The first in a new column by Packet sports reporter Matt Friday, who casts his eye over the stories making the headlines in the greater sporting world.

There is very little debate over which was the most debated sports news story of the past week or so, when the news emerged that a number of Europe's leading clubs had made secret talks over creating a 'closed shop' European Super League for the cream of the continent.

The general idea is that 16 teams will leave their domestic leagues behind to form a breakaway league and would not be relegated from it.

The proposed 11 founder members would be: Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Juventus, AC Milan and Paris Saint-Germain. They would be joined by the five 'initial guests' of Atlético Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Marseille, Roma and Inter Milan.

At an initial glance, this celebration of the continent's most talented teams seems like a nifty little idea. We get to sit down and enjoy more of the biggest games in world football - what's not to like?

It would make the clubs involved a serious amount of money on sponsorship and television rights, and we know how much they need the cash.

It would certainly be an enjoyable prospect, who wouldn’t love to see Barcelona v Real Madrid, Manchester United v Manchester City, AC Milan v Inter Milan all in the same competition? They are the world’s elite clubs doing battle in what would certainly be the highest quality competition the sport would ever have seen.

But for how long? The novelty of playing the same big clubs week in week out would surely wear off after a while, especially for those at the lower end of the scale like Roma and Marseille. They have come from regularly challenging for league titles in their respective countries to battling for 13th spot every year.

Poor old Marseille would probably become the Euro equivalent of Stoke City after three or four years, which would add a whole new level to the now famous football metaphor. Yes, Lionel Messi is an amazing player, but can he do it on a cold and wet night at Marseille’s Stade Velodrome?

No punishment, no point

The most aggravating aspect is that the idea follows the American model of a 'closed shop' competition. This is not a good thing. The NFL and NBA are flooded with cash and, yes, they do have plenty of fans, but it is the same teams every year regardless of how bad they have become. It is not a proper competition.

The Cleveland Browns lost all 18 of their NFL games in 2017. Were they relegated? Were they heck. They are getting another go this year and can pretend that last season never happened.

You can see the lack of European interest in Major League Soccer, one reason being that it is a private members club with no promotion or relegation. Where is the desire to progress when the competition is effectively one big safety net?

I’m sure fans of Arsenal, Marseille and Roma will be delighted when their club is regularly scrapping around the bottom three with no conceivable impact on their fortunes, either positive or negative. I’m sure that won’t get boring incredibly quickly.

Derby days are no more

And there wouldn’t even be the lure of a good local derby to counter the inevitable tedium, with the maximum number of proposed clubs from one country are the five coming from England, and even then they are hailing from three different cities.

Who would be Paris Saint-Germain’s derby rivals? Marseille? They’re 410 miles apart. Sunderland fans travelled less than that to get to Plymouth Argyle last weekend. What a cracking derby that would be.

I suppose we could have fewer locational derbies and manufacture some new ones instead. How about PSG v Man City in the Qatari Money derby? Or Liverpool v Barcelona in the We Hate Sergio Ramos derby?

How about two for the price of one, with Inter Milan versus AC Milan in their usual Derby di Milano but also the new We Were Once Quite A Good European Team But Have Been Invited To This Competition By Virtue Of Reputation And Bank Balance derby?

Fans out in the cold once more

And what about the fans? The forgotten people in all of this. Those that look back wistfully at memories of wonderful away trips to Madrid, Munich or Turin in the European Cup/Champions League do so because they were special. They happened two or three times a season at most if you were a top side, with clubs that notch below getting perhaps one glamour trip to the Camp Nou or San Siro per season.

Under this proposal they would be jetting off to Madrid one week and then Munich the next. The novelty would wear off pretty quickly.

That’s without even considering the remarkable slimming effect this would have on the weight of the fans’ wallets. This proposal is all about giving already stupidly rich clubs even more money through television rights and sponsorship deals, while the supporter is left shelling out most of their weekly wage to just make it to one of their team’s 15 European away trips of the year.

That's not to say the idea would be a complete failure. It could possibly be a bit less of a terrible idea if it had a proper promotion and relegation structure and even have relegation to and from the domestic leagues.

It could just be a midweek competition that runs alongside the current domestic leagues. That way we could restore the Champions League for the actual domestic league champions and the big clubs could have their Super League plaything as well.

Or better yet, let's just not have it at all, eh?