European Super League: The Brexit of Football?

After the controversial introduction of VAR into the Premiership, on Sunday the whole football world was talking about the threat of six English clubs threatening to take part in a breakaway Super League.

The so called big six comprising of Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham confirmed that they had joined with six leading clubs in Italy and Spain over a highly selective and largely closed tournament that would in effect replace the Champions League.

The move, which represents a huge challenge to the Premier League, The Football Association  and UEFA, paves the way for the biggest shake up of club football in a long while.

Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, AC Milan, Juventus and Inter Milan are also committed to joining the Super League, although certain clubs in France and Germany have not yet signed up.

Understandably this has caused outrage in the football world with the Premier League urging their clubs to walk away from this idea before serious damage will be done.

Indeed, the FA and UEFA have warned that they would not sanction a breakaway, referring to the fact that players and clubs could no longer compete in official competitions. Players could also be banned from International tournaments as well.

This whole idea is completely out of order and just feels that the so called ‘big six’ are wanting to make even more money than they already do so. They are plain and simple greedy owners. They don’t have the wishes of the fans at heart. They are only interested in getting even greedier than what they already are.

This is about big money, not football issues anymore. The rebel clubs still want to continue playing in domestic competitions, but we all know that would be just a good excuse to play a B side.

On a personal note I totally agree with Gary Neville’s points made on Sunday. They don’t have the fans interest at heart. They should be punished heavily, which I totally agree with.

Points deduction would be the best punishment possible, or an even better idea would be to relegate all six of the clubs. They certainly wouldn’t like that thrown at them.

How on earth can the likes of Arsenal and Tottenham seriously consider themselves to be classed as one of the ‘Big Six’. Both have had a bad season and in fairness haven’t won anything of significance for a long time.

Fans would clearly not want to watch a Super League with the ‘Big Six’ playing the same sides on a regular basis as this would become very boring. 

It appears that even managers are not happy about this stupid idea. Today there was a big rumour doing the rounds that Mourinho was sacked by Tottenham for refusing to take training on the back of the proposed Super League.

Let us hope and pray that this doesn’t take off as it will have massive implications. 

This is terrible news for the rest of the football clubs that have been hit hardest by the pandemic. Clubs in the EFL Championship, League One and Two and Non-League clubs– some of which have now dissolved- desperately need financial help. Surely the owners of the ‘Big Six’ should realise this and think about other clubs and not themselves. Unfortunately in today’s crazy world of football that won’t be the case.  They only want to line there ever rich bulging pockets even deeper.

This is further proof that chairman of the ‘Big Six’ really haven’t got a clue about how football should be run. To them it is about making as much cash as possible before they walk away. This story certainly has the makings of the Brexit of Football.

Lewandowski on the verge of overhauling Ronaldo’s European record

To think that a 31-year-old Pole is on the verge of overtaking Cristiano Ronaldo’s record haul of Champions League goals in one season.

Yes, it is true and let’s be honest, very few people would have predicted that Robert Lewandowski would have the honour of getting one over the great Ronaldo.

As it stands, Lewandowski is only four behind the great man’s total after picking up a brace as the German Champions beat Chelsea 4-1 on Saturday for a 7-1 aggregate victory.

Ronaldo’s haul of 17 Champions League goals happened in 2013-14 when he featured for Real Madrid. With the strong possibility of Bayern Munich reaching the final in Lisbon, that amounts to three more games for Lewandowski to surpass Ronaldo’s total.

However, he still has a long way to go to get anywhere near Ronaldo as Champions League top scorer. The Portuguese striker tops the list with 130 with Messi in second on 115. Lewandowski stands in fourth place with 66 so far but that aside one has to marvel at just how well the Pole has been playing this season.

Lewandoski’s incredible season can be summed up by his numbers this season. Over the two legs against Chelsea he played a part in all seven Bayern goals in the tie.

His 53 goals in all competitions this season have come in 36 out of 44 matches. Lewandowski’s haul for both club and country this campaign includes four in a Champions League game away at Red Star Belgrade, a hat trick against Schalke in the Bundesliga and another hat trick- this time for Poland away at Latvia- in a European qualifier.

