Jump to content

Football: (Sky-)blue raindrops over a Red parade?


A Horse Named Stranger

Recommended Posts

I'm not sure, that's why I asked.

If I remember correctly there have some actions taken against Nigerian FA for government's involvement/encroachment on FA business a couple of years back?

Not sure if those UEFA rules are limited to governments appointing FA officials and stuff like that or would they cover this kind of special legislation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, given that any legislation will be designed to preserve the status quo, I really don't think UEFA or FIFA are going to give a shit.

And haven't you heard? We have officially Taken Back Control. We do what we want. We do what we waaaaaaaaa-ant. We do what we want.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm quite certain UEFA wouldn't give a shit even if the legislation would break UEFA/FIFA rules as long as it's in their best interest.

That's part of the problem, isn't it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, baxus said:

I'm quite certain UEFA wouldn't give a shit even if the legislation would break UEFA/FIFA rules as long as it's in their best interest.

That's part of the problem, isn't it?

Yes, but what are these rules you speak of?

Tried to find what the Nigerians did to upset FIFA, but it's not clear.

ETA: They sacked the entire executive branch of the Nigerian FA and installed their own puppets. Don't think we'd be going down that road. At all.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

26 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Yes, but what are these rules you speak of?

Tried to find what the Nigerians did to upset FIFA, but it's not clear.

Nigerian minister of sport tried to appoint the FA president.

I don't know the specific rules behind this and whether they are limited to something this blatant or would this type of legislation would also count as breaking these rules. FIFA statutes are 90 pages long and I really can't be bothered to go through them so I was wondering if anyone knew anything on the matter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

These bozos have left him with an electoral open goal (ba da boom tish). Not sure exactly what he should do, but he'd be mad not to do something.

I've heard talk of 'golden shares', or somehow transitioning football in this country to the 50+1 model, which is probably why there were no German clubs involved. I'm not sure how the mechanics of such a transition would look, but it would be great if we could somehow do that.

And I don't think he needs to fear any kind of public backlash for going too far. The only people who would be upset with serious law changes to protect OUR game would be the American billionaire wankers who just tried to wreck it.

Most of these ideas would effectively involve seizing or controlling the assets of wealthy and influential Russian, American and Middle Eastern businessmen and corporations, many with close ties to their respective governments and indeed to ours.

I won't be holding my breath waiting for Boris Johnson to do that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think it'd even be necessarily be a positive outcome anyway. It's not hard to imagine a situation were FIFA or UEFA did something were the major clubs threatening to take their ball and go home would be a good thing (like, say, a Qatar World Cup). This was obviously a bad idea but UEFA being propped up by legislation doesn't strike me as a good solution.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, baxus said:

I'm still shocked at how easily and quickly this whole Super League thing collapsed.

It almost feels like a test run for something down the line.

I’ve heard that some clubs such as City and Chelsea were under the impression this was all in much better shape when they signed up, and dropped out when they realised just what a mess it all was. The PR around this from the SL has been about as bad as it gets. I’m sure they expected some clever marketing strategy to prime the public beforehand. 
 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They may try again, sure, but they need the fans on their side if anything's going to work, and now they know that the permanent presence model is never going be accepted.

If they really want to be down with the kids, perhaps they should consider making matches a more bite-sized 30 seconds long instead. And just think of how many more matches you could fit into a season!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I’ve heard that some clubs such as City and Chelsea were under the impression this was all in much better shape when they signed up, and dropped out when they realised just what a mess it all was. The PR around this from the SL has been about as bad as it gets. I’m sure they expected some clever marketing strategy to prime the public beforehand. 
 

 

I expect they knew exactly what stage the plans were at, they'd have to be grossly incompetent otherwise, but they're trying to weasel out of as much criticism as they can.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have to say I did think this was really a negotiating tactic to get something they wanted out of UEFA on Champions League reforms. They all signed non binding contracts to join a new super league? Right okay. The way it's all collapsed in a heap though it seems they really did mean it. Which is a little embarrassing for all concerned.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Thats not what you would get, you would get matches between teams with biggest reputation. Arsenal, Spurs and with a few excuses Liverpool have been shite this year. If you want the best matches an open superleague where only the cream qualify (no pesky little funny sounding clubs from easten Europe or Scandinavia) is what is needed. Its the closed nature of the superleague that pissed many people off.  

