A rumour on the BBC Sport Gossip column that makes me wonder how come you can reward failure in the Premiership and to hell with anyone in the leagues below. The club that finishes bottom of the Premier League next season is set to collect around £63m in earnings from a new broadcasting deal currently in negotiations, just over £20m more than the current amount. Am I wrong in thinking that the rich will only get richer whilst any club doing their business in the lower leagues continue to struggle to survive financially? The game of football is based on the pyramid system where supposedly any team can achieve glory but it seems to me that the wish can only come true if you become a member of the elitist group we call the Premier League. Surely more money should be filtered down from the top to help struggling teams to survive, even if they are propping up the pyramid. The ongoing money grab is what is ruining the game and not allowing it to return close to it's roots.
The premier league negotiate their own tv deal. Football league clubs including Bristol City constantly vote in favour of how money gets distributed and for radical changes like the elite player programme which again favours the big v the majority. City can hardly complain when the club has been ran like a basket case on one man's money v sustainability and the owner appears to openly back the head of EPL.
It's a bit late for that Mike. Money effectively started ruining the game a few decades back, and Sky coming in during the early 90's was the first tap on the final nail in the coffin. Foreign investors/owners have since made it worse. Unfortunately maybe, but at least in my eyes, its also a reflection of modern society where often abject failure and neglect of duty as in the Banking Crisis, is no longer met by the sack, or prison if the offence contravenes the law, but by former employers instead offering a golden handshake to the culprits. Baffling !!!!
Well said angelic and to confirm your statement I watched a documentary about the major financial crisis in the Excited States last night and was shocked by the things that went on. Basically the FBI and other law enforcement agencies investigated the major individuals involved and as yet not charges are contemplated due to the fact that they came to realise that if those people went to jail then they would probably shut down their banks putting tens of thousands of people out of work. It was also stated that jailing the culprits would possibly have a major long term effect on the banking system around the world - WHAT! The financial insanity in all aspects of our lives are not due to change soon so WE will continue to suffer not THEM. Hardly seems fair or right does it?
I quite agree Mike, but increasingly the gap between the Prem and everyone else widens year on year. Traditionally the lower divisions have always been a feeder system for the top division so you'd wish that there could be far more trickling down of the wealth to keep the grassroots healthy. However, the huge worldwide TV revenue the Premier League can command, plus the fact that a large percentage of players at that level are brought in from abroad, means that those at the table can get richer and there's less incentive to share with the domestic lower divisions. The history of the 92 is eroding, and all that matters these days is being one of the elite 20 (and staying there) so you can collect the riches and become a global brand. Why bother sharing with the poor, when your riches mean you probably won't ever drop down to be back amongst their ranks? To get 63m for finishing bottom of the Prem next season is just staggering. The owners of Cardiff, Hull and Palace/Watford must be rubbing their hands in glee, whatever happens. It's very sad when you look back and see the sorts of fairytale stories that become ever-more unlikely these days, like a Wimbledon rising from the Southern League into the top division. And it's also sad when you read about the financial struggles of so many clubs in the lower divisions, yet the Prem doesn't give a damn if any of those clubs go to the wall for the sake of literally, a few hundred thousand pounds or a million or two (bad mgmt at places like Pompey aside). The days of "the old game" are gone, and it's now just about money. And I also agree that there are strong parallels with how modern society is becoming too. Don't get me started on the financiers who've screwed up the worlds economies yet walked away with huge golden handshakes. Bah (end of old farts rant!)
I second your rant 100%. I won't rant any more tonight because the red wine is slowing me down, but maybe I'll have a rant later in the week!
I always believed that when you were relegated from the top tier you took your chances along with everyone else in the race for promotion back to the top. The playing field is totally changed when if you go down you will receive more than the annual budgets of some, if not most, of your competitors in that division just because you were a loser in the high stakes that are the Premier League. Talk about an old boys club in the worst possible way when the clubs that have come up from the 3rd tier (Yeovil, Bournemouth etc) are basically being told that their financial situation will have a detrimental effect on their chances of going higher when they are competing against an ex one of their own. A sad reflection on the state of the game when you consider that the kind of money being dished out for failure far exceeds the financial expectations of a lot of clubs in the league. Makes the new FFP regulations being placed on clubs a bit sick when you consider, I presume, that the failure money can be included in their annual revenues to allow them back in to the big signing league again. Bah bloody humbug.
