The non-Watford football thread

Rather arrogant of you to suggest you have more concern than others on providing facilities for all. Surely most would agree those at the top should help provide for those in need. You should try to keep to the facts without the hysterics.

 

I think that a lot of us on here can remember a time in which we measured ourselves against the likes of Swindon and Oxford Utd. If someone had come along in the late sixties or early seventies and said that within our lifetimes we would be playing against Bournemouth or Brighton in the top tier we would have laughed at them - likewise that Leeds Utd would be playing Nottm Forest in the second or, even more dramatic, Sunderland would be playing Coventry in the third. So it's become a topsy turvy World - in which sudden rises or falls become commonplace. This is something which is less common in other countries, although Hamburg SV against Stuttgart in the second division is somewhat unusual. So in England you have a fluidity unknown elsewhere - in which success or failure becomes a question of whether you attracted the right sugar daddy at the right time. We did this (though Bassini was also a result of the system I am criticizing, and it could have gone one way or the other) - we attracted the right sugar daddy. We did this mostly because of our location, close to London. Had we been located in Bolton, Bury or Halifax then we would have been stuck with the likes of Bassini. I am not saying that the german model fits everywhere - this also is unfair because the clubs with the largest membership/fan bases will always dominate, and there are few short cuts to levelling this out. So Bayern's domination of German football is just as hard to balance as that of Liverpool and Man City in England - in fact harder. What Frenchie is saying is that we have to find ways of circulating the money which the Premiership produces into the grass roots of the game, and this cannot be purely on a voluntary basis. Whilst the football played by Liverpool or Man City may be wonderfull (if they are not being outclassed at the Vic !) those clubs did not produce those players who are entertaining us - how many of the Man City players are products of their youth academy ? Apparently if you take the Champions League and add up all the players of clubs currently still in it, there are more from the academy of Ajax Amsterdam than from any other club - yet they themselves have been priced out of it.

 

Many of the English clubs that became unstable was simply because of reckless financial decisions. As in life you cannot legislate for idiots or chancers becoming involved with football. Continuous success in football has always gone to the riches clubs at every level this is something that will not change. I do however agree to a larger percentage of the enormous EPL tv deal trickling down the leagues. The alternative is simply more cash paid to players and agents, much of which is paid to foreign players and finds its way abroad.

 

I'll take you up on your second sentence SH. ie. ''You cannot legislate for idiots and chancers becoming involved in football''. From the wording it would suggest that there should be no restrictions whatsoever on who can take over a football club - are you in favour of a system which allows people like Bassini to buy a club without his background having been gone into ? That appears to be what you are saying. We have had people buying football clubs who were not economically viable, or who were connected to human rights violations, or who wanted to improve their countries image through possession of a Premier League club (Abu Dhabi, Katar etc.) regardless of where their money came from in the first place. Are you suggesting there should be an absolute free for all on this ie. he who has the money buys !

 

I would also target the growing lucrative market of online gambling. These businesses should pay increased taxes to help subsidise
all sports at lower levels.

 

Why sport should be privately owned by those who seek to benefit from their involvement is beyond me.. We see it in F1, darts,boxing, horse racing, etcetc
How long ago was it that we lauded the values of the Olympic athlete who was an amateur..

 

I am pleased to see SH that you did agree with my thoughts about giving lower league and grassroots football some of the money coming into the game. You talk about it trickling down, but as we have seen in business it doesn't happen unless authorities legislate to make it happen. Include a levy on betting sponsorship by all means, I would approve of that. As I see it there is a divide between the EPL and the FA with the former unwilling to give much to the latter that could be distributed throughout the game. Quite how you can get around most of the TV money going to just the one place I am not sure, but it cannot be right to allow the very richest to ignore the rest. We have seen various shareholders in business saying no to directors getting stupid amounts of bonus or wages, but without anyone in football clubs to curb the excesses of owners there is little to stop them doing whatever they will. We have seen clubs such as Man.Utd that were basically debt free, now owing huge sums to the Americans because of using the systems to buy the club. As far as they are concerned it is purely an investment, nothing much to do with the fans, who are so fed up with it they formed a breakaway club.

 

The famous world renowned clubs in the EPL are entitled to the lion's share of rewards as they are creating the revenue. There should be provision to go beyond the excellent share out to the lesser teams in the EPL. Watford FC earning around £100 million per season is great. Maybe more teams should take the sensible Norwich approach and protect a clubs future by not failing into the usual trap of overspending on players. Maybe Norwich will be relegated this season but they will have strong finances to mount a promotion bid next season. Other teams will be much less prepared.

If you try and clobber the top EPL sides with excessive supportive funds for all they will be forced into an International league which will benefit nobody. We currently have an excellent set up, with a few tweaks, could be perfect.

 

Are they 'creating the revenue' SH. They are not creating the players - if you add together the squads of the richest 6 ie. the two Manchester clubs, Liverpool and the 3 big London clubs then there are 22 players in those squads who come from Brazil or Argentina - or rather 2 complete teams. The figure for Belgium and the Netherlands is 14. So in terms of World class players the biggest clubs are producing very little - they are just buying and accumulating but nothing else. These 6 clubs are replaceable - the clubs such as Rio Santos or Ajax aren't because without them there would be no more players coming through.