I get that's why it pissed everyone off, but the financial incentives are too strong and it's probably an inevitability. I was listening to a brief financial breakdown on non-blue chip European clubs and the consensus was it's better for an individual or an investment group to buy into MLS, or even better, get an expansion club than it is to buy most European clubs and it's specifically because of the closed nature. Furthermore, a quick Google search finds that the five highest valued sports teams in the world are in the U.S. despite soccer being the most popular sport in the world. And it gets worse the more you look. Twenty-one of the top 25 are again in the U.S., and only seven European football clubs are in the top fifty. The aforementioned financial breakdown concluded that if the Super League had worked, all six English clubs would have displaced every U.S. sports team with their values possibly reaching >$10b in the not too distant future. And that's how the teams with the biggest reputations would reestablish themselves as the permanent cream of the crop.

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I know on the face of it, that does sound quite enticing, and that is exactly the thinking of the top clubs. They are wrong though, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it isn't the quality of the players that makes a good match. It helps, but I've seen so many matches between top sides to know that just because two top teams play each other, it doesn't mean the game will be enjoyable. They are often some of the more cautious, grindy games in fact.

Secondly, a football game is really  drama played out on a pitch. For it to be interesting, it has to mean something, there have to be stakes and a wider story going on. A game where one side might get relegated if they lose is nail biting if you support them, or a game for the league. How many international friendlies do people watch? How many of the dead rubber games in the CL do people ever bother to turn on? Those games are meaningless and so nobody cares. The SL has basically set up a structure of endless meaningless games (so has the new CL btw so can't say I like that either)

Then thirdly games between the top sides were always meant to be rare, an occasion. But what happens if they occur all the time. Why would you be interested in that? There is nothing interesting about Utd playing Real for the 3rd time this month. It's boring. 

The SL clubs also seem to have decided that local fans are worthless and its the new generation of global fans who will fuel this move, assuming that the new fans will be just as loyal and passionate. But are they? That is a huge assumption. Will new foreign fans tune into watch pointless games any more than traditional ones. If you remove the history from a club, does it still exist?

I guess I just disagree. To your first point, having more talented clubs obviously improves the match. Watching two bad soccer teams play one another is dreadful, much like watching the Jaguars play the Browns. That's why ship those games out to London. No one here wants to see that. To your second point, that's what playoffs are for. The stakes are different, but it's wrong to suggest they'd be eliminated simply by having a closed system. And to your third point, wasn't the idea to have a similar kind of schedule to the current PL, but instead of getting a slate of meh matches everyone is fire?

To your last point, that's exactly their gamble. The PL has basically maximized their earning potential under the current system. There's way more money to be made in the U.S., India and China though and they absolutely will pivot to appeal to those markets.

3 hours ago, baxus said:

No, all that data is still applicable. Had Saudis bought Newcastle last summer it's quite likely there would be another club at the top in a few years.

Also, we are talking about competitions with long traditions. What happened 50 years ago is in no way meaningless. You do need to separate from franchise-oriented sport if you want to understand European leagues and sports in general, that's not limited to football. Premier League has changed things but most of it was technicalities, the essence remained the same.

There's no false sense of romance there, it's 100+ years of traditions, some pretty crazy rides clubs, teams and supporters took during that period, generations of people being raised as supporters of their clubs, making watching the matches (either in the stadium or on TV) family events, it's about club representing you and your friends and family.

It's so much more than yelling "defense! defense!" with your mouth full of hot-dogs and that abomination you Americans call beer. And it's ok that you don't understand that (yet), but it's horrible that people who own these clubs apparently don't understand it either.

Not really if so much has changed. It would be like saying outdated coding is still applicable, and the mere fact that a rich buyer could instantly change a team says as much. And traditions die when outside money controls everything. I believe 14 of the 20 PL teams are owned by outside investors. Don't be shocked that they don't care about the past, especially if they view ownership as a pure financial investment.

This isn't me not understanding European traditions. The world is changing and European sports will have to adapt. 

(Also, don't pretend like we don't have sports traditions here too that are over 100 years old. European football is not special in that regards)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

 guess I just disagree. To your first point, having more talented clubs obviously improves the match. Watching two bad soccer teams play one another is dreadful, much like watching the Jaguars play the Browns. That's why ship those games out to London. No one here wants to see that. To your second point, that's what playoffs are for. The stakes are different, but it's wrong to suggest they'd be eliminated simply by having a closed system. And to your third point, wasn't the idea to have a similar kind of schedule to the current PL, but instead of getting a slate of meh matches everyone is fire?

