Sven slams FA's refusal to implement a winter break

[sinner78]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/3506630.stm

F.A== bunch of clueless amateurs

The FA Cup committee voted against the idea this week because it would mean replays in the fifth and sixth round would have been scrapped.

[Andy TAUS]

Sinner,

Everyone associated with the game of football constantly moan & complain about too many games being played, but:

Clubs don't want to rationalise their games.
EFA doesn't want to rationalise its games.
UEFA doesn't want to rationalise it games.
FIFA doesn't want to rationalise it games.

What hope did SGE ever have ????

Andy T.

[sendorange]

This is Ken Bates last act of spite. This is "his" committee, full of like minded selfish little b*stards.

I imagine this will be pushed through again, some stupid little committee shouldn't stand in the way of the people who actually have a clue about the game.

[sinner78]

these are the kind of dinosaurs who have always run english football.
The germans have a two month mid-season break and people wonder why they perform well in end of season tournies.
you cant succeed when you;re run by these type of people.

[Matt Clark]

Why should the FA Cup committee vote for fewer FA Cup games in order for the Premier League to have a winter break? Of course they voted against it - and if they had not, they would have been failing in one of their most basic duties: preserving the sanctity of the FA Cup.

The problem of R&R mid-season is there to be addressed, but it is up to that part of the FA that bears responsibility for our national representative sides to come up with a proposal that supports the game as a whole. Giving Premiership clubs two weeks off to do promotional tours of Singapore and/or rape people is not going to improve the National side's prospects in any conceivable way.

The example of Germany is also bogus - for a start, they have an 18-team league, no cup replays and their league cup is played during the summer as a pre-season tournament. They have always had fewer games and therefore always had the means of accommodating a winter break without asking any turkeys to vote for Christmas.

And in any case, during their winter break most of the teams take part in (increasingly lucrative) indoor tournaments rather than resting their aching limbs for the national side.

Germany won trophies on the international stage for a variety of reasons, but not playing full 11-a-side football for a month each winter is not one of them.

Supporters should stop blaming an institution for the technical and tactical shortcomings of some of that institution's employees. There are so many legitimate reasons to critisise and update the FA, but this is just a red herring.

[sinner78]

Germany has less games and a mid-season break and they never go into tournaments with knackered players .hhhmm I reckon that helps them....
Unlike england who go into tournaments with players on their last legs after a marathon season.
The england team that went out to japan in 2002 was on its last legs even before a ball was kicked.
3 or 4 weeks off around christmas aint gonna do anyone any harm.It will also help the clubs stay fresher for latter stages of euro competition.

If any clubs wanna squander the break and go off on a promotional tour than ******** them.
They're only harming themselves. ..The managers of the top sides would be shrewd enough not to squander the break .Maybe some two-bob outfit like leicester would abuse the break?? but arsenal?? nah dont think so.

Recharging the batteries is exactly what the germans do in their mid-season break .
I saw futbol mundial afew weeks back and some of the germans teams were in lanzarote .
they interviewed kuranyi as he kicked back on the beach ....They;ll initially lose abit match sharpness but by the time it comes to the crunch time they'll be in peak form and condtition.
anyone thinks that doesnt help them is living in cloud cuckoo land....They'll be laughing when they see english players slog it out non-stop for 8 months and then expect to perform in an end of season tournie
thats the whole argument in a nutshell I reckon.

[Matt Clark]

Germany has less games and a mid-season break and they never go into tournaments with knackered players .hhhmm I reckon that helps them....
Unlike england who go into tournaments with players on their last legs after a marathon season.
The england team that went out to japan in 2002 was on its last legs even before a ball was kicked.
3 or 4 weeks off around christmas aint gonna do anyone any harm.It will also help the clubs stay fresher for latter stages of euro competition.

I don't disagree for a second that the issue of fatigue has to be addressed if we want to make the progress of the senior national side the central focus of the FA. But

a) it is not and can not be the central focus of the FA and
b) even if it were, the FA Cup committee would still be voting against a break imposed to the detriment of the FA Cup. Like it or not, that - and not the freshness of England players in major tournaments - is their remit.

If any clubs wanna squander the break and go off on a promotional tour than ******** them.

But I thought the point was that the break was essential to England's prospects. So surely any such initiative from the FA could not be based on "******** them and would have to include some form of mandatory stipulation that the players could not spend their holiday jetting around being brand leaders.

They're only harming themselves. ..The managers of the top sides would be shrewd enough not to squander the break .Maybe some two-bob outfit like leicester would abuse the break?? but arsenal?? nah dont think so.

Well, even leaving aside the likely extent of the role Arsenal will play in anything the England team do in future, you're kidding yourself if you think that foreign interests with cash to splash will not see the break as a great time for moneyspinning tours of their countries and that clubs including (or, indeed, especially) the big ones will not take those opportunities.

english players slog it out non-stop for 8 months and then expect to perform in an end of season tournie
thats the whole argument in a nutshell I reckon.

True enough, but that doesn't alter the fact that the current proposal is not one that is likely to work and, as such, was rightly opposed by factions within the game whose interests the proposal damaged. I think the logic of a winter break of some sort is largely inarguable, but we need to be holding the people that can actually make it happen responsible for coming up with a workable plan.

My own would be to get rid of the silly international break in early September, when football has just got starting again and does not need a break and move it to the second and third week of January (after the traditional Christmas programme and the Third Round of the FA Cup). League games currently played in this period would simply take place in September instead. The net result is the loss of one international friendly in return for fresher players and (one hopes and presumes) a higher standard of competitive football come tournament time.