The Champions League

[Saint Domingo]

@Saint Domingo I wonder if Parish can kick-start a movement against UEFA or do you believe he's wizzing in the wind?

I'm losing less and less interest in the sport and I'll be shocked if im the only one.

The 14 other PL sides and clubs from around Europe need to rally together on this issue.

That would be the ideal, collective action to effectively take the ball home with us if the top clubs don’t want to play the game fairly anymore. Sadly the super league debacle showed the true nature of these club owners. Parish is in a minority, a lot of them are happy to play an uneven game as long as they are guaranteed a slice of the pie (no matter how small it is).

On Palace though, their best player is on loan from Chelsea (and therefore couldn’t play) and the only reason he is on loan is because Chelsea viewed him as being below Kante Kovacic Jorginho Mount Loftus Cheek Barkley and probably even Gilmore (also on loan).

So Chelsea’s 8th choice midfield option walks into a very decent mid table premier league team and is their best player. That’s levels right there.

 

[EverTheOptimist]

Steve Parish with some strong (accurate) words against Uefa and their subservience to the top teams.

@ForeverBlue92 he also seems to see the futility in even attempting to break into the cartel.

Steve Parish has no pull whatsoever, he's only Chairman of Palace because the 2 yank owners installed him to run the club while they're in the USA, and they're about to jump ship to Chelsea if the Broughton/Coe consortium they are part of wins the Chelsea ownership race.

 

[WA Toffee]

Don't know where this Bs about the champions League not being good comes from we have just seen Chelsea and Madrid play one of the games of the season atletico and city go toe to toe as well. In recent years seen spurs beat Ajax and reach the final with the last kick of the game, as well as other great games.

I think the people who say it has gone downhill don't have bt sport's

I don't think anyone is doubting the quality of it, just the increasing predictability of it.

If we were to look at the finals decade by decade and see how many teams from outside the top4 leagues contest them, it will illustrate this quite clearly

60s - 8
70s - 9
80s - 6
90s - 6
00s - 2
10s - 0

Apart from PSG sportwashing last year, only Porto and Monaco have broken the top 4 stronghold this century. And that was almost 20 years ago.

Predictable.

 

[Saint Domingo]

Steve Parish has no pull whatsoever, he's only Chairman of Palace because the 2 yank owners installed him to run the club while they're in the USA, and they're about to jump ship to Chelsea if the Broughton/Coe consortium they are part of wins the Chelsea ownership race.

Doesn’t make what he says wrong. The game is a closed shop with certain big clubs favoured in order to make money for those associated with the game (organisers, media, sponsors etc) and those outside that group prevented from disrupting the pigs at the trough.

The problem is that the fans of those favoured clubs don’t care one jot because they’re living an amazing football supporting experience whilst the fans of every other club in the football pyramid know they will never be allowed in.

 

[Shevin Keedy]

…..as we saw with Chelsea beating City, I have a theory that teams winning their domestic title rarely win the CL in the same season. Indeed, the likes of Chelsea and Liverpool won it in seasons when not even challenging for their domestic title.

i should go back and check but that’s my theory.

If you explained why that may be then you could call it a theory. As you have presented it here it is just observational; it is an observation.

 

[davek]

Don't know where this Bs about the champions League not being good comes from we have just seen Chelsea and Madrid play one of the games of the season atletico and city go toe to toe as well. In recent years seen spurs beat Ajax and reach the final with the last kick of the game, as well as other great games.

I think the people who say it has gone downhill don't have bt sport's

You're literally naming a game or two each season that's worth watching. That's telling in and of itself.

For the amount of games played and the level of investment in that competition and the level of talent amongst the teams it falls woefully short of being a spectacle.

The stages at the very least need scrapping. Every football watcher everywhere just rolls their eyes knowing that the top two elite teams in each group will invariably get through and that it's just a long drawn out cash cow for them while they steam-roller through 6 games. Even the round of 16 is predictable as they usually all get kept apart.

But what seems to have happened of late on top of that drab affair is that there has emerged a financially doped up elite of English clubs who have been able to withstand the buffeting from financial downturns and the pandemic better than those elsewhere who are now head and shoulders above the rest of Europe....3 all English finals in the last 4 seasons is now a distinct possibility...and it'll be the same next season too as Barcelona, the Italian and German clubs are in a mess either on or off the field.

It's now just a glorified English domestic competition. That cant prevail. It's unsustainable from a sponsorship and spectacle point of view.

 

[perth_blue]

Should be called Eurofa

 

[Scally1878]

Still think Real Madrid are seriously underestimated. The amount of experience and previous winners they have in that squad allows them to stay in games, like seen with Chelsea, which is why I believe they will win it.

 

[davek]

Still think Real Madrid are seriously underestimated. The amount of experience and previous winners they have in that squad allows them to stay in games, like seen with Chelsea, which is why I believe they will win it.

I'd have Liverpool, City and Madrid as having an equal chance of winning.

Madrid believe they own that trophy and its their destiny to win it. Write them off at your peril.

 

[Mikey_Fitzgerald]

You're literally naming a game or two each season that's worth watching. That's telling in and of itself.

For the amount of games played and the level of investment in that competition and the level of talent amongst the teams it falls woefully short of being a spectacle.

