Hasta

The point is many clubs will go under because of breakaway. Villa fans might think they will become a big club, but if their TV rights are slashed by 50% almost overnight how are they going to pay the ridiculous bills they currently have. Villa could be in as much financial jeopardy as Exeter over this. Do I want to see the Premier League kick them out. Damn right. But owners of all "non-elite" clubs are going to have to find some serious funding to cover black-holes over the next few years whilst the clubs become sustainable. Drawing up stumps on the 6 with no going back allows this European Super League to happen, and will be signalling the end for many football clubs in the UK. It's not a decision to be taken lightly. Ultimately I feel one of two things will happen. • Either the ESL goes ahead and the teams also remain in their domestic leagues, but a 'payment' is made from the ESL to the domestic leagues to allow them to take part, which funds the losses in TV rights. • This is stopped and the current formats continue with tweaks, but the 'Super 12' clubs are then allowed a bigger share of the TV rights for the Premier League and the Champions League featuring themselves because they are the ones that more people are tuning in to watch. Again, I'd love to banish the whole lot, but you have to be prepared for the collateral damage.

The problem is the money would drain quickly and clubs would have to readjust quickly. If Villa's TV rights were halved over the next 2 years they would have serious financial problems and could well go bust. With the knock on effect as could Burnley, Rovers, Blackpool or Morecambe. This has been rumoured for a while. Who is to say that the Sky / BT Sport, Bein Sport, Canal Sport etc.. TV contracts for the Premier don't have a clause saying that if any clubs walk away the contract can be re-negotiated. If it goes ahead, the 12 become untouchably richer, some of the rest of the UK teams will sink to a more palatable financial level and some of the others will go bust. @Wheelton Blue asks "I wonder what Burnley's owners are thinking" . Probably thinking that if this happens we can't get our money back, so do we cut our losses and pull the plug. Which may well be the same as Venkys and many, many other owners outside the big 5 and Spurs.

So no Big 6 in the Premier League. Not sure if that will be a breach of contract from the PL to the existing broadcasters / sponsors, but fairly quickly the Premier League money will dry up. Then the EFL money. All clubs from the likes of West Ham down will need to quickly cut their cloth and many will go bust. I suspect the ESL will pass some money across the the Premier League to 'allow' their clubs to compete and to keep the Premier league running. But those ceilings can be broken. We did it, Leicester did it. With regards to the money available for getting in the top 4 and a Champions League spot, Newcastle did it. Leeds did it. Tottenham did it and have now got their golden ticket. Previously it could, and was, done. Now it is to become a closed shop. .

But you can get there on merit. Just ask Burnley. In this situation with the ESL you cannot. That's the difference.

If this goes ahead, and the Premier League money starts to dry up as the media rights' deals collapse, that removes Venky's "lucky promotion" as an option to get their money back.

Because as much as the Premier League and Champions League was about greed, if you performed well enough you could get access to that money. The Premier League wealth was allowed to be shared to Barnsley, Swindon and Huddersfield instead of Leeds and Newcastle as their relative performances earned it. Leicester have been in the Champions League. In a season where several of the big 6 are under-performing, they may do so again along with West ham. It always felt like it took money to get at the money, but at least you could get at it on merit. This way you get at it by invitation only, and those that have it can never lose it.

i agree. That's why Elliot is a Premier League John Buckley and John Buckley is a Championship John Buckley.

Kind of a Premier League John Buckley then?

Pretty low. How much XBS do you reckon he will come out with in his interview after?

Rovers V Derby. Wazzock V Wazza

Do the pre-80s figures take 2 points for a win into account?

This game stinks of 0-0

I think they are still to be played at the weekend, just not at 3pm KO on Saturday.

If you go onto the championship predictor and put in the results you think for the rest of of the season, you really struggle to get rovers relegated. Even if we don't pick up another point.

Will he be doing his press conference stuff for the Cardiff game this afternoon or is it normally the day before the game?

Predictive text at its finest 😁

Yeah was just being facetious. I think that's just him to be fair. I get the feeling it would be difficult to try and stop him doing it. My player of the year by a mile. Anyway we digress. Anyone gone yet?

Stop thinking your Frank Beckenbaur every time the opposition play a ball over the top?

When will people learn that we can't just keep playing diagonal balls into Danny Graham, and that changing our tactics to a more possession-based game will lead us on a journey ..... to Crewe, Lincoln, Cambridge and Milton Keynes.

Surprised Judan Ali hasn't been spotted at Ewood yet 👀

Yeah. But if you keep continually posting rumours that have no sources, and have a terrible track record of doing this in the past, of course you can expect to be called out. If they don't like being called out, stop posting them. It's a messageboard and peoples posts can be questioned.

I'm glad people post this stuff if genuine. At least you've now clarified your source to some degree. perfectly fine with this. Made for more interesting reading this morning. It's annoying when people post rumours as fact, when they've actually got them from @bullshitboy1875 on twitter, in a bid just to look to be first with the news on the off chance it happens. However past experience tells me that even rumours from sources 'inside the club' invariably don't come off. Praying this one does.

I'm with you although I seriously hope I'm wrong. I just feel that later tonight we will be told (whether true or not) there was a crisis meetings hence the rumours, but Mowbray is not going anywhere. Wouldn't surprise me if we had a 'vote of confidence' statement on the website this week.

Mowbray and Waggot are key to the development plans of the training ground, and if that has been approved from above I don't see them rocking the boat by removing one of them. I fear the rumours last night and this morning are just people guessing. It seems like we are in the end-game, but when we lost to West Brom / Bolton in 2012 and the LT ran the "Time to Go Steve" headline it looked like Kean was as good as gone. Rumours persisted all week about his imminent departure and yet it was another 10 months before he left. (4 points in his next 2 games from Liverpool and Man United managed to quell the unrest and get the "Get behind him FFS" brigade back on side.) The journey continues .....

Using the term "Revert back." The word back is not needed