Elk's recent comment got me thinking. A European super league would be dope. There's been noise of it happening. Florentino Perez wants a different competition to the Champions League. Wenger, Seedorf, and Gordon Strachan can see it happening. Representatives from Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, and United were seen leaving a meeting regarding the possibility of one in 2016.
Maybe it's my American mentality versus the overall European mentality, but here, teams not in the highest professional leagues aren't really given the time of day. The minor leagues in baseball (AAA, AA, A) aren't well attended (highest average attendance for any team is less than 9,000). The NBA's G League is probably even less for all I know. As a result, people can follow teams regardless of distance, and there as much pressure to support the closest team as there is in Europe. For the NFL, there can be a Pittsburgh Steelers fan in Los Angeles (LA to Pittsburgh: 2,419 mi, or 3,893 km) or a New England Patriots fan in Portland, Oregon (Portland to Boston: 3,097 mi, or 4,984 km).
Will it be good for European football? Depends on whom you ask. I'd love to see the biggest European clubs go at it over an entire season in one league instead of playing shit-tier fodder in the CL group stages. This would probably all but kill the vast majority of clubs in Europe, but money talks, and there's a decent chance a European super league will eventually happen, regardless of what the average fan wants. The European Cup (and its predecessors) was limited to domestic champions and the previous season's European Cup champion before morphing into the Champions League, where multiple participants were allowed from multiple countries, thereby increasing the number of big clubs allowed to participate. Like the European Cup becoming the Champions League, a super league will be a natural progression of the Champions League, getting rid of qualifying rounds and group stage fodder in favor of only the biggest clubs.
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Super League
1) Arsenal
2) Chelsea
3) Liverpool
4) Manchester City
5) Manchester United
6) Atletico Madrid
7) Barcelona
8) Real Madrid
9) AC Milan
10) Inter Milan
11) Juventus
12) Lyon
13) PSG
14) Bayern Munich
15) Borussia Dortmund
16) Schalke
17) Fenerbahce
18) Galatasaray
19) SL Benfica
20) Zenit
Criteria:
•No decrepit stadium
•Minimum stadium capacity: 45,000
•Minimum annual revenue: €150m
•No more than 5 clubs per country (revenue is tiebreaker)
Clubs with room to improve:
•Tottenham (revenue tiebreaker)
•Monaco (stadium capacity, revenue)
•Marseille (revenue)
•Roma (decrepit stadium?)
•Napoli (decrepit stadium, revenue)
•Shakhtar Donestk (decrepit stadium, revenue)
•Ajax (revenue)
•PSV (stadium capacity, revenue)
•Feyenoord (revenue)
•Besiktas (revenue)
•Porto (revenue)
•Sporting CP (revenue)
•Spartak Moscow (revenue)
•Celtic (revenue)
•Rangers (revenue)
Second Division
1. Everton
2. Tottenham
3. Sevilla
4. Valencia
5. Marseille
6. Monaco
7. Borussia Monchengladbach
8. RB Leipzig
9. Napoli
10. Roma
11. Porto
12. Sporting CP
13. Ajax
14. PSV
15. Dynamo Kiev
16. Shakhtar Donestk
17. Celtic
18. Rangers
19. Besiktas
20. Spartak Moscow
Criteria:
•Stadium has modern facilities or plans to renovate/build new stadium
•Minimum stadium capacity: 30,000 (Monaco granted an exception based on stadium expansion being unfeasible)
•Minimum revenue: €75m
•No more than 2 clubs per country (revenue is tiebreaker)
•No clubs from the same city (Celtic and Rangers granted an exception based on historical significance)
Third Division
Cba to do one, but regional leagues (like Iberia, Scandinavia, Eastern bloc sans Germany, etc.)
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Obviously, relegation would have to be figured out to maintain a link to present day domestic leagues and the CL group stages, but it could work in the long run, and quite frankly, it'd be awesome to see. One major problem would be getting people to support different clubs in the super leagues (like American fans when their local team moves cities), but future generations will grow up only knowing the super leagues, so the problem will really only be confined to present generations. And the current supporters should be enough to prop the clubs up until future generations come along.
What are your thoughts on a potential super league? Yay or no? And why?