I'm a Birmingham City fan, well I say fan, I dont go anymore so I dont know if I can still be called one .Anyway I'll tell you why I dont go. I just dont understand what the point is now with the 'EPL', Blues will never win anything, the ticket prices are still extortionate and the atmosphere is dead.I just cant justify paying money to watch this rubbish anymore. Football in England makes me sad/angry now. Passionless All-Seater stadiums (which are loved by the masses because of the great facilites yet are soulless with little or no atmosphere) The need of a Foreign Billionaire just to compete (they seem to be more important than managers/players). Footballers that are on more money in a week than i'll be on in probably over 10 years. What the hell is the point anymore. I think because of whats happening in Germany which makes it all the more annoying. They're allowed to stand, I'm not, They're ticket prices are lower than mine, and also the standard isn't better in the EPL, let me tell you, watching Blues, it certainly isn't. For some games over the years I would have had to pay £48 to get in, It's a shambles, an utter shambles. The majority of clubs are Foreign owned, Blues by Hong Kong's own Carson Yeung. Clubs are a play thing for People like Yeung, Gillette, Glazers etc they dont care about the real issues, I mean more concession outlets for the mugs to buy shirts but the real issues, nah. Could it be fixed, of course in a fantasy world, this is what I'd do: *Bring back Standing Areas - Allow the top two league in England to have the German style standing areas, with a ticket price limit of £22. The grounds would be packed week in week out and the atmosphere would be electric once again. *Wage Cap - I agreed with the UEFA guidelines that suggested clubs should limit the ratio of wages to turnover at 70%. Half of the Premiership teams failed to do this last season. Clubs spent an average of 61.78% of their turnover on wages. I think this would give greater emphasis on prodicing your own players rather than just spending money the the clubs didn't have. *Transfer Cap - Kind of like the wage cap, you would only be able to spend the percentage of their income, would it lead to a more fair and sustainable market. *More emphasis on Acadamies - Rather than clubs investing millions after millions on the latest French moaner emphasis on creating your own should be more important. It's more rewarding to see a player come through the ranks to the first team with an efinity to the club than said Frenchman who is probably only looking for his next big move. *Reform Of Reserve League/Affiliate Team - Looking at how Barcelona do it in Spain and the amount of players that have come through they're youth system I think it would be a good idea for the Big clubs with good acadamies to have affiliate clubs in the Football League/Conference. Now my idea wouldn't mean Man Utd Ressies in the Championship but rather Utd buy into Altringham or Hyde and start in they're respected leagues. Obviously the affiliates wouldn't be allowed in the FA Cup or Premier League as it would a conflict of intrests but I do think it would definately help younger players come through better than the poor reserve system we have now. Anyway that's all I can think of, I'm sure there are more but I feel those changes would help English football immensely. It wont happen but one can dream I suppose.
Those aren't any revolutionary ideas you have, they have all been laid out time and time again. Until you find a way to stuff even more money into the pockets of the people running the sport, you will never see any effort made. And even if you waved a magic wand and made all of these ideas come true, St. Andrews will still be a soulless empty nothing ground.
Yeah, thanks for that Clearly wasn't at St Andrews pre 2005 v Ipswich, VileScum, pisses all over anything you've ever being to, fact. It isn't just St Andrews which is souless, Old Trafford, Anfield, 4SHeds, Emirates etc etc. All shite, no atmosphere. Probably better atmosphere in that shower MLS.
The shadow of Hillsborough hangs over football stadiums and standing areas like a vulture waiting to swoop. Safety in sports stadiums is everything and the politicians would be extremely loathe to go back on that. Politicians are not natural football fans. Very few have any real affinity to football. Margaret Thatcher hated it. John Major was a cricket fan. Tony Blair couldn't spell football and Gordon Broon was a rugby bloke. Cameron is a chinless wonder who is probably more inclined to rowing than football and Clegg isn't...... anything at all, really. These are the people who would have to repeal the law on all seater stadiums..... and even if we had a government who was inclined towards it, it would then the first people they would ask for advice would be the police. Yorkshire Constabulary took the hit for Hillsborough and no Chief Constable would want the possibility of that happening on his patch at any time in the future. If a dozen of the top cops in the country were to say; "We cannot guarantee the safety of football crowds on terraces", then no Home Secretary would even countenance it. One of the problems with terraces is that it is more difficult to control numbers. With all seater stadiums there are a finite number of seats. Stadiums don't get overcrowded any more. Everybody is (more or less) in their place and crowds can be easily monitored, trouble makers singled out on CCTV and it is far easier for the police to control. "Kettling" without controversy. Re-introduce terraces and the fans become mobile again. Terraces would undoubtedly be popular amongst fans, but would inevitably..... undoubtedly..... also attract the wrong element. Before you know it there are terrace punch ups again, items being thrown at players and outbreaks of violent behaviour that because of the crowds mobility would be difficult to track and monitor and therefore catch the perpetrators. And then the nightmare scenario looming over it all. The day comes when there are more fans wanting to cram onto the terraces than there are places to accommodate them... a crowd builds up all wanting to get in... a crush develops.... Hillsborough all over again. Would that happen..? possibly not, but if any Chief Constable put that scenario in front of any Home Secretary then you could forget it. Another thing (yep, the obstacles just keep on coming) would be the difficulty in getting the reintroduction of terracing past the Health and Safety Executive. Their view would most likely be that terraces are inherently dangerous....... and it would be almost impossible to disprove. Under current H & S law, it would be extremely difficult to get a safety certificate for that part of the ground. The "Anti's" would simply have to point out that since the introduction of all seater stadiums, there has been no major disaster in a British football stadium. No Bradford, no Ibrox, no Hillsborough... There has been no serious outbreak of mass disorder such as the Kenilworth Road riot when Millwall fans ran amok, or the FA Cup tie between Newcastle and Notts Forest that had to be abandoned because of crowd behaviour. These incidents of mass loss of life, or extreme crowd disorder have disappeared from English football since the introduction of all seater stadiums. All we have now is people coming to watch the game and then go home. And that's just how the politicians like it. You can want terraces to come back all you like. You can complain about atmosphere, and "family crowds" (Politicians LIKE families in sports stadiums.... politicians want to kill the "lads culture" of football) until the cows come home. But until you can overcome the constraints and difficulties I've listed above....... then it aint gonna happen. .
