When will the madness cease. In these somewhat austere financial times, does anyone else just feel very uncomfortable seeing headlines like these about a game we all love? What messages do these stories send out? What wages will he be on as well if if did sign? £250k per week; £300k per week; more? It's sick if you ask me. Will we soon see the £100m footballer?
This is why a cap needs to be bought it, now, if I team can afford and sustain the wages then I say fair play, however I cap of around £120 mil (I know it's a lot) and wage cap of say a million would put transfers into perspective over the up coming years for the handful of clubs that are mega rich I.e man city, psg, zenit saint Petersburg (sp?) players within this range would be far out of your range along with 99% of clubs so it doesn't really bother me that much.
It's killing the game. There are a handful of clubs worldwide that are competing for the elite players, the rest are feeding on scraps. Take the champions league for example, you can more or less predict who will be in the final 4 and everyone of them will be a mega rich club with a billionaire backing them. We need a cap and a realistic one as well.
You all say this but you pay for the sky, tickets, mechandise. If you don't like corperate football you don't have to go.
Sadly it will get worse and worse with more sugar daddies buying clubs and treating it like a little toy. Then you hear stories about players on ridiculous amounts such as 200k A WEEK and then they complain that they arent happy and want a pay rise despite being on a massively inflated wage in the first place. Some will say that fans cant really complain when they are the ones contributing to the problem by paying the inflated wages by going to games, etc but fans have a right to be annoyed with the way the game is heading. A wage cap would be a good idea but it needs to be realistic. Would a wage cap be just in this country? what will stop the big earners in this country moving to another country which doesnt have any wage caps. The wage cap would have to be enforced by Uefa amonst the major football leagues such as EPL, La liga, bundesliga, etc but this would be very tough to enforce on different leagues.
Listening to a spanish reporter today,on Talksport,and it seems that new spanish tax-laws will mean that highly-paid superstars such as Ronaldo will have to pay stacks more in tax,and so will their clubs.I'm sure they call it the Beckham rule...something to do with players from foreign clubs not having to pay as much tax on earnings now,but they will on new contracts.
True but if any other business annoyed you in such way, you would say enough is enough and stop stumping up money. At the end of the day the money aspect of the game will continue to dominate unless the money drys up, but there's some kind of cult like effect with following a football team that means most people will put up with so much more than the would accept in other walks of life.
Let's face it, it's unsustainable. Fans going to the grounds long since stopped covering wages. Tv money pays wages etc. On one hand we want our club to be sensible on the other we want to compete. Can't have it both ways except on very rare occasions. Clubs have by and large always been a rich owners play thing. It's just that they are not English anymore. These people are making money and putting losses against the clubs. What happened at Portsmouth will happen to bigger clubs. Tv money will dry up. The Internet will eventually take over. Extra tv money from the champions league has created an elite in our league. Maybe we should have a top 3 and fair play gets champions league. You have to spunk millions to get champions league, the only clubs to break the top four Chelsea and city have chucked 100s of millions at it. I think we've seen a little shift the other way with the likes of AJ coming to us. The big four have consistently choked the challengers by taking their best players and sitting them on their own bench. Ruining football and lower clubs alike. Prem teams should NOT be allowed to loan to each other. A day is coming where fees are NOT paid to clubs and only wages. This is what the big clubs want and will finish the rest.
Sounds a good shout but of course its a heavily flawed philosophy. If we don't like one company and the way they do business we use another. If we hate one brand of beans, we eat anothers. If we are global environmentalists we may stop using cars but we use another method of transport. Football isn't a commodity or a company as such. It's a passion and a calling. It gets in your blood and dominates our lives, or else why would we all come on here each day? I love football and Sunderland AFC in particular but I am hugely concerned about its direction over the last 10 to 15 years and this kind of story angers me.
Yeah that's what I mean by cult like. There's no logical reason why you should be loyal to a team but you are.
