Ironic that in the week Celtic masterminded one of their greatest ever moments, the rest of Scottish football is on the verge of total collapse. Hearts are the main focus of attention but there are others, maybe as many as six, who are said to be 'weeks' away from going out of business completely. HMRC are chasing payments (quite rightly and not before time) and clubs are seemingly unable to find the money in the coffers to pay them. Of course we had Rangers fall into the abyss during the summer but is football about to lose the Edinburgh derby as well as the Old Firm? Hearts are so blasé about the whole predicament and seem to assume that someone will just ride in at the last minute and save them - it really is a farcical situation. Lower attendances and falling revenues, and in particular reducing television money means clubs are unable to cope with the financial demands during this climate. This tv money would surely disappear altogether with the loss of other bigger clubs. Can anyone else see a similar situation enveloping down south in the coming months/years as the tax man wields his axe?
Not about time too in my opinion. I do feel sorry for the fans as they always the ones that suffer but in no other industry in the world can businesses carry on being run like football clubs and expect to survive. If anything HMRC are there own worst enemies for letting teams get away with it for so long. There should have been a professional body put in place to look into clubs, there working practices, there management and try to get in first to help the clubs rather than let them being run into the ground by shameful owners ruining the clubs. My local club Luton have been a victim of this and have now suffered the consequences and ended up plying there trade in the non-league tier of football. In all honesty of smaller teams are going to the wall and the only way teams are going to survive are maybe having to pool there local resources together and merge. I appreciate no fans will want this but whats the alternative? Clubs going bust then with no local football? I understand the situation in Scotland is alot worse and is in dire need of an overhaul.....the only situation I can see working is areas being pooled together and a franchise system set up. Have a brand new all singing NFL style league system, glitz it up increase revenues, become more attractive to TV companies and finally get a consistent tv friendly leagues up there which in turn would improve the standard. I appreciate all I will prob get slated for the above but in all honestly watching the Scottish leagues slowly kill itself and the game of football up there in my eyes is far worse.
I have long said that football is based on fantasy and if they were true businesses probably all 92 would have gone bust ages ago. Manchester City have taken the buscuit by getting the oil boys on board and spend money like it is going out of fashion but if they were to lose interest then the whole thing would implode. Chelsea the same and then there is the American click as well, it is all very tenuous. The thought of this financial fair play is a good one but I question whether it will ever happen in reality. Finally, I come back to another gripe of mine which is relevant to Supers question. Players in the Permier league are often on £30k per week. Most people in this country do not earn that in a year and that is before you get to the Rooneys and Van Persies of this world. It is time that the whole sport including of course the dumbass FA got a grip on reality and faced the real world. It may take some big club to go to enforce this reality but they have all seen what has happened to Rangers and to a lesser degree Portsmouth and it looks as if they have not taken a blind bit of notice. The only plus point for me is that Norwich look as if they are sorting themselves out financially and this will be a benefit in the medium term for us.
I wish it would happen down south. Not because I want to see fans deprived of watching a team they have genuinely supported for years but to bring football to its senses. But in the same way as the banking crisis, very similar in certain respects, spending money you never had, has only really affected the rest of us bottom feeders, I do believe that the clubs who have caused this problem in football would survive and the rest would fall even further by the wayside. I have documented on here many times about a local side, Truro who are in BSS. 20 minutes away from folding, somebody comes in with a bit of cash and off they go again. Trouble is, their outgoings are £25K a week with an average gate of 330 at £11. Their players, when they are paid of course, are on £500 a game. And IMO its the fault of the top of the iceberg that this is happening.
this is really why i posed the question whether people think it will happen down here. liverpool were very close to going into administration a couple of years ago - would you know it now? people are very quick to forget how close they were to bankruptcy. i'm not saying they would have gone under but they were in financial trouble. a few months later they spent £35m on a player (albeit they recouped more than that on torres). it needs a massive club like liverpool or manchester united to really take a hit for anyone to react properly down here, and even then, its all forgotten about quickly.
Shame really. The man who I dare not name is probably partly responsible for this as he was responsible for Norwich's decline just a few years a go.
I nearly posted along these lines earlier, but thought otherwise. Heart of Midlothian have a history spanning 138 years - Doomcaster has been in the Scottish FA for 3 (three) years and already appears to be presiding over the demise of Hearts and Scottish football in general.
Thank goodness two things happened to NCFC. The way we came perilously close to administration ourselves and the chance that Cullum could have taken control was the wake up call Delia needed to sort the club out. The realisation by herself that someone who wasn't a flunkey like the above pictured scoundrel was needed to take control of the club and that she should become the just face of the club, relinquishing the hard necessary decisions to others. thereby cementing everyone's belief of the kind of nice club we are was the first step. And I do believe that relegation was the chain flushing on everything that was going wrong at the club and the second step. It probably owes a lot to luck of course. But the bad decision making such as keeping the 2004 squad on Prem wages in the Championship will not happen under the new regime. I couldn't care less what league City are in. I do want them to play well and keep winning so that automaticallly means you are in the top flight. Obviously if you are in the top stream and doing well in other competitions then you must be doing something right on the pitch. But it could also mean you are living and performing beyond your means. I'm positive that our supporters, being the nicer kind of supporter would take L1 and solvency over stardom and stars we can't afford. As Supers says, if we can dream and, without once again wishing ill luck on genuine supporters, see one of the bigger clubs if not close but certainly face relegation, then just maybe some sanity can return to football. However, looking at sport in general I don't see any seeds of change.
Two main culprits for the demise of Footballs finances. 1) SKY 2) Foreign Owners-Abramovic the worst offender. You cannot blame the players,the FA,or SFA. We the fans ,along with "armchair fans"allowed it to happen, by stumping up large monthly fees to SKY,and large increases in entrance fees/season tickets to the clubs. This then convinced the clubs that they could buy success, and inflated wages accordingly. "Market forces rule" we were told. Be careful for what you wish for,still holds good. The game as I knew it,now no longer exists.
Hope you don't mind a post from an outsider but we touched on this subject on the Toon forum earlier in the week. Any of you who watched the Celtic- Barcelona game would have seen Fraser Forster the GK, who originally went to Celtic on loan from Newcastle, he is now a Celtic player, he has has two outstanding games against Barcelona and was indeed man of the match on Wednesday. We had one or two Celtic posters that joined in the debate, but one thing I did learn that I never knew, one of the Scottish poster said Scottish teams don't receive any Sky tv money, not sure how that one works, but apparently it's true, what an awful lot of revenue they're missing out on! Personally, I'd like to see the wages capped, players can earn huge amounts of money by sponsorship deals, as long as it doesn't interfere with club sponsorships, they can still earn fortunes.
We all know about Fraser Forster down here, as you may or may not be aware. The man is still responsible for the greatest save I ever saw at Carrow Road, against Tranmere at home in our League One season. Managed to get all the way across his goal in the same time as a squared pass to a Tranmere striker who thought he had an open goal in front of him. He, somehow, did not! As for the fate of Scottish football, I don't know how it's happened, but it's been coming for a long while now! All I'll say is that Scottish clubs make a lot more money than a lot of clubs that play on the continent - Swiss, Austrian, Bulgarian clubs etc. but their leagues don't seem to be evaporating!
Well, one thing about the Scots, they've produced some of the most successful managers both past and present, can't argue with that one!
I tried to rep you for your fine post but was told I have to spread it around before giving to you again! Guess we must have paired off in the brothel!
