No problem, i doubt we , cough they will ever be traced and prosecuted.............. The horse has bolted, Rupert is currently looking for a new stable with stronger doors
Sky should have learnt from what happened with the music biz that steadfastly refused to deal with legal online sales for years and the result was piracy of epic proportion as it was almost the only way to get the music people wanted. If Sky offered PPV or a season ticket style where you could legally stream every match that you had paid for a lot of people using streams would cough up especially if a proportion of sales went directly to the clubs concerned
You would need to be careful how that works though guys. If everybody's subscription was pooled together and then divided between the twenty clubs great. However if the clubs demanded the percentage they were entitled to this would surely make the bigger richer clubs bigger and richer!!! Isn't that what all the fuss about in Spain where Real Madrid an Barca are trying to negotiate their own TV rights deals. The rest of the Spanish league are seriously worried as it will only serve to undermine their attempts at trying to compete with them ever again. There is no way they can get a quarter of the kind of money those top two could generate.
Personally I would love to see a wage cap. I know it can never happen in a free market but the thought of every player earning the same amount no matter who they played for in the top division would be fascinating to watch. In theory it wouldn't matter if you played for Wigan or Manure as your wage packet would be the same. Teams would be built around good management rather than splashing vast sums of cash to solve issues.
CA08 you're correct, that will never happen but the possible way to try and make it a 'level playing field' is to say to clubs you can only spend "x" per cent of total turnover on transfers/wages, which has been spouted before but not properly policed. The flaw there is the bigger clubs sell more shirts, get more subscibers to their own tv chaneels and hold bigger crowds. But to be fair, Delia is not as loaded as Abramovich, never will be so until some 'system' is in place, we will never compete fairly with clubs who can spend £40m on a player and pay them £200k a week. Most businesses and institutions reward a tightly run ship with bonuses and incentives but in football that's all a thing of the past. Anybody who reads this forum could do Mancini's job, given the blank cheque book he has to work with - and for the WBAs, Wigans and NCFCs, it's work your butt off and keep your fingers crossed we can survive at this (artificially inflated) level. In a way I hope a 'European Super League' does happen soon, so that fans of non billionaire owned clubs across Europe still have something to strive for, rather than 7th or 8th place (at best) every season Sorry to trosh on for so long.
Not troshing on at all CC. All makes perfect sense - just a shame those super rich clubs have a monopoly of power it seems, controlling a disproportionate amount of revenue to everybody else. I agree wholeheartedly about the super league. That way it would give everybody something to play for. It might also help to promote better local links as there would be more chance of success and sustained chances for success. This is why for me it is such a shame that more of the local kids don't support their local team. I'm currently doing a survey in my school for work using databases and statistics and one of the questions I have asked is which football club they support. I'm glad to see a majority are putting NCFC but the amounts of Manures, Chelskis and still Liverpools is frightening!!!
A super league could only work if there was some kind of promotion/relegation system in place. There has to be a way of striving to be the best in the world or there is no point. Although it is extremely unlikely that Norwich will become the next Barca in my lifetime, it is the dream. The fact that if we win enough games then we could be that makes football what it is. Put in a promotion/relegation system though and surely the proposed euro league would simply become the new premier league to a team like Norwich. Somewhere we might occasionally visit from time to time but ultimately would not be able to compete with the top end clubs.
Well you say that yet the American system seems to suggest that promotion and relegation are not needed to create great spectacles of sport (not including US soccer!) There are certainly a lot more winners of their competitions than over here as budget caps are in place to regulate spending. Yes there are teams who will constantly be in and around the business end of the competitions - LA Lakers/New York Yankees etc etc but other teams that are built around team spirit and good management have just as good a chance of causing an upset. I don't think Europes finest would give two hoots about what they leave behind and if they did commit to a European super league then they would probably insist on there NOT being any relegations. The financial commitment to going to a European League would make it a prerequisite for their participation. Without doubt it would almost certainly be a closed shop.
