Atlantic League

[Kvarme Ate My Food]

A while ago, some of the top teams from Scotland, Portugal, the Netherlands and Belgium were talking about setting up their own league. I know UEFA weren't keen, but would it not be quite a good idea?

 

A league with these teams, say:

 

Celtic

Rangers

Hearts

Hibernian

Aberdeen

AZ

Twente

Ajax

PSV

Feyenoord

Porto

Sporting

Benfica

Braga

Nacional

Aderlecht

Standard Liege

Club Brugge

 

Could it compete with the other European leagues, in terms of revenues and attracting players?

 

What if they jib UEFA, and forego their right to compete in the Champions League? (If the Atlantic League was attracting a lot of attention, surely UEFA would come crawling to them eventually anyway?)

 

Lastly, could they refuse to be governed even by FIFA? What's to stop them going it completely alone if they feel like?

 

I know this is from the NYR school of completely speculative threads, but I was reading about it and it struck me as interesting, at least.

[Knox_Harrington]

Player registration I think, is where FIFA/UEFA could undermine them.

 

Promotion/Relegation would be tricky but it could work. They'd have limited European places whereas approximately ten of those sides can expect European football at the moment.

 

It'd be a laugh.

[Sion]

Would never happen because as Knox says, practically everyone of them clubs will get at least Uefa Cup qualification every year, some CL. If they were all in a league you'd get about 5/6 qualifying.

[Tones]

UEFA / FIFA also threatened clubs thinking of going that they wont be registered players with them which will prevent them playing in any other european comps or even internationals.

[Kvarme Ate My Food]

They'd have limited European places whereas approximately ten of those sides can expect European football at the moment.

 

as I say, jib the CL for a while.

 

Would never happen because as Knox says, practically everyone of them clubs will get at least Uefa Cup qualification every year, some CL.

 

ditto

 

UEFA / FIFA also threatened clubs thinking of going that they wont be registered players with them which will prevent them playing in any other european comps

 

and again.

 

On the player registration point - what are the downsides if they don't let you register your players? As t1971 says, it mean they couldn't play international football, which would of course be a concern.

[Knox_Harrington]

as I say, jib the CL for a while.

ditto

and again.

 

On the player registration point - what are the downsides if they don't let you register your players? As t1971 says, it mean they couldn't play international football, which would of course be a concern.

There's no reason why you couldn't bring UEFA with you on this issue bar one: The threat of a breakaway super league. As long as you convinced the national associations it was in their interests and found a way to work with them, then UEFA could be convinced as well. i.e. The prescident isn't breakaway from but working with the national associations to strengthen the game in those countries.

[Mike]

f***ing bit s*** for the match going fans though. cost about 30k a year to follow your team.

[Knox_Harrington]

f***ing bit s*** for the match going fans though. cost about 30k a year to follow your team.

Good point.

[Kvarme Ate My Food]

f***ing bit s*** for the match going fans though. cost about 30k a year to follow your team.

 

again, if you jib European competition, then a Celtic fan (say) would have to get to 13 foreign aways per season, compared to how many now? (I know that's a bit glib.)

 

And if you set up the fixtures intelligently, they might have 2 of their Dutch trips within a couple of days of each other, for example.

[Mike]

again, if you jib European competition, then a Celtic fan (say) would have to get to 13 foreign aways per season, compared to how many now? (I know that's a bit glib.)

 

And if you set up the fixtures intelligently, they might have 2 of their Dutch trips within a couple of days of each other, for example.

 

they wont jib the cl and europa though