Darkest moments in football

[DoyleG]

What, in your belief, were the darkest moments in football?

[Mobile]

Once, when I was at a match, the floodlights failed.

[Real Ray]

Originally posted by Mobile
Once, when I was at a match, the floodlights failed.

http://www.geocities.com/castmind/dark.jpg

[Wide Boy]

Originally posted by DoyleG
What, in your belief, were the darkest moments in football?

For me, it was the Heysel stadium disaster.

I know that there have been occasions with bigger death tolls, but that one had a direct relationship with hooliganism.

[Mobile]

Originally posted by Real Ray
http://www.geocities.com/castmind/dark.jpg

:D

That's the one. I'm in the crowd, third from the left.

[AFCA]

Originally posted by Wide Boy
For me, it was the Heysel stadium disaster.

I know that there have been occasions with bigger death tolls, but that one had a direct relationship with hooliganism.

And an unsafe stadium, and lousy safety measures.

A lot of the safety measures that became mandatory after this incident had already been used for years in several countries. And not without reason.

A bit more wisdom from those who feel wise enough to rule the sport would have made a big difference that day.

Instead they chose to wait for a more profitable moment to change things (?)

Darkest day in football... I guess these last couple of years haven't been too great. From a great game for great people football has turned more and more into a glamorous thing with all kinds of people supporting clubs they have no ties with whatsoever... or even worse 'supporting' a player. The players themselves are getting into this of course... how many respectable footballers are out there these days? I'd say 90% deserve every bit of abuse they get.

That in itself isn't even that bad... what's really bad is BOSMAN and all it has lead to. Smaller clubs are loosing ground... they're getting so far behind that they'll never catch up. Meanwhile UEFA makes up rules and regulations that make this difference even bigger.

Football itself is getting less and less fun.

[aloisius]

I don’t understand how Bosman was bad. Before it the players were almost slaves of the clubs. They basically had to pay everything they had earned back to their club if they wanted to move AFTER the end of the contract.

[RichardL]

Originally posted by aloisius
I don’t understand how Bosman was bad. Before it the players were almost slaves of the clubs. They basically had to pay everything they had earned back to their club if they wanted to move AFTER the end of the contract.
I've never heard of any player ever having to pay a club anything to move.

Pre-Bosman, how out-of-contract players were handled depended on the country. In England for example, if you didn't offer a player a pay rise then he automatically was given a free transfer. If another club wanted to sign a player who had been offered an improved deal, and the player wanted to leave, then a committee from the League would sit down and work out a transfer fee, which was usually much less than his value if he'd be under contract. I think there was also a european maximum of about £1 million for out of contract players. The Belgium system was much more inflexible and didn't work very well for players dropping down a division, or going to a much smaller club - I think being very much based on the salary being offered by the player's current club.

Personally I think the skewed finanaces caused by the TV deals is a bigger problem, but that's not really what this thread is about.

[Rambler]

Darkest moment for me was when Brian Moore uttered those fateful words "And Thomas is going through the middle ... it's up for grabs now" and we all know the rest.

Obviously I am talking stricktly on a football note. Any disater that claimed human lives is darker, with Hillsborough being the most prominent in my mind.
For any wishing to view the horrors of that disaster you can watch the events (and you should be warned that some of the images are disturbing) here:

http://www.contrast.org/hillsborough/history/index.shtm

You need real player

[aloisius]

Originally posted by RichardL
I've never heard of any player ever having to pay a club anything to move.




They didn’t, of course, pay it from their pocket, but their future club had to cover that expense. I think that in most European countries it was all the money the player had earned under his previous contract. That certainly impacted the amount of money their new club could pay them. It was an unjust system.

[DanRod78]

Every time I open a soccer picture or video and they show some mother..... taking a piss.

[Sachin]

Originally posted by Mobile
:D

That's the one. I'm in the crowd, third from the left.

So that was your wallet I took ;)

Sachin

[sinner78]

Originally posted by Real Ray
http://www.geocities.com/castmind/dark.jpg

no doubt a far east betting syndicate was behind that incident.

[RichardL]

Originally posted by aloisius
They didn’t, of course, pay it from their pocket, but their future club had to cover that expense. I think that in most European countries it was all the money the player had earned under his previous contract. That certainly impacted the amount of money their new club could pay them. It was an unjust system.
Do you think players should be able to walk out of their contracts mid-term? I doubt it. Essentially, where's the difference?
Why is paying a (much reduced) end of contract transfer fee a bad thing, but paying a fee for a player in contract OK? Again, the system varied from country to country, but why scrap what in practice was a good system in some places because a completely different system in others was too inflexible?

Players now get (and did get even then) ridiculously huge signing on fees. Why? What other job pays you a cash lump sum up front? Clubs these days also tend to have to pay agents for negotiating transfers, despite the fact that it is the players that employ them, not the clubs.
Clubs also didn't just pay out transfer fees, they also received them. It was often those transfer fees that kept clubs going.
Whether it impacted on wages or not, there's no way it can be likened to slavery, even in a metaphoric sense.
Sooner or later a player is going to challenge the whole transfer system and the result will be players being able to walk out after handing in their notice like any other contracted employee. Players will jump for joy. What they won't immiediately release is that by the same laws, clubs will have the same option of ditching any players they no longer want in the same way.

[Albion + England]

Originally posted by DoyleG
What, in your belief, were the darkest moments in football?

Watching the African Nations Cup.
Or is that too controversial?

[Excape Goat]

The shooting death of Andre Escobar....

[Sachin]

Originally posted by RichardL
Do you think players should be able to walk out of their contracts mid-term? I doubt it. Essentially, where's the difference?
Why is paying a (much reduced) end of contract transfer fee a bad thing, but paying a fee for a player in contract OK?

Because once the contract has ended, club and player have no business relationship. Think about it this way: Assume you work for a bank on contract doing IT work. The moment your contract is up, you are a free man. You can walk across the street to your original employer's competitor and begin working there. Why shouldn't soccer players have the same right?

The system of binding players to clubs even after contracts expire was and is unjust. After all, if a club has it in for a player, they can deny him any chance of a earning a living.

BTW, MLS has this pre-Bosman system in place and it needs to go away yesterday.

Sachin

[Mobile]

Originally posted by Sachin
So that was your wallet I took ;)

Sachin

You bastard! You can keep the money and credit cards but please send me back my signed photograph of Landon Donovan.

[AFCA]

Originally posted by Sachin
Because once the contract has ended, club and player have no business relationship. Think about it this way: Assume you work for a bank on contract doing IT work. The moment your contract is up, you are a free man. You can walk across the street to your original employer's competitor and begin working there. Why shouldn't soccer players have the same right?

The system of binding players to clubs even after contracts expire was and is unjust. After all, if a club has it in for a player, they can deny him any chance of a earning a living.

BTW, MLS has this pre-Bosman system in place and it needs to go away yesterday.

Sachin


The real problem is the fact that footballers have a right to walk out any damned minute they want to, because they have the right to get ahead in life. So more money means they can walk and there's nothing anyone can do about it. That the club will be compensated is nice, but hardly helpful.

This is wrong IMO, especially since I feel when you make a lot of money and work relatively not so very hard... you're living every man's dream... the only right you have is to be damned happy and serve your contract until it is over.

[Bauser]

Originally posted by AFCA
This is wrong IMO, especially since I feel when you make a lot of money and work relatively not so very hard... you're living every man's dream... the only right you have is