nzlatic Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 Pointless having more money from the premier league just to put it in the pockets of players. It should go into grants for pitch improvements and maintenance to cut the number of postponements and shoddy mud baths. Also should go into 4g council pitches for grass roots (irony) football to reduce disruption and postponements etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarryBosch Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 (edited) It completely depends how you look at the game. If you see it as a business, the comments surrounding each club trying to maximise their own revenues are spot on. If you primarily see it as a sport, however, this doesn't stack up. The two aren't mutually exclusive but even organisations within the purest of sports would/should/do try to maximise revenues (within reason)? As businesses go it's a very simple one. Especially at our level. Albeit a very simple one that so many otherwise competent businessmen manage to contrive to make an arse of. Or do they? Is that just the conventional wisdom despite clubs hardly ever going bust and despite the fact we all line up to do it all again every August? It's always had a business element. Is it not just that the numbers are bigger nowadays and reported on endlessly? And seem so vulgar as a result. That said, the likes of United & City prostituting themselves all over the world for a few more quid does seem to eat away at the very soul of the game. But even Sunday League teams have sponsors. There will never be a level playing field as some clubs will always attract more fans than others. For the integrity of the sport every effort should be made to keep that playing field as level as possible. Is it any less level than in the past though? Isn't there just a tipping point anyway with football after which it doesn't really matter how much more money City/Chelsea/United bring in? Or Real Madrid & Barcelona.. Liverpool dominated in the 80's (when it seemed a far less level playing field) with far less of a financial advantage. Leicester look like winning the league with, I imagine, a budget closer to ours than City's.... Which is what makes football the greatest sport - no amount of attempted selling of it's soul has ever resulted in there not being a Leicester, or a Forest, or a 1990 Oldham, or an Eibar on a regular basis.... Many lower league clubs now have far better "facilities" if that floats your boat. It's not the amounts of money and who does or doesn't get what that's the problem for me it's the way it's now used to sign and pay players. It's all out of kilter. The off the pitch stuff is all kind of academic. As it always has been. My enjoyment of supporting Oldham has faded due to the turnover of players and the inability to ever develop much of an affinity with them and vice versa. If that could be addressed it could improve the game at our level. But how? In the 80's when I started going we regularly paid transfer fees and paid players decent (for the working class man) but not silly money. They needed the "job" and, if they did well enough and were careful with it, they could have enough set aside to have choices in life when their legs finally went. Nowadays many average players never need to work again by their early 20's. When a Curtis Main comes for 3 months, & is (maybe) already made for life he probably isn't ever going to pull his trip out like Mike Milligan did. None of which means I begrudge (largely) working class lads making amazing lives for themselves and their families, good luck to them. It's fantastic in many respects but sadly hasn't been good for the quality of football at lower league level. Or the experience of supporting a club. Topoff and his mates have never had, and probably can't comprehend, players staying here for years & loving the club as much, if not more, than we do. Not to mention being able to bump into them in some local pub a few hours after the match. It's upto the people that run clubs and the game to remedy the situtation. But how? And do they even care or acknowledge that something's askew? It doesn't help that I don't stop handing over my £350 every year. Or paying for Sky. BT Sport is a step too far though for many - I, & a lot of people I talk to, won't pay for it.Which is interesting - maybe we're on the verge of another tipping point there.... I am not a big fan of American sports but they do appear to do a pretty good job of ensuring that teams can't (get promoted or relegated) guarantee success just because they happen to have richer owners. Don't go all Phil Gartside (RIP) on us Edited March 11, 2016 by HarryBosch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarryBosch Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 If the Premier League doubled the income of every Football League club, we'd be paying the same players 2 - 4 thousand a week instead of 1 - 2. And clubs would still be bankrupting themselves. Only loosely related but I've just had a Eureka moment. There are too many professional footballers. Wigan will be paying £10k a week to one or more players sat doing nothing in their reserves. If a rule was brought in whereby clubs could only have a squad of, eg 20 full time professionals Wigan, Sheff Utd etc.. would still, theoretically, get the best as they can pay the higher wages but - a better standard of player would have no choice but to take our, or Rochdale's, or Crewe's £800 a week. If injuries hit we'd have to chuck some kids in and they'd (hopefully) develop. Player turnover would reduce as there would only be so many jobs available as a footballer. The players would pull their tripe out in order to keep that job. Or get better pay next season at Wigan or Sheff Utd. It's restrictive on the one hand, which I never like but, owners could still splash the cash if they saw fit. Better run, better supported clubs could still benefit from those factors. Managers could truly manage as opposed to constantly firefight. The standard of football would improve. We'd develop a greater affinity with players as we did 20 years ago. #ComeAtMe................... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pine Villains Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 Only loosely related but I've just had a Eureka moment. There are too many professional footballers. ......agents...too many thick club owners accepting the deals...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opinions4u Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 Too many subs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yarddog73 Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 We had our success early late 80's and early 90's by picking up players who couldn't make 12 or 13 player match day squads, ones who generally just wanted to play 1st team football to put themselves in the shop window, the problem now is City who were good to us in the past probably have 40 or 50 players on their books who earn more than our top earner so the chance of these players leaving lucrative contracts as kids to prove themselves is near on zilch, in this day and age your Barretts and Warhursts would never of signed for us, the fact Ellis Plummer is on 3k at City and Connor Wilkinson is on double that at Bolton tells you all you need to know about the modern game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewBlue Posted July 15, 2016 Share Posted July 15, 2016 Sheffield Wednesday charging Villa fans £42 for the opening fixture. Second tier of English football charging £12 more than Premier League teams are allowed to. Farcical Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimsleftfoot Posted July 15, 2016 Share Posted July 15, 2016 Sheffield Wednesday charging Villa fans £42 for the opening fixture. Second tier of English football charging £12 more than Premier League teams are allowed to. Farcical Apparently Bolton are charging Sheff U £30 for the first game of the season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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