The brilliant run that Spurs had in the CL means the fans will probably call this season a roaring success, but with Manchester City well positioned to take fourth place in the league, and are favourites to win the FA Cup, by this time next year I think Spurs would be glad to have the Carling Cup sitting in the trophy cabinet. Don't knock it. It's better than nothing.
Don't knock it. It's better than nothing.[/QUOTE] I'm not knocking anything, the original thread is an angry post about how this Birmingham fan will rarely attend games because they have no shot at winning anything, yet they recently beat Arsenal in the Carling Cup. As a Spurs fan, I think the Champions League was a massive success but when you look back on the season as a whole I think some people could even classify it as underperforming. They put everything into the Champs League and it showed, they were one of the teams everybody loved to watch, yet they were knocked in an early round in an embarrassing 4-0 defeat to Fulham, another somewhat embarrassing 4-1 defeat to hated Arsenal in the early stages of the Carling Cup, and are currently 5th in the league with Liverpool vastly approaching on them. I think the Carling Cup final which they won a few years ago is looking pretty good in there trophy case as opposed to Arsenal's 0 trophies in 6 years etc.
The OP was in August of last year. I would assume their view has changed since winning the Carling Cup.
I'm not knocking anything, the original thread is an angry post about how this Birmingham fan will rarely attend games because they have no shot at winning anything, yet they recently beat Arsenal in the Carling Cup. As a Spurs fan, I think the Champions League was a massive success.[/QUOTE] I think that's the whole point...when winning a minor trophy and finishing 4th are considered massive successes, what does that tell you about the competitiveness of the league? Consider that in the entire decade of the 00's, only FIVE different clubs ever finished in the top three (Man. United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Newcastle). In most previous decades, you had 11-12 different clubs finishing in the top three over a ten-year period. When 75-80% of the clubs in the league start each and every season knowing that have absolutely no shot whatsoever of winning the title, it is definitely not healthy for the league as a whole.
The Epl has two candidates.La Liga has two candidates,the champions league has four candidates.What super leasgue these four play each other twenty times a year.European futbol is dead destroyed by money. What we need are proper clubs not franchises of some dictator,oligarch or vwenture capitalist. If you want to watch competitive futbol there are three leagues left Germany,Argentina and Brasil where almost every game matters and the atmosphere is great.
I'm very disgruntled by the way Venkys have completely bungled everything since they bought Blackburn, and how the British media have painted the fans who dare complain about the clown we have as manager. It is our fault that we have won only 8 out of 41 league games under Kean, not poor old put upon Stevie. Now this document has surfaced this evening, stating concerns the former board members John Williams and Tom Finn about the way in which Venkys were conducting their business by bypassing the board and getting involved with SEM, Jerome Anderson's agency. The is authentic enough to be for The Guardian to write up a story on it. http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2012/01/15/revealed-the-letter-that-exposes-the-history-of-blackburn-rovers-crisis-150102/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jan/15/blackburn-rovers-board-dismay-venkys Something doesn't add up with the appointment of SEM client Steve Kean as manager, and the removal of Allardyce. There is a lesson for all clubs in this turd sandwich-do not get agents to do the scouting and keep them away from running the club.
What may work in some countries may not work in England. I still think that terracing would lead to increased holliganism, greatly increased police and stewarding bills and unfortunately at some stage a major safety incident. Regarding salary & transfer caps -this is a 100% certain recipe for the biggest clubs to win everything (probably as they do anyway) and the smallest clubs to have no chance. If you want to equalise things you have to be really revolutionary. 1-Put all available non Prem league players into a tranfer pool and allow the weakest teams to get first pick (as happens in American football). 2- Go back towards distribution some of the match revenue to the away team 3- Increase the amount of money given by the Prem league to lower divisions & grass routes.
I'm not entirely sure the transfer pool thing that US sport does could work in European leagues as there are so many clubs, and unlike say the NFL, it is not a closed regional league-->play-off system with franchises. And I'm not sure EU employment law will be compatible with it, but then I am not a lawyer. It is a good idea to work on though, as the NFL never seems to have 2 teams ruling the roost like La Liga or the SPL. The other ideas are really good though.