To your last point, that's exactly their gamble. The PL has basically maximized their earning potential under the current system. There's way more money to be made in the U.S., India and China though andthey absolutely will pivot to appeal to those markets

- in some cases having talented players obviously helps the quality of the game. But it depends because really you are talking about talented attacking players and clubs at all levels have those. For instance Newcastle are a bullshit team, but they have a handful of flair players like Alain Saint Maximin, who are just wonderful to watch at full flow. 
 

The reason Newcastle are awful to watch mostly is because Bruce is a negative manager who plays safety first. You could in fact blame relegation on that, but the real blame is the inequality in the system that means that relegation could destroy a club, because they’ve been so badly run.

As for play off, doesn’t it mean that most of the season is completely pointless? Is that the only thing to play for? I know there are tons of dead rubber games in US sport and relegation helps prevent that.

I think the big issue for the big clubs is not being in charge of their own marketing or having ownership of their own rights. They don’t like having an external body able to decide their own destiny 

Also it’s true that the world is changing and European sports will have to adapt.. and they have done. Real Madrid and United have global followings. But there is an assumption of direction of travel that is inevitable. Why should it be? What is the end goal? It is only ever going to be more money, not sporting attainment. Maybe this is an opportunity to re-examine the role of sport in Europe, that it shouldn’t just be considered a business or pure entertainment, that it is something more important than that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

59 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

- in some cases having talented players obviously helps the quality of the game. But it depends because really you are talking about talented attacking players and clubs at all levels have those. For instance Newcastle are a bullshit team, but they have a handful of flair players like Alain Saint Maximin, who are just wonderful to watch at full flow. 

Having more talented players always improves the overall quality at the macro level even if id doesn't show up 100% of the time at the micro level.

Quote

As for play off, doesn’t it mean that most of the season is completely pointless? Is that the only thing to play for? I know there are tons of dead rubber games in US sport and relegation helps prevent that.

Not at all, and to be fair, most individual games are pointless except for diehard supporters and gamblers. There are certainly pointless games in baseball, and some with basketball, but on the opposite end there are non in football and every game in the NFL matters more than any regular season soccer match. 

And as for playoffs, multiple posters have mentioned that the CL doesn't get good until the later rounds. That's exactly what playoffs are. Playoff games have far higher stakes than match 27 in a PL game.

Quote

I think the big issue for the big clubs is not being in charge of their own marketing or having ownership of their own rights. They don’t like having an external body able to decide their own destiny 

Also it’s true that the world is changing and European sports will have to adapt.. and they have done. Real Madrid and United have global followings. But there is an assumption of direction of travel that is inevitable. Why should it be? What is the end goal? It is only ever going to be more money, not sporting attainment. Maybe this is an opportunity to re-examine the role of sport in Europe, that it shouldn’t just be considered a business or pure entertainment, that it is something more important than that.

I'm glad you mentioned those two clubs. I believe United claims to have close to half a billion fans worldwide and that Madrid isn't far behind. So why is it that both clubs are worth less than the New York Knicks, which has no international following, no national follow, no follow outside of its geographical territory and on top of that, it's fans largely hate the team. But it's still worth more than any football club in the world. Owners of the top clubs are well aware of this and that's the main motivation for their attempted break away. You get $90m if you win the CL which is hard verse a $400m windfall if you joined the ESL. Not a hard business decision there, plus you'd get fixed annual revenues which would quickly make each club more valuable than any American sports team. That's why they tried to do this. And it's kind of amazing that a handful of billionaires told a continent of sports fans to go fuck themselves and within 48 hours the fans completely bent the owners over their knees and killed the ESL in its crib. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

If they really want to be down with the kids, perhaps they should consider making matches a more bite-sized 30 seconds long instead. And just think of how many more matches you could fit into a season!

Nah. What we need is half-time multi-ball. Monster Trucks tearing up the turf. Games that take four hours to complete. Barely-clothed ladies with pom poms. Referees in stripey jumpers. Guns in every other aisle. Honestly don't know what Donald Trump was on about. America is already great. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...