Rangers not pleased -- and talk about cross border league. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/jan/09/rangers-leave-scottish-football-charles-green
It's a tenuous "border", what with Swansea already in the EPL and Cardiff fairly likely to join them there. I am actually surprised they didn't make the move last season. Of course, they are likely to begin in League One or, at best, Championship.
The Rangers are not in control of which federation they play in, it is up to the SFA to agree to let them to leave and for the FA to let them in. Unfortunately for the Rangers and Celtic the FA doesn't want them and SFA doesn't want to give them up, so a move to the English pyramid isn't going to happen.
My take is that politics matter and Rome wasn't built in a day. If one has enough time and money to barter, bargain and bribe, lots of things become possible.
Imo, they should start in the Conference or lower. The Conference is almost certainly a higher standard than the league they're currently playing in.
The statistics posted were last year's, first of all. The asterisk was because Twente didn't put the transfer value of their players in the books (why you ask, well, because Twente is extremely financially prudent and doesn't like to bank on potential transfer value). As soon as they submitted figures the way everybody else did, they were comfortably back in the safe category. Twente is in fact the only eredivisie club in the top ten that's consistently been financially stable and profitable for the past three years. And this without big sponsors, I might add.
Ah, excellent. Always though Twente seemed like a smart team. Surprised to see Ajax less financially secure, though. With the young, unestablished players they are fond of and the fact that they like to establish these players and then sell them for good money... I figured they'd have a remarkably steady gig.
Because Ajax went through a period where they weren't selling their kids, but were buying players and holding onto the kids.
Ajax also returned to the safe category at the start of the season. By the way, if you're not in the highest category, that doesn't necessarily mean you're in financial trouble. A club like Heracles is profitable, for example, but it's not in the highest category because it spends more than 70% of revenues on paying its people; the Dutch FA considers that too risky (in other words according to Dutch FA rules, every single club in the premiership and La Liga is dodgy).
Ajax went through quite a long period of not playing CL football while still maintaining a CL-revenue based household. They sold plenty of players so I'm not sure who you think they were holding onto - Vertonghen and Van der Wiel were sold recently. They themselves admitted their squad was too expensive; they simply paid their players too much. Ajax had an immediate cashflow problem last year as a result. The club has decided to sort itself out financially though, which at least partly explains the renewed focus on academy players. The same is going on at Feyenoord, financial pressure is forcing them to focus on youth players.
As you said, Ajax kept a CL budget while failing to stay in CL. Part of that was that they kept players like Suarez longer than they would have previously. It wasn't until they started to get into the cashflow problems that they came to their senses and started to sell the players off again. I'll have to see if I can find it again, but there was an article in early/mid 2010 that did a pretty decent job explaining how Ajax got into the financial problems it was in. Most of it came down to what you said about them keeping a CL budget, while either not playing in CL, or crashing out early, but part of that CL budget was that they weren't selling their top players like they had in years past. That has now changed, so, pretty much a moot point.
Its not a moot point. Contrary to international public belief, Ajax are in the exact same position as all other top clubs in lower level leagues. Ajax don't focus more on youth academy players than other Dutch clubs. They don't hold on to players more than other clubs either, they've made a shedload out of transfers these past five years but they didn't spend their money wisely. In their starting XI there's only two genuinely homegrown players even right now. But never mind that, the point is (and they've woken up to that fact now) that they have to make do and balance the books, just like everybody else in the Dutch league, and I imagine in the Scottish league. Ajax have had a rude awakening, similar to Rangers I guess. The problem with all these former top European sides is that it's taken them a long time to adjust to the new reality of European football and have had to let go of their historical status. Clubs in the top leagues don't give a shite about sound financial management,and unfortunately they don't have to. The rest of European football has to however, and again unfortunately, there will be no rewards for them in European football even when they're run optimally.
Anyone come across the story of Standard Liege and Ligue 1/Eredivise? Liege and Rangers both making noise in the space of a few days. http://www.lemonde.fr/sport/article...tandard-de-liege-en-ligue-1_1810509_3242.html More or less says that Liege want to join Ligue 1 if Beneliga (Belgium+Netherlands) doesn't come to fruition. Just like Rangers, we don't really know how it will pan out. In the near future, its unlikely much will change. But the fact that we are seeing these noises become louder (on top of insider sources who keep saying UEFA is planning to loosen its stance on cross-border leagues and expansion of European competition), suggests that some are getting irritated with the status quo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012–13_BeNe_League#Second_stage Well maybe they will follow the women's League.
Yep. Another gem from the Rangers chairman today (outside of the suing thing, I actually think its a very good point): http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/jan/11/rangers-charles-green-cross-border-league
BTW I was reading about the Belgium Men's League format. What a fucking mess that is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_First_Division#Competition
I didn't know that either Though I suppose that should have been obvious. Nevertheless if the clubs see it as a positive thing, then the associations are irrelevant.
Yes but Rangers would need the support of the other Scottish teams, so dude should not be pissing on them. Well according to wiki links here are the approvals for the Bene League. (they are in dutch so it could all be bullshit as far as I can read). Belgium FA http://www.knvb.nl/nieuws/18459/kbvb-en-knvb-positief-over-bene-league Netherlands FA http://www.knvb.nl/nieuws/20002/bondsbestuur-stemt-met-uitwerking-women’s-bene-league UEFA http://www.knvb.nl/nieuws/21045/uefa-geeft-groen-licht-voor-women’s-bene-league Edit: Today in a Spanish TV show they were talking about Liga De Quito (Ecuador) wanting to join the Colombian league. So this will keep coming up in the next few years.
Would they? They would need the approval of the English FA to enter the pyramid. I don't see why they would need permission from the Scottish.
Well it would depend on UEFA, they would have to give the final approval. It would be interesting if Rangers and Liga De Quito go ahead and try, we may get different rulings in different confederations.
Oh wow, the LDQ thing is very interesting. In fact, if I were a betting man, I'd say that things like this have a much greater chance of success in South America than Europe currently, especially with Brazil looking like they're going to fly off into space and leave everyone in South America in the dust as far as professional leagues go over the next few decades. But unlike the Beneliga idea, Colombia is not exactly lacking as a market. Is there any incentive for such a large market of 50 million people to take on clubs from other countries? If the incentive isn't there for the host, then its likely to result in failure. That's one of the reasons why I believe Beneliga has a greater chance of coming to fruition than Rangers moving to England. The other one in South America that could make sense is Nacional and Penarol in Montevideo looking to access Argentina. This is one of those "so obvious" examples that its a real shame it isn't already the case.
I've just read some translated reports of that idea, and some are suggesting a) LDQ would have to buy a team in the lower divisions in Colombia and make their way up (which is reasonable enough) and b) that LDQ may be required to play their home games in Colombia (which entirely defeats the purpose of what they would be trying to do). As can be expected, its really down to the Colombians as to how beneficial they envisage taking on LDQ would be. If its worth the trouble, then it could be solved easily. If not, LDQ are staying put. At this point I'm leaning towards the latter, especially considering Colombia is not lacking for markets.