I'm surprised to see NZ fans (on social media, not necessarily here) complaining about doing away with promotion/relegation as if it's some kind of sacred principle when we are so used to this model in our sports here, and rarely complain.
Virtually all of our sporting leagues here do not involve relegation/promotion.
Personally I still lament the change in 1995 to establish the super rugby teams in the first place, I've told anyone who would listen for a long time that I much prefer the european method. It's destroyed the NPC completely and hugely diluted the fanaticism of being a fan of your team (Hurricanes hat today, Lions hat tomorrow). The NPC is just a development league with little interest now for the most part (and ironically it's basically our only semi-high profile competition with promotion/relegation). But significantly, despite all that, super rugby was successful.
20Legend, re: tv timeouts, how is the crux of that any different to the wholesale selling out of the premier league to the broadcasters? They've not introduced timeouts but the PL schedule is absurd, 100% tailored to the tv market, fans be damned.
This current proposal is just an extension of all these things, it's the logical next step.
I mentioned in a previous post that UEFA have literally been trying to attempt something like this for years. From 2017 (just one example);
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2627239-uefa-reportedly-ready-to-accept-champions-league-overhaul-proposal
"UEFA ... is willing to accept a format that would see the continent's major clubs play against each other more regularly."
The only reason FIFA and UEFA are crying foul is because they didn't do this, this time - they are not in control. Revamping the league to guarantee participation of the biggest clubs, and to increase the number of games between them, has 100% been on UEFA's agenda.
They are using the fans' outrage as a tool in this instance. Do not be fooled, the greed is across the board when it comes to money in sport.
Regarding this comment prof:
"As a player/coach I'd want to be playing as often as possible, if this super league is the only tournament I'm playing in and I'm because I'm playing in it I cant play/coach my country I'd be seriously considering my options. Some players are in it for the $$$, but most are doing it cos they love the game and the connection they have with the fans. This league will become so stale so fast it will lose interest for many of the players who enjoy the uncertainty of the CL. The only people this super league will benefit is the owners and their shareholders, which is all they care about."
Those issues will all be easily solved. If the participants of this league get banned from all other football, they will simply expand it. The current format is for midweek games. The power play will be to shift to weekends and destroy the domestic leagues in worldwide ratings. Bigger league, more games, and then perhaps their own kind of tournament for higher honours e.g. when we had Super League down here, they also created their own version of the State of Origin, and expanded it to include NZ (which I very much enjoyed as a teenage rugby league fan who was not wedded to the history of the competition).
And we have good historical record of the situation with players and money and what will occur. 99% of them will want to be in this league, regardless of any social media posturing now. When Chelsea and Man City threw new money everywhere, they struggled to attract players for about about 5 minutes. Many people said they don't have european football, they havent been successful recently, no one will come, but then they came. Crespo etc for Chelsea, Robinho etc for Man City, and the rest is history.
The world series of cricket hoovered up 99% of the biggest talent despite outrage, and easily.
Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher, all the other old players complaining, they are retired, they have no decisions to make. The young players will not feel that way. You might get the odd one staying out of it on principle, but the vast majority will be all over it.
Again, I'm not a fan of this, but I can see why it's happened, and the history of professional sport gives us ideas on how it might go from here.
And as I said before, if it does happen, and the sport changes permanently, then I would rather my team is in than out.