 

The fashionable clubs create the value because the public are prepared to part with their cash to watch them, live and on tv. Where players come from is totally immaterial.

 

Your last sentence is so totally laughable that I'm in stitches ! If there were no feeder clubs (official or otherwise) there would be no Man City's or Liverpool's in the footballing World. It takes a smaller club to spot and nurture talent at it's own expense before the elite clubs can exist. The elite clubs are doing nothing for football itself, because they are not creating talent, they are just assembling it. I say the elite clubs here, but don't mean all of them because Barcelona still do nurture their own talent. Football could exist quite happily without Man City - it could not exist without the thousands of smaller clubs who discovered and nurtured talent in the first place.

 

The feeder clubs such as Rennes are well paid for their young players. They survive on selling players, as Watford used to.

 

I don't know much about Rennes or their dealing SH. I honestly don't know if I would call eg. Ajax Amsterdam (I keep referring to them because they are my second club) as a feeder club. There are so many of their former academy products playing in the bigger leagues, so I suppose they must be. Money has a different value to them - it was inevitable that the team from last season would break up and it duly did - just as the same would happen to Leicester, Wolves or Sheff Utd if they actually won the league. Frenkie de Jong went for 75 Million to Barcelona, Mathijs de Ligt for the same sum to Juventus - Daley Sinkgraven, Lasse Schone and Kasper Dolberg all left as well. 75 million sounds like a lot of money and it would be for Man City but it isn't for Ajax because it doesn't have the same market value - City can sell for that much and replace them with a player of the same value but no player worth that much wants to play in the Eredivisie (Dutch first div.). So, in the end, it didn't make much difference what they sold for. Of course Ajax could refuse to sell - could refuse to allow anyone to talk to their players, but that is not their way, and players would probably stop performing if they thought the club had stood in their way. Year after year we see clubs being good for a season and then having their players enticed away (or managers in the case of Marco Silva) then they go into the doldrums for a few seasons like Anderlecht or Monaco. This effectively prevents any club from outside the richest 10 clubs from winning things on a consistent basis. If the future is a case of 'get to the top for a season, get stripped of your assets and become a shadow of the team you were for the following 3 years as a result, until a new crop of youngsters comes through' then fans will feel done down by this. The thing you have to remember is that Premier League fans are the minority - if you add up all the fans who watch football in all of the other divisions in England, including at local level, you will find this to be true. The majority of football fans in England are not interested in the Premier League !

 

You will find many supporters of English lower league clubs are still interested in watching superior teams and players in the EPL. This is why most pay Sky and BT. The Premiership being the best league in the world is why so many around the world are also willing to pay to watch EPL games. The EPL has winning formula, long may it continue.

 

Three defeats in the champions League and Arsenal bowing out against Piraeus don't imply that the Premier League is the best in the World SH. Up until last season the Premiership clubs had made a regular habit of going out of Europe relatively early (they should have hired Pep for the Brexit campaign, he is an expert in leaving Europe early). Also, having a club 20 points ahead at this stage of the season doesn't say much about the quality - all the other major leagues (apart from France) are very open affairs. The Premier League is overhyped. Also - what you said about selling clubs having to sell in order to survive just isn't true - all clubs belong with their assets on the pitch, and they often don't want to sell, it's just that others tap up their players, and create discontent, and so selling becomes an inevitability because it is not wise to keep players against their will.

 

For excitement and interest around the world the EPL is far superior to any other league. Apart from the two Spanish clubs and maybe one in Germany all of the best managers and players head for the Premiership. It is head and shoulders above anywhere else.
We even possess the new world champions in Hertfordshire.

 

England:
Liverpool 79 points
Man City 57 points
Leicester 50 points

Spain
Real Madrid 56 points
Barcelona 55 points
Sevilla 46 points

Italy
Lazio 62 points
Juventus 60 points
Inter 54 points

Germany
Bayern 52 points
RB Leipzig 49 points
BVB 48 points
Mönchengladbach 46 points

So for excitement and interest the league which is 'head and shoulders' above everyone else, has turned from the 2 horse race from last season into the one horse race from this season. Whereas all those so called inferior leagues are going down to the wire. And, up to last weekend, the only losses which Liverpool had suffered this season were at the hands of Napoli and Atletico Madrid, both members of so called inferior leagues. You will also notice that the same Bayern team which thumped 7 past Spurs on their own patch, and outclassed Chelsea on theirs only has a wafer thin lead at the top of the Bundesliga (another so called inferior league).

 

The EPL is the most watched league on tv in the world. It has the highest paid average salaries which attracts the highest number of top players. It also has 6 of the top 15 teams in the world, more than any other country.

 

When you say '6 of the top 15 teams in the World' how are you measuring that ? By the club's turnover or based on their on field success.