Originally Posted by
RandBlade
Longer version:
Football has operated for 150 years on a "pyramid" basis that is fundamental to the principles of sport, competition and fair play. Clubs get promoted and relegated based upon performances on the pitch. Clubs qualify for competitions based upon performances on the pitch. No club is above or below these rules. Any club can be promoted up to the Premier League which is the top league, any club can be relegated from the Premier League, out of professional football altogether and even further down the pyramid. Even an amateur football club playing in an amateur league can be part of that pyramid and amateur clubs can be promoted up the pyramid into the professional tiers and right up to the Premier League.
At the top of the pyramid is the Premier League and the top clubs of the Premier League can't be promoted any further because they're already in the top League but the top 4 clubs each season win the right to play in the Champions League the following season. Fifth (and sometimes others, long story) win the right to compete in the second tier of European football. This gives something for clubs to strive for even when they can't win the league and any club can strive for that.
In recent years the Premier League was won by Leicester which were formerly in the lower leagues. Wigan spent many years in the Premier League, competed in Europe and won the FA Cup - they were only a couple of decades ago a "non-league" amateur football club that rose up the ranks. Man City themselves one of the supposed "big 6" were in the third tier of football relatively recently and had to be promoted back into the Premier League. Some big clubs like Leeds that were consistently in the Top 4 for years in a row at the turn of the century got relegated two years after dropping out of the Champions League and only got back into the Premier League this season after nearly two decades out of top tier football. There is no fixed top set of clubs in sport, clubs have to earn the right to stay at the top and clubs can fight to reach the top - or fail and sink down.
The nature of competition and fair play, the nature of the pyramid, is absolutely fundamental to football.
What the owners of 6 self-selected "big" clubs tried to do, without discussing it even with their own players or managers or fans, was to tear up that whole system. To destroy the entire fabric of the sport. They wanted to create a "Closed Shop" system whereby certain "big" clubs would be guaranteed "Super League" football with no chance of relegation which would replace the Champions League, no matter where they placed in the Premier League. They would have no risk of relegation from the "Super League", no risk of failure to qualify. The race for the Top Four, the positioning within the Premier League itself - none of that would matter anymore.
As it stands right now with four games left in this year's season, if the season ended today then the 4 Champions League spots belong to Man City, Man Utd, Leicester and West Ham because they're in the top 4 slots. But instead under this anticompetitive scheme the "Super League" replacing the Champions League would have had 6 spots: the two Manchester clubs, Liverpool, and 3 London clubs: Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur.
West Ham and Leicester who could have earned a spot in the elite next season would have seen their prize ripped out of their hands by a self-serving, unsporting cartel taking the prize for themselves instead.
As it stands fans of any club, anywhere in the country can dream of their club being promoted - or see them be relegated. Fans of any club, anywhere in the country can dream of their club one day reaching the pinnacle and playing at the international level in the Champions League. But a cartel of clubs wanted to end that dream for every club but 3 in London, 2 in Manchester and Liverpool. That cartel is anticompetitive, unsporting and unacceptable.
The notion of relegation, promotion and qualification may be an alien concept to an American where football clubs are "franchises" that can change cities even. But clubs are part of the fabric of the community here and not franchises. The sport doesn't belong to a self-serving elite shutting out the rest of the nation.
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