If you add up his total goals and assists in domestic games over the past two seasons, his tally is an impressive 67, only surpassed by the legend called Messi with 95 for Barcelona.

Already the likes of Tammy Abraham have gone on record to say that Lewandowski is the best striker in the world at the moment. Only today, German legend Lothar Matthaus came out and said that he felt the Pole is not only the best striker in the world but best footballer also.

No doubt the likes of Ronaldo and Messi will have something to say about that but you can’t deny that Lewandowski is a world class player, who one day will become a Bayern all time club legend.

As the champions league enters the final 8 stage George Clayton talks about the who co on our YouTube channel Now by clicking the link below

https://youtu.be/lCbgefVH2W0

USA World Cup winner joins Manchester City Women

United States World Cup winner Sam Mewis has joined Manchester City from North Carolina Courage.

GET READY! Welcome to City, @sammymewy! 💪

🔵 #ManCity | https://t.co/axa0klD5re pic.twitter.com/YTpVzXOTFm

— Manchester City (@ManCity) August 10, 2020

The 27-year-old has played 67 times for her country and featured regularly during last year’s World Cup.  The American started in her side’s 2-0 victory over the Netherlands in Lyon.

The midfielder becomes City’s second signing this summer after England striker Chloe Kelly joined from Everton.

Mewis follows in the footsteps of her USA team mate Carli Lloyd, who had a brief spell with Manchester City back in 2017.

Standing at 6ft tall gives her presence on set pieces and she also has long athletic strides which has seen her become effective with goals from long range.

Sam was born in Weymouth Massachusetts in 1992. She signed for the Pali Blues in the W League in 2013, where the side went on to lift the Western Conference title as well as the national championships.

Mewis was selected fourth overall by the Western New York Flash in the 2015 National Women’s Soccer League entry draft. She appeared in all twenty regular season games for the Flash scoring four times with four assists.

In 2017 the Western New York Flash was sold to new owners and rebranded as the North Carolina Courage. She had an excellent season for the Courage after appearing in every game she was named to the NWSL Best X1.

Mewis missed the beginning of the 2018 season after recovering from a knee operation. Despite this setback she still featured 17 times as the Courage won their second consecutive shield.

Due to her participation at the 2019 World Cup, she only appeared in 12 regular season games for the Courage, who went on to win the shield for the third consecutive year.

In a successful international career to date which has seen Mewis feature in six of seven matches in the 2019 World Cup, she scored twice in the tournament in a 13-0 annihilation of Thailand in the group stages.

In her six years to date in USA national colours she has made 67 appearances and scored 18 goals.

Her USA team mate Rose Lavelle is heavily linked with City and alongside Caroline Weir and Jill Scott featuring in midfield the signing of Mewis only strengthens the Manchester clubs pursuit of more honours next season.

EFL Clubs vote for introduction of salary caps

The English Football League and the Professional Footballer’s Association appear to be on a collision course after clubs in Leagues One and Two voted in favour of the introduction of salary caps.

Fixed caps of £2.5 million for League One clubs and £1.5 million for League Two have been approved after a vote by clubs on Friday.

The EFL said the caps would take effect immediately and hoped it would help to get inflation under control and bring greater financial stability after the Covid-19 crisis.

It is understood that 22 League Two clubs voted in favour, with only two against. In League One, 16 clubs voted for the introduction of salary caps with eight against the idea.

As well as basic wages and taxes, the cap on total salary spending includes bonuses, image rights and agents’ fees, while payments earned from successful cup runs or promotions will be excluded.

Clubs in League One and League Two who exceed the cap by up to 5% will face a financial penalty. Further breaches would be referred to a disciplinary commission.

This news in my opinion is most welcome to lower league football. It has been known for a long time that some clubs in the lower leagues have clearly been spending well outside of their budget.

