On the anniversary of our league victory over Liverpool.... Here's one of the hideous sides of the beautiful game and why I ended up hating being in the PL!! Just got a feeling the game thought.... "How dare we beat Liverpool!!"
More about it here. So the big clubs can end up half way down their leagues and go in as they are historically important. Which means that we have 3 clubs going in who have never won the European Cup, unlike little Forest who have won it twice. What if some impudent teams not in the favoured few end up occupying the first 4 places what happens then? Could you end up 12th and qualify for the Europe League? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...s-reforming-Champions-League-UEFA-Friday.html
Fair play rules suggest fairness but actually protect the group of current top clubs. Don't allow former clubs to get there.... If Leeds (cough, spit) had a stupid billionaire owner that wanted to give £500m to Bielsa to build a top side, they're not allowed.....
Ironically it was brought in because of Chelsea. Abramovich backed it because he was happy to cut off the ladder beneath him to stop anyone else doing what he had done.
As has been said, it's clearly there to protect the teams at the top and keep them above the rest. There's also no coincidence it really took off after PSG got their investment. That was 100% by design.
We're not missing anything. Leave them too it. Based entirely on our own very brief European adventure. There's not much enjoyment in being kettled by armed police and water cannons, then baton charged whilst held within throwing range of bricks and bottles from the local thugs hiding safely behind police lines and a six foot fence. 'Your English, you should be used to it'
My experience of Trencin wasn't quite like that, but the Police did escort us from Bratislava Airport all the way to the match.... 12° proof Slovakian beer helped....
You say that, but Trencin was almost the opposite of Lokeren. Not everywhere treats European fans with utter contempt. And 99% of Lokeren fans were a bloody lovely bunch as well and I really feel for them now that their club has done a Bury. It was the rozzers that were the real ****s that night.
The grubby hands of Platini were all over it. He shifted the goalposts when PSG were one of the worst affected originally.
The Daily Mail... Always a good source of information but has some tutting at the idea somebody on here reads it.
It's not just me then! I even loved going to Lokeren, other than a mad twenty minutes in that narrow street after the game that I'd like to never repeat. Even that water cannon truck was pretty amusing - were they really willing to turn it on a group of City fans milling around disinterestedly while they waited to get back to the bars in Ghent? I don't think so.
I loved the Ferry across, the night before in Ghent, took all the family too, the afternoon in Ghent, and the pre match up to 6.00 on Lokeren market place but after that what happened was scandleous. If I'd have been with a group of lads I wouldn't have given a toss about the appalling way we were herded about by the police because you expect it, but when you have young grand children with you who were terrified then you see it in in a different light. I could have been locked up that night for defending my grand kids against baton waving hyperactive robo cops. They were battering people to the ground, whilst we were under a hail of bottles and bricks, so anyone condoning that cannot have been where we, and hundreds of others were, kettled in by the police for a lot more then 20 mins..
That's what I said. I still see a City fan today with a six inch scar on his head from a police baton. Bastards.
