Moyes is in over his head at United. Though for some reason I see them going through over Olympiakos... Hope I am wrong though.
I thought they would go through, looking at the Olympiakos roster, they had a lot of dudes with complete lack of composure, typically if you're spanish and playing in Greece, you're typically a clown. With that said, United just were better, but they'll get slaughtered in the QFs....
Untrue. Lots of Italian owners want to own their private stadium but don't really want to afford their building expenses (case in point Cellino, who wanted the city of Cagliari to build a new stadium and then get to own it for free ). Or, even worse, they want to build stadiums only as an excuse to build massive commercial and residential projects which have nothing to do with the sport (case in point Lotito, Zamparini, Garrone, the new Roma owners, Della Valle). No law in Italy bars the construction of new structures. Most comuni are strapped for cash so a stadium licence (or a sale of the existing infrastructure to private investors and subsequent renovation) would be very welcome. Also, some owners (case in point Preziosi) don't even pay for the use of public stadiums. Genoa CFC still owes the city council stadium fees from 2005. I'm also convinced that having new stadiums wouldn't really make a difference in terms of attendance...if prices were raised I could actually envision a steep decrease. After all you can't join an artifically inflated currency which doubled prices overnight, lower salaries, raise retirement age by 5 years overnight, worsen worker contracts, make heavy cuts to public healthcare and subsided public transport, raise university tuitions and indirect taxes on consumption and then expect people to spend 100 euros per month on football. Serie A reflects the changes endured by the Italian economy in the past 15 years (most problems I listed far pre-date the 'public debt' crisis, which was entirely political and only really lasted about a year)...it's not an isolated enclave.
Do you have a opinion on how La Liga has managed to emerge from the Eurozone experience relatively unscathed in comparison to Serie A?
How is having all the clubs in their league swimming in huge debts and/or scandalous subsidies, including the Big Two, "relatively unscathed"? La Liga is a house of cards.
It helps when their judges order laptops with substantial evidence to be burned without checking. They're a pack of drugie Spanish midgets, they can't expose that as what else do Spain have left? Their country is an economic mess, all the Spanish people have is their sporting merit to have some sense of national pride.
Spain is an f'ing mess. If I were living in Spain, I would be absolutely livid with Government pumping money into sports teams. People eating out of trash cans in Madrid, but Real Madrid smashes another transfer record without flinching. But then again anything that happens to Spain will be blamed on Serie A!
EPL is overrated in my opinion. Don't like it and don't think its all that entertaining as they try and make it out to be. If anything I think the American media and sponsors point to England mostly because of the English speaking language and for this reason more American owner$hip groups are buying English clubs. I think you will see a change in the Serie A in the upcoming years, however. If DC based Thoir at Inter and Boston based James Pallotta (who's net worth has been estimated to be more than a billion dollars) at Roma and if Milan ends up getting sold to another big time foreigner , you will see a change and the fruits of their investments will show their true colors. It just takes time and it won't happen over night or even in 1-2 seasons.
And that's so sad IMO. The uniqueness and Italian culture will have to be taken out of Serie A to some extent. Teams will have to build and own their own stadiums so they can sell the naming rights and make serious coin. Names like the Artemio Franchi, or Stadio San Paolo will be called something like Taco Bell Park or Samsung Arena. But I agree, they have to adapt or die.
It was a perfectly reasonable article that brought up many valid points, yet this thread ends up a bitchfest about the epl. Head in the sand much?
ay you like Napoli you are ok by me. Some people see things a certain way. Dont think that everyone in italy shares their opinion many there enjoy the epl.
The British media can be shitheads (as I'm sure all media is) but that was a fair article imo, it gave a lot of praise to how Juve have turned around their finances.