Take the financial troubles of Wigan and plenty of others who have been clearly functioning well out of their means. Clubs have been offering players silly money just to entice them to play at this level of football.

Fine, if you have the funds to back up this promise, not fine if you have not got the money available. This isn’t a case of players demanding silly money, it is their agents who are very much at fault.

In the current economic situation, we all live in at present, football is no different to any other industry. It will will have to tighten its belt otherwise there will be some clubs who could fall by the wayside.

Introducing salary caps makes financial sense. Just working out the maths as an example for League Two. An average squad of 25 will see a player on around £60,000 per year. Sounds pretty decent to me for a footballer. Considering most of the working population will lose their jobs or be working on a reduced salary for the time being.

By putting in to place a cap for clubs in Leagues One and Two, surely this should be extended to not only the Championship but also down to non-league level.

By bringing in salary caps you will always run the risk of losing some of the best players to other leagues, but to compensate this it will then help and bring through younger players with a chance of regular first team football and will give them a chance to move up the football ladder quickly.

However, there will always be doubts that some clubs will get around the salary cap system, like Saracens have been found guilty of in Premiership Rugby. Of course, there is the chance that will happen, but without some form of salary cap, quite simply Football will struggle to survive in the years to come.

 

 

Have Fulham learnt from their disastrous £100m spending spree?

After the celebrations of the return of Fulham back to the Premiership at the first time of asking, it is time to take a step back and access their chances of surviving in the Premiership next season.

It is a well know fact in football that sides who get promoted through the play-off route in the Championship, normally struggle.

In recent times the likes of Aston Villa, Huddersfield, Hull City, Norwich City and QPR all finished in the bottom six places in the division.

Two points that may make it possible for Fulham to survive in next seasons campaign would be the Manager and the experience of being in the top flight of English football before.

In Scott Parker they have an astute man in charge of the Cottagers. In the play-off final against Brentford his master tactics came out on top. By spotting the gap at Brentford’s near post and Joe Bryan’s technical ability to find that gap was a pure master stroke from the former West Ham player.

Since Parker has been put in charge, he has turned around the club’s fortunes. Just two years ago on transfer deadline day in the summer of 2018, five players were signed as the clock ticked down to zero.

Fulham spent an astonishing £100 million on no less than twelve players, only to look considerably worse for signing these players.  In season 2018-19 Fulham sacked Slavisa Jokanovic and Claudio Ranieri but a second play-off victory in three seasons gives them a chance to heal some scars.

For the club to survive next season in the top flight of football they will have to learn by their mistakes of 2018. Pointless splashing out that amount of money to try and survive in the Premiership. In truth, it rarely works out.

Parker needs to keep the spine of this current side to have a chance of surviving. The key player to hold on to has to be Aleksandar Mitrovic. The goal machine will learn by his poor return when Fulham were last back in the top flight. If he does so and can get back to a return of around twenty goals in a season, then the London club have a good chance of staying up.

They also need to keep the likes of Tom Cairney, Aboubakar Kamara, Denis Odoi and Tim Ream. If they can hold on to this talented group, then they could realistically keep out of trouble.

Parker will know that the hard work starts now. It will be an interesting few weeks before next seasons campaign as to what he will do in the transfer market. Key to their chances of survival will also be who they bring in.

In terms of the other two promoted sides Leeds United and West Brom. For the Yorkshire club with the flamboyant Marcelo Bielsa managing at the main table this will b e a massive challenge for him. His toughest assignment to date and hardest task for the upcoming season will be to survive.

Under normal circumstances with Leeds outstanding fan base and home fans would be worth a lot of points for the club but the likelihood of having no full capacities for the foreseeable future, this could well go against the Whites.

West Brom under Slaven Bilic look like a side that could well survive next season. Having the advantage of previously being in the Premiership for eight seasons, the Baggies know exactly what is required not to face a relegation battle.

One thing is for sure, having three shrewd and intelligent managers in the form of Parker, Bielsa and Bilic managing in the biggest league in the world and pitting their wits against other more experienced managers is going to be a sight worth seeing.