The announcement of the super league was hectic, I did not get to sleep much since (4-5 hours a day) trying to organize and connecting with the other fans to oppose it. Perez have to take the matter to the club members vote before it goes into effect but his plan was to get it set into stone first and right before it start then get to us regarding our vote to get our club into it so I and others were trying to organize to force a vote NOW while the iron is hot and the footballing world raging against it. I'm glad it got stopped but this is not over so here are my thoughts on the whole matter.
I think the clubs involved motivation can be divided into categories:
The first group is the clubs that are fan owned Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético Madrid (well Atlético Madrid is not fan owned anymore but that's a different long story and they still share the same views) and they are afraid of falling behind financially against clubs with owners that have deep pockets or flat out owned by states (directly or indirectly) and believe that in the long term they will be over spent and pushed out of the elite class of clubs. Their biggest problem is that they feel that no matter how much they can succeed commercially the the state clubs will brute force going ahead of them by throwing even more money and as bonus some of them are in leagues that have much bigger pay outs anyways. In the end they feel they are in a losing battle financially (and they can't do anything about it) and they are desperate for a way to keep level. Both Real Madrid and Barcelona presidents have to get their fans approval via vote to participate but their plan was to delay the vote until the super league is set in stone so they don't get blocked by the fans vote.
For this group the solution they wanted is to have equal spending caps based on an equal pay out for all the clubs in the super league so these two things are part of the super league.
The second group is the clubs that have billionaire owners that are not willing to inject enough money into their clubs to compete with the top spenders (Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan) and they have the same fears and feelings as the first group and want the same solution.
The third group is the clubs that have Billionaire owners that are not willing to inject enough money into their clubs to compete with the top spenders but also want guarantees that they get the money from the highest competition in Europe (Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur) they want to make big amounts of money for themselves out of their clubs and are sick of missing out on the CL and its marketing and money and they have a fear of relegation as their fans start hammering them about being relegated whenever their club drop to mid-table. The owners of these clubs are Americans who are used to sports organization with no relegation and that no matter how bad you manage your club and how little you invest into it you are guarantee top money and a shot at the top so basically no consequence for your performance not now not ever.
For this group the solution they wanted is to have guarantee spot at the top in the super league with no relegation ever and to be payed the same as everyone no matter how bad they play so these two things are part of the super league.
The fourth group is the clubs with billionaire owners or state owned who are actually more than happy to inject as much money into their clubs as they are allowed to (and go as far as using loopholes to add more too) and their main goal is marketing themselves (Manchester City and Chelsea). This group is actually secure in their ability to keep themselves in the top flight and to have a spot at the CL with no fear of relegation because they will spend the money to keep themselves competing for the titles. The owners of these group chose clubs that are not considered at the elite level historically in Europe and injected money into them to collect trophies and ascend the glory ladder, they want themselves to reach the elite clubs in terms of silverware and market share. This means these two clubs do not need any change as they are progressing the way they wanted BUT to achieve their goals they must be part of the elite top competitions so if this super league take off they need to be in it to market themselves best otherwise they will be in a lower tier league with lower marketing/exposure power.
Now on to the German clubs Bayern München and Borussia Dortmund, being part of the German league they adhere to the Bundesliga 50%+1 rule so they are fan owned and have to get their fans approval to join and to avoid their fans ire they did decline the invitation to join because if they accepted the fans will vote against it anyway but also will kick the clubs boards out too. If the super league went through I have no doubt they will join.
Now to the final original piece of the super league, PSG have the same views as group four but the owners also are organizing the World Cup in 2022 and that is a huge problem because starting the super league will put all clubs and owners involved in direct war with UEFA and FIFA so they will be risking losing the World Cup or at least ruining it with a piece of the footballing world being torn out so for them keeping everything as is is ideal but after the World Cup (or if they were not hosting it) I have no doubt they would have joined.
The super league did accommodate all the participants demands but they need to be able to pull it off so the lawyers get involved here and they did their homework. Their first goal is to get it off the ground so first they need to ward off any punishment FIFA or UEFA will dish out and the biggest weakness here is the anti-competitive legislation in Europe. The set up with the 12~15 clubs closed league can and will be dragged into court to kill it so their solution was the added 5 rotational clubs that they get to pick and choose for each season. It was not out of the good of their hearts but these rotational 5 clubs are nothing but an excuse to fight off any anti-competitive law suits. Now to fight off any sanctions/punishments from UEFA and FIFA they will use anti-competitive laws to fight/sue them, the idea is to acquire an injection to any punishment from UEFA/FIFA so their super league start and spend years in courts in the anti-competitive court case against UEFA/FIFA and by the end it doesn't matter if they win or lose the super league has been set in stone and taken off and they successfully hijacked the top competition spot in Europe in terms of broadcasting/market share/exposure..etc so either UEFA/FIFA accept it or they risk the new organization becoming the new de facto organizers of the world competitions like the euro or even the world cup.
They did anticipate the backlash they were ready to chock UEFA/FIFA in courts and although maybe they did not anticipate the level of how mental the backlash was (I'm sure they did not anticipate that the involved clubs fans will demand their own clubs to be fined/relegated/point deducted and punished, it was a full revolt) I think they would have held the line. The biggest problem for them is when the backlash prompted politicians to get involved, they can ward off the European politicians by using the courts too but their biggest problem is that the UK is no longer part of the European Union and so the UK has parliamentary sovereignty so they cannot hide behind the courts, if the UK parliament passed a law the courts can't save them in the UK. The super league has 6 members from the UK and the UK MPs including the PM himself vowed action including threat legislation to force the 6 clubs owners to sell their clubs back to the fans and this is the real reason why the UK clubs buckled and crumbled one after the other announcing that they started the procedure of pulling out because they know the UK parliament can actually do that, any other reason sited by these clubs about listening to the fans or anything else is a flat out lie it was only because of the fear that the UK parliament force sell their clubs back to the fans nothing else. The UK government of course want to protect its domestic league marketing income (and thus taxes in the government coffers) but also it is an easy vote winner for them but in reality I doubt they would have gone through with their threat because Manchester City owners pay the UK government for military equipment more than they get from the domestic league but I could be wrong on this point.
I think Perez saying the contracts are binding and there is a penalty for pulling out (I think in the tune of hundreds of millions) is true and that no one officially pulled out is true also. I think the clubs who announced they pulled out in reality just requested to delay it and Perez said it will come back, their plan is to wait out the storm first and second to look at the cause of failure this time and use their money to grease the UK MPs palms for the next round so the fight is not over.
I think it is important that we all keep the pressure up on the governments and there must be two fundamental demands. First a full disclosure of the contract they signed so we know all the terms and the penalties and to make sure the contracts are actually broken/canceled (they need to provide hard proof they pulled out none of us should believe those liars). Second to classify football as national heritage all across Europe and the UK and on that bases force fan full ownership of the clubs (or at least controlling/majority stock owned by the fans. Football is deeply integrated and evolved from the local communities culture after all. Anything less and they will pull this off next time after they get prepared for any counters we have. WE NEED TO FIGHT THIS, IT'S NOT OVER YET.
We’re talking serious clubs here like City who bent UEFA over at CAS, and you think they didn’t do their due diligence on the contract?