I sent an e-mail to the FA a while ago & their answer was this is how the best players are brought to the Premier League & if they tried to implement a wage or transfer fee cap then these players would go elsewhere. I've just sent another e-mail to the FA about this proposed £95 million move for Ronaldo, I reminded them of their reply last time I raised the question, this time I suggested that the fact we have so many Non-UK foreign players that we will never have an England team that will win anything in my lifetime, as not that many English players are actually given a run in the Premier League. I also suggested they close some off these loopholes that allow some clubs to have a few more foreign players by stating they've been in their acadamies since they were 15 & to stand up & be counted for the sake of English football. I can't see it happening though, they'll be scared that these clubs won't allow their English players to turn out for England & they won't have the nuts to say fair enough we'll look at other clubs for players who will turn up.
Couldn't agree more - football is like an addiction and these businesses are feeding off it. They know that a hard core of supporters will come to every home game regardless of what is being served up. Of course the better the spectacle the more who will attend and the more money is made. Of course what isn't always appreciated is that only a very few teams can expect to win something each year and some football leaders and supporters demand that their team be the ones that do - this drives up the costs and the never ending spiral begins. I have said before that what really needs to happen is for a few high profile clubs to go out of buisiness - it is mercenary I know and I pray that one of them is not SAFC - that way then chairman may concentrate more on sustainable growth and the likes of Arsene Wenger won't get pilloried by his own supporters for refusing to pay over the odds when he beleives it is not in the clubs interest to do so
Reg, I don't think Logic comes into it mate, like Cest said, it's a calling, it's in the blood, like our fathers before us. It's a religion and our clubs ground is the church that we go to MON preach his sermon.
I was asked why I supported SAFC once - and apart from the fact I'm a born and bread Mackem I couldn't give one logical reason why ! Certainly not for our record of success during my lifetime !! It's in us and in our blood - it's just part of who we are. I do believe though that money is killing the game ! Ronaldo at £80+ million or now supposedly £90million + is obscene. Not even Messi is worth that.
It bamboozles me why super-rich owners are appearing on the footballing scene. It would be enlightening if any of them could explain what they want out of a football club. The handful of global brand clubs will always be that and no amount of money will provide a "catch up" situation to the ManUs, Real's or other Italian/Spanish/German clubs.
I don't necessarily buy that argument mate ( pun definitely intended !). In 20 years time if Man City have won the Premier League a dozen times and the CL, FA Cup etc they'll be considered as having "History" or whatever. Look at how man times the likes of Liverpool had won anything prior to WW2 and Manure weren't even the biggest club in Manchester until the Busby era. Zenit St Petersburg are throwing money around now generated by Billionaire Russian owners (oil money ?). Things will move on and in 30 years time clubs that are considered as elite now may not be so then.
Can't argue with what you say. Football fame is relative to the time you live in and yesterdays achievements are just that. The one element in modern day football though is money, Sky/Billionaire etc.. This will be reflected in the game's history hopefully.
While i understand people have a passion for their team they really need to wake up and realise its just another form of the entertainment industry, a weapon of mass distraction. It's pure divide and conquer tribalism, I knowingly let myself get caught up in it, but at the same time I maintain the presence of mind to remember it isnt the be all and end all, there is a real world out there beyond football with real issues and direct influence on my life. Football wouldnt be as enjoyable if the tribal element didnt exist but there is a limit to how you should allow it to envelope your life. With regards to the OP, the exponential rise in fees and wgaes is absolutel yunsustainable and I say let them at it. Im happy to see my club sit back and weather the spending madness doing enough to maintain respectable finishes, im patient enough to wait it out. Eventually the bubble wil burst and it will all come crashing down around those clubs and a new line of sustainably run clubs will be ready to seize their chance.
Like any passion it can never be allowed to be the sole purpose in life but also as with all true passions, it does not run with the normal order of life. We make irrational decisions based on a love or a feeling that we would never make in a hard headed moment. When it is our hearts that make the decisions as to whether to follow our football clubs, then TV, owners, players etc have the upper hand. What it needs is some regulation and although I am not a huge lover of Michael Platini, he at least has the balls to try and do something about it on our behalf. Whether it actually works in reality is another thing of course.
How much revenue in shirt sales, merchandising, sponsorship money, latent good will would ronaldo bring in... A ton. It's probably not as crazy a price as we think!