The stages at the very least need scrapping. Every football watcher everywhere just rolls their eyes knowing that the top two elite teams in each group will invariably get through and that it's just a long drawn out cash cow for them while they steam-roller through 6 games. Even the round of 16 is predictable as they usually all get kept apart.

But what seems to have happened of late on top of that drab affair is that there has emerged a financially doped up elite of English clubs who have been able to withstand the buffeting from financial downturns and the pandemic better than those elsewhere who are now head and shoulders above the rest of Europe....3 all English finals in the last 4 seasons is now a distinct possibility...and it'll be the same next season too as Barcelona, the Italian and German clubs are in a mess either on or off the field.

It's now just a glorified English domestic competition. That cant prevail. It's unsustainable from a sponsorship and spectacle point of view.

Could still be an all Spanish final as well of course

Whilst europa final could still be all German

 

[davek]

Could still be an all Spanish final as well of course

Whilst europa final could still be all German

Fingers crossed it is. Villarreal wont be easy for that lot. And City v Madrid is a coin toss.

The EL is hardly top draw though. It's not like the way the UEFA Cup of old was on a par if not superior competition-wise to the old European Cup.

 

[toffee-L]

This tournament is a colossal scam. For starters, it's called the Champions League when the vast majority of teams in it are Champions of absolutely nothing.

Empowering a small collection of leagues by allowing more and more of their teams into this crap has had the adverse effect of decimating a plethora of leagues across Europe, who's top clubs have declined to such an extent they'd do well to survive in the Championship.

This competition shouldn't have any bogus qualifying, it should be for League champions only who play straight knockout rounds throughout the season with no seeding. Prize money should be be mainly sent to the leagues, not the individual clubs, and then disseminated equally.

I absolutely hate what this tournament has become, that I absolutely loved to watch even though my own team where never in it. The fact that you can lose so many games yet still get called 'Champions of Europe' at the end of it is just the biggest joke.

Sadly it looks like the Scab 6 'Super League' bait and switch has had its desired effect. New wildcard picks will soon be in force for when the Man Uniteds, Juves and Barcelonas of the world can't even qualify by finishing top 4 in their own leagues are now given a pass straight to the big time because of their 'legacy'.

There's no way to compete in football now unless you do a Chelsea or a Man City. Part of me wants Newcastle to blow the granny off it just to see these parasite clubs like Liverpool and United cry and moan about how unfair the game they rigged has become.

 

[Alan Whittle]

Steve Parish has no pull whatsoever, he's only Chairman of Palace because the 2 yank owners installed him to run the club while they're in the USA,

Complete Bollox mate.

 

[RFCbluenose]

You're literally naming a game or two each season that's worth watching. That's telling in and of itself.

For the amount of games played and the level of investment in that competition and the level of talent amongst the teams it falls woefully short of being a spectacle.

The stages at the very least need scrapping. Every football watcher everywhere just rolls their eyes knowing that the top two elite teams in each group will invariably get through and that it's just a long drawn out cash cow for them while they steam-roller through 6 games. Even the round of 16 is predictable as they usually all get kept apart.

But what seems to have happened of late on top of that drab affair is that there has emerged a financially doped up elite of English clubs who have been able to withstand the buffeting from financial downturns and the pandemic better than those elsewhere who are now head and shoulders above the rest of Europe....3 all English finals in the last 4 seasons is now a distinct possibility...and it'll be the same next season too as Barcelona, the Italian and German clubs are in a mess either on or off the field.

It's now just a glorified English domestic competition. That cant prevail. It's unsustainable from a sponsorship and spectacle point of view.

Never thought I would say this but I actually agree with every word you said there. If I was a supporter of one of the big clubs that are there every year I would maybe have a different view. But even at that, I think I would get bored of the playing the same teams year in, year out. The format has gotten pretty stale. In saying that, I would quite like my club to get a big slice of that CL cash.

 

[Cork Evertonian]

It's rubbish really isn't it?

I mean, yes, you'd want to win it, but FFS it's a pony old tournament compared to the old European Cup and the revamped early Champions League tournaments.

The group stages are barely worth watching; the KO stages have become predictable - full of financially doped English teams making their way to the SFs (and even the Spanish have fallen off the pace apart from a half decent Madrid).

It's just not a spectacle.

Of course, I'll PMSL if / when Liverpool get seen off this season, but this tournament is dead. The speed with which the scab Euro clubs wanted to ditch it for the Euro Scab League tells the story. The CL has to go or be revamped massively.



Pecking order for trophies:

The PL
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The CL
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The EL / The FA Cup
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The LC
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The Euro Conference League

I haven't watched a champions league game in years. I think the final pairing in 2019, summed up the problem with the modern champions league structure.

You had a final consisting of a club that hadn't won the league title since 1961, and another club who's most recent league title at that point in time was 1990.

It's not just the champions league, but football at the elite level now is very much a dead horse, that's been flogged into submission at this stage.

Those Saudis buying out Newcastle was the final straw for me. We don't help ourselves at Everton, with regards to how badly we've been run over the years.

However even if Moshiri and Kenwright effed off in the morning, and competent people who knew what they were doing took over, the odds would still be stacked against us.

At least in aussie rules and the american sports you have a salary cap, and the worst performing teams, get priority access to the best up and coming talent in the draft.