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Football: pool in to the Final Spur of the season


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3 hours ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

Lastly,some surprising news: Timo Werner has been told Bayern Munich don’t want him - by RB Leipzig chief Ralf Rangnick. 

That's the first time I heard it. Then I saw your source (the mirror) British tabloid, and thought, yeah, that looks credible.

The closest scenario resembling reality was probably something like this.

You want to sign Werner you have to pay [fill in ludicrous number], I know you are willing to spend big. I saw what you spent on Hernandez.

And Bayern basically saying.

Right... You know what, we come back to you next year, when Werner's contract is up. We are not that desperate to sign a new striker, our primary target is another winger [Sane].

 

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20 hours ago, Consigliere said:

True. And the wealthy clubs themselves as well as the players union will ensure that the cap is still quite high. 

 

It's pretty naive to think that just implementing salary caps will lead to greater parity. The reason the NFL enjoys greater parity is not only because of wage caps. The NFL's strategy of maximising profit revolves around attempting to level the playing field as much as possible. The entire system is designed to ensure that the greater earning potential of franchises in bigger markets (eg. Dallas Cowboys) does not actually give them an advantage over franchises in smaller markets (eg. Green Bay Packers).

Not having to pay transfer fees as well as the draft system are crucial to all this as well. Instead of each franchise having their own academy, the college football program is entirely responsible for recruiting and developing the young talent for the benefit of the entire league with the worst performing teams getting preference in drafting the best talent without having to pay obscene fees. As I said before, NFL like parity in football is impossible to achieve unless the entire system in its current form is scrapped. 

I don't think anyone thinks it'll make the PL a magical league where every team has the same chance of winning the league. I do think it's likely that introducing a salary cap would push things in the right direction. Even if it won't make us *as* competitive as the NFL or the NHL, if it'll help a little, it's worth doing. Imagine teams like Leicester winning PL being more than once-in-a-generation phenomenon. Could be fun.

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My issue with a cap is somewhat different.

There's a whole lot of money in the game these days, we may not like it, but that doesn't change it. So where would the money go then? Nobody in here thinks this would lead to lower ticket or tv prices for the fan, or lower prices for jerseys sewn together in some Asian sweatshop right? And personally I'd rather see the money go to the players, then to investors or shareholders or something like that.

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Yeah it’s a good point, that money will still exist somewhere and will be spent on things that give bigger clubs an edge somewhere.

I do think that football is a good reflection of Capitalism in general. The free market nature of the premier league has led to a system where you get a small group of clubs dominating and using their wealth to prevent newcomers breaking them up. Only extreme incompetence can cause on club to fail long term. With not enough powerful regulation you end up with a lot of monopolies and little change.

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Honestly I don't see how a salary cap alone would be a step in the right direction - just implementing a wage cap alone is a waste of time as the midlevel clubs will still be left in the dust when it comes to transfer fees, agent and other intermediary fees and signing bonuses. In order for midlevel clubs to at least compete on wages the cap would need to be around £130m to £150m (based on EPL wage bill estimates) - outside the top 6, Everton have the highest wage bill at £145m. Everyone else is below £120m. Realistically though, the big clubs + players and agents + players union would never allow the cap to be that low. 

At £200m or more only the top 10 wealthiest clubs in the world carry wage bills of that size or greater so the status quo remains. In fact clubs with very high wage bills would benefit even more. Barca for instance have an eye watering wage bill of £431m. If a cap of say £230m to £250m were to be put into place, they'd have an additional 180-200 million annually to add to a transfer budget, upgrading infrastructure and scouting networks or greasing the palms of agents and inflated signing bonuses to attract players.

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Nope.

Football (or sports in general) is part of the entertainment industry. If you want to make comparissions compare it to a movie studio, and the players to actors if you will. The analogy works surprisingly well btw.

As much as some nvestment banker in the City in his fifties likes to picture himself as star athelete who scores big wins for his team, the fact of the matter is, he still is a balding little man with a belly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88yuVTtjFTs

What's the difference, right? No, idea why I had to think of that movie scene.

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1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

As much as some nvestment banker in the City in his fifties likes to picture himself as star athelete who scores big wins for his team, the fact of the matter is, he still is a balding little man with a belly.

What is the point you are trying to make with this?

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don'T compare Sports with the finance industry.

One is entertainment, which is really free from any real economic value (and it really serves no economic purpose other than keeping the plebs happy).

The other thing is not entirely free of economic and should serve an economic purpose. Banks actually do by giving loans to companies and stuff. Investment bankers and hedge fund managers, well, there are very few professions I feel more contempt for. Make of that what you will.

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10 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

don'T compare Sports with the finance industry.

One is entertainment, which is really free from any real economic value (and it really serves no economic purpose other than keeping the plebs happy).

The other thing is not entirely free of economic and should serve an economic purpose. Banks actually do by giving loans to companies and stuff. Investment bankers and hedge fund managers, well, there are very few work groups I feel more contempt for. Make of that what you will.

I was talking about capitalism’s and companies tendency to move towards monopolies. Usually through taking advantage of poor regulation you tend to find a number of huge companies at the top with those underneath unable to compete.

I think there is definitely a parallel in football. Almost every league in Europe is dominated by a tiny number ( usually 1) team that has the financial muscle to hoover up all the best assets and abuse their position.

Ok we’ve also seen the influx of foreign money to propel teams above their current position, but really that is the only way to do it. You could say that there is a parallel with companies like Uber who have pumped huge amounts of money into their business before being able to turn a profit, but still manage to push out all the completion by going in hard and fast. 

I don’t see the game become any more equal unless massive changes are made to the financial structure. Possibly that’s a wage cap, more collective bargaining for tv rights, or even something like a draft system. Or the premier league takes control of all the clubs and dishes out cash to all of them rather than let them operate as independent businesses.

of course none of that is ever going to happen. 

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Valencia pull off a big upset beating Barca in the Copa del Rey final. Valverde's job must surely be hanging by a thread  now.

 

According to a report in the Financial Times, Leeds United are in talks with several investors one of which is Qatar Sports Investment. According to the report, QSI have identified Leeds as their club of choice to enter English football and are seeking as much as a controlling interest however the report also says the owners preference currently is to sell a minority stake.

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3 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Tuchel got a (surprise?) contract extension from PSG.

Not really a surprise, thought he signed that one a few months ago.

Again, Tuchel has some confidence on the owners' side, and he gets along with Neymar and the rest of the team quite well apparently. But he really has to show some improvement (result wise) in the CL next year, if he intends to stay, otherwise he is out extension or not.

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Atalanta should have 3rd place wrapped up. 3-1 up and  Sassuolo are a player down as well. 4th place is between the two Milan clubs now. 

 

ETA. Empoli have just equalised at Inter. AC Milan blew a 2-0 lead but are leading 3-2 atm. As it stands, Atalanta and AC Milan are 3rd and 4th.

ETA2. Inter take the lead again and move ahead of AC Milan. 

ETA3. Inter/Empoli was a great game. Inter won and finish 4th. Empoli fluffed a couple of massive chances in injury time and are relegated - a draw would have kept them up.

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