(02-13-2026, 02:28 AM)Mavs2021 Wrote: You want to eliminate tanking, punish poor work. It´s kinda ironic, that America has the hire & fire workplace culture, while Europe is very protective of labour rights to the point that even firing a poor worker is difficult, but in sports Europe has promotion and relegation, while America has the social security net for poor franchises.
The system that most European Leagues use is horrible for genuine and sustained competition by ALL teams in those leagues. Those systems were designed by the rich and established teams to protect themselves, and keep the poor where they are. The old rich established teams generally have a negligible risk of being relegated in reality. Even if they were in danger of being relegated mid-season, they are allowed to spend without limits and have no restrictions on tapping up or poaching players from other clubs. In other words, they can buy their way out of being relegated with impunity, and will be 'rewarded' with more money for doing so too. Matches can and have also been fixed to prevent rich teams from being relegated.
Another good example of this is the European Champions League. At one point in time, clubs from countries like Portugal, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Croatia, Romania, Turkey, etc were historically relevant. Has any club from these countries even reached a final in 20 years? All of them have been left by the wayside.
The biggest soccer clubs from a few countries (England, Italy, Spain and Germany) are the ones who wrote the participation rules for the Champions League a long time ago, to limit the possibility of them being excluded from it, and to keep their money rolling in... at the expense of everyone else. If not for the injection of massive amounts of Arab oil money into some clubs in those leagues, the winners would never have changed beyond the established old guard. For example: Manchester City could never have challenged Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal in the EPL; Paris Saint Germain could never have been able to challenge the other old European teams in the Champions League.
The American draft lottery system in sports is much more equitable and fair, a little tweaking is all it needs.