Wippo: Part of me wants to tell FIFA to stick its family up its arse and leave the sycophantic English hating twats to their poncey fucking competitions and initiatives.
Here’s an idea: The English Premier league is the biggest in the world; it attracts huge amounts of revenue and has a large percentage of the best players in the world in it.
Club power is huge, just take a look at the 20 richest clubs in the world: The table shows the rank, club, how much they’re worth, where they’re from and whether they’re up or down on last year. This table is from Deloitte’s.
1. | Real Madrid | 438.6 | Spain | |
2. | Barcelona | 398.1 | Spain | |
3. | Manchester United | 349.8 | England | |
4. | Bayern Munich | 323.0 | Germany | |
5. | Arsenal | 274.1 | England | |
6. | Chelsea | 255.9 | England | |
7. | Milan | 235.8 | Italy | 3 |
8. | Liverpool | 225.3 | England | 1 |
9. | Internazionale | 224.8 | Italy | |
10. | Juventus | 205.0 | Italy | 2 |
11. | Manchester City | 152.8 | England | 9 |
12. | Tottenham Hotspur | 146.3 | England | 3 |
13. | Hamburg | 146.2 | Germany | 2 |
14. | Lyon | 146.1 | France | 1 |
15. | Marseille | 141.1 | France | 1 |
16. | Schalke | 139.8 | Germany | |
17. | Atlético Madrid | 124.5 | Spain | 5 |
18. | Roma | 122.7 | Italy | 6 |
19. | Stuttgart | 114.8 | Germany | 5 |
20. | Aston Villa | 109.4 | England | 5 |
They’re all European.
3 Spanish; 4 German; 4 Italian; 7 English; 2 French. Get rid of Villa and Stuttgart and form a European Premier League, with a second tier featuring the next 16 richest clubs in the world. Two European Super Leagues with the top 36 clubs playing in it; initially.
Then regional/country Premier Leagues which would allow the winners of that competition to play off to compete in the two big leagues.
Yes, it would damage the integrity of the major European leagues; teams from Scotland, Holland, Russia, Portugal, Romania and Scandinavia would argue alienation. Who cares? All their best players are going to be playing in the Super League anyhow.
So, how does this affect FIFA?
Well, this will have so much power and influence that it could argue that their players are more valuable NOT playing for their country. These clubs could offer more money NOT to play for your country. They could threaten to terminate contracts of players if they choose to play for their country. A World Cup without 150 of the best players in the world would not really have the weight would it?
Let’s be honest; most world class footballers who play for countries like Wales, Portugal, Ireland and the like are never likely to win a World Cup, so why not settle for an extra half a million in the bank for not going to one. It’s not like you can take the medal with you after you die, even if you were to get there and then win the thing.
It’s not fair, but then again, neither is FIFA.
Clive: Are we allowed to hate Barca-we’re-fookin’-perfect-we-are-lona? Do Everton get in this shebang somewhere? Seriously though – not a bad idea there, Wippo me old mucker. As an added bonus all those sponsors greasing the sweaty palms of those oleaginous wankers at FIFA would all flock to this little beanfest, leaving FIFA without a pot to piss in! Nicely!