There is only one way for this insanity to stop. For everyone to stop paying their monthly subscription to Sky and all the other TV comapanies that screen live football. But those who pay for its convenience to watch football without leaving their own house, do not understand that if they stop paying, it will force clubs into more sensible and realistic ways of running their clubs. And as long as the contributors to SKY etc, continue paying they will not care a toss about the other 72 clubs in the English league system, 96 if one includes The Conference. This depth of professional football is unique to England, as there isn't another country in the World where the second tier has nothing other than reserve teams and a few small fry who go up to come immediately back down. And the third, fourth and fifth tiers are the proving clubs for countless good youngsters who the Premiership eagerly gobble up at little expense to keep their inflated egos intact. English football is unique where a club from the fourth tier like Bradford City can knock Premier teams out of both League Cup and FA Cup and reach a Final. It just does not happen in any other country! One day, those big boys of the Prem, with their money grabbing greed, may suddenly come to realise what they have done to English football when all of the clubs from League One and below have disappeared for ever.
I absolutely agree with your follow-up comments Mike and Cidered Abroad. And whilst the polarisation of money to the Prem and especially to the "Big 4 or 5" seems to be exciting to the rest of the world, frankly I've been increasingly turned off by the predictability for several years. Really, how exciting is it when you can forecast right now the top 3 or 4 places in the PL next season? Pretty damn boring, that's what. Who cares that it'll be Man U or Man C or maybe Chelsea who'll be champions next season? It'll be the same old title race and 90% of the same teams in the Champions League. Again. And again. And again. I cancelled my Sky last summer, and would have done so even if I hadn't moved over here in Sept. What I WOULD have missed would have been the Championship and a few of the L1 and L2 live matches to be honest, and it's killing me not to watch the Play-Offs. I know some have argued that the Championship has been "weak" for a few years, when you look at some of the unpredictable results and some of the teams (and not always the yo-yo ones with the parachute payments) who've made it up for a season or two in the promised land, like Blackpool and Burnley. I think the Championship is brilliant, because it IS unpredictable, and because most teams (us excepted these past couple of years) HAVE had a shout at reaching the play-offs. Who'd have guessed Peterboro would almost escape relegation with their late surge, only to fall on the last day? Give me the Championship over the Prem any day. Sorry, I've rambled and digressed again. But as you guys have said better than me, where else but England to have such strong and historic lower divisions? And sadly, we're fast selling out and risking losing a huge part of what made the English game great just so that a small minority can be super-rich and be worldwide brands. Now I've thoroughly depressed myself - you chaps back home will be in bed. I'll have dinner and some of the crap here that they call beer!
Some great feedback on my thread and it shows me that I am not alone with my concerns about the teams in the lower league being just about totally ignored by those at the top. I know the game needed to evolve but gone are the days when clubs such as Ipswich were winning the title and just about anyone else also had a shot at glory. I have basically given up on watching live football here in Canada and cancelled my subscription to the robbers that were Setanta Canada because every time there was an important game they shifted the match to their very convenient pay-per-view channel despite the fact that I was paying a subscription to the channel that was supposed to show the game. When I spend my winters in the Canary Islands it seems that most top games are shown via Arabic Channels and I am sure there is no coincidence that offshore money is flooding in the management of our national sport. The Championship in my opinion is the best league in the world because as Windycity says it still hold the aura of unpredictability and can prove to be the most difficult division from which to rise and we need to get back there asap. But what a slap in the face it will be when we return to know that some of our competitors have been greatly rewarded for failure whereas we will get a mere pittance (would we actually get anything?). Us and them are growing so far apart that it beggars belief that the top teams care so little about the roots of the game that now supports them so well. Shame!
Hello Windy City. Try this web site that shows live football. The picture quality is pretty good and no breaks in reception if your line speed is good. Only problem is getting rid of the pop-ups but if you do it carefully and then go to "full screen" you should be able to watch alright. http://www.firstrow1.eu/
If the "pot" was shared, that is give 48m to championship, 36m to first div and 24 mill to 2nd division then there would still be likely amount of 24million to the bottom 3
