caughtoffside
·25 de dezembro de 2024
caughtoffside
·25 de dezembro de 2024
The notion of a European Super League reared it’s ugly head again recently, and Stan Collymore has suggested a Doomsday scenario will occur when it goes ahead.
A year ago the Super League appeared doomed to failure, and Gary Neville was one high profile ex-player to baulk at the idea of its creation.
However, the Unify League is the new concept now being pushed by organisers A22, and pundit, Stan Collymore, believes that there’s a sense of inevitability about the project.
Whether that would see the end of the Premier League as we know it is a moot point at present, though there’s some certainty that other leagues will fall by the wayside.
“I think that the whole idea of the Super League was and is preposterous, particularly if it becomes a sort of invitation-only tournament,” Collymore said to CaughtOffside for his exclusive column.
“It’s back in the news again, and you can see what’s going to happen.
“The way that FIFA have gone about populating the Club World Cup is a prime example. Managing to crowbar Lionel Messi in there despite no real sporting merit from his Inter Miami side, save for a second-rate Leagues Cup or whatever it was.
The starting eleven of Inter Miami pose for a photo before a match. (Photo by Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
“You can see any Super League organisers doing exactly the same to make sure the usual suspects are in there, ignoring the likes of Nottingham Forest who would absolutely deserve a place on this season’s form.
“It’s ironic that Forest may well qualify for the Champions League this season if they continue in the same way in the second half of the campaign, but they wouldn’t qualify for an initial Super League tournament.
“As preposterous as it is, the Super League is an inevitability and it will happen.”
In reality, if supporters as well as clubs don’t want the Super League to happen, then very simply, as they did last time, they have to mobilise against it and to put it to bed once and for all.
It seems that both Barcelona and Real Madrid are the only two European giants that remain ‘all in’ for the project so it may well be that it still takes some years for it to become a reality.
At that point, however, Collymore believes that football as we know it will be finished.
“A lot of people will say, let the teams go, we’ve got a strong enough and robust pyramid system in England, but if it didn’t run alongside the domestic leagues, the Super League would kill a lot of leagues around Europe stone dead,” he added.
“Let’s be perfectly honest, if you to take out the two biggest clubs in a lot of those leagues, they’re finished. Done for.
“I just don’t think the organisers care really, because they just want to see Real Madrid against Manchester United or Barcelona against Bayern Munich and Ajax against Inter Milan etc on a loop each and every week.
“So, however that leaves the domestic leagues or the schedules, they’re not bothered.
“Pep Guardiola was almost literally banging his head on the table with the scheduling in terms of the Club World Cup, so we as football fans need to decide, and the FA needs to decide when enough is enough, in terms of the amount of games being played.
“The Super League is just greed and a vanity project.