EFL trophy if they want out then fair enough.
With regards to number 4, The money from TV deals would be hugely reduced if the "Big 6" buggered off to form a European Super League because that is where Sky, BT, Amazon etc would want a slice of and they would pay huge money for those rights. As a product at the moment it's the PL as it is today that sells, A PL without the bigger teams would not be such a sellable product, It's about audiences etc and rights across the world, The big teams have huge followings in Asia and China, That's why they watch it, Not because Brighton are playing Burnley, The Championship doesn't get anywhere near that interest abroad, We might enjoy it but the domestic interest won't be enough for TV companies to she'll out the billions they do now. It would offer vastly reduced terms and our slice of it in L2 would be much smaller than it is today.
Spot on.
I'm afraid this is totally beyond the comprehension of anyone in the Premier League and all football pundits. I was talking to someone recently and after I told him I was a keen football fan he immediately started talking about MotD and the Premier league, when I told him I never watched MotD and couldn't care less about the Premier league, he looked at me like I was an alien and didn't seem to be able to process that information!
Exactly right, Also trying to keep calling it The "Champions League" would look stupid, Even more than it does now, Back in the day, The European Cup was solely for Champions of the various leagues across Europe, Not the top four. Also in domestic leagues to qualify for Europe, Whether CL or Europa is the exciting bit, If a European League is formed what are the winners goal? To keep winning a league where there is no promotion or relegation and where winning it means you don't enter a even more top competition, Perhaps they'll expand that awful World Club Championship? Being held in a country where the quality of football is on L1 par at best and because that countries FA paid the most?
Yes. ‘Who do you support?’
I've been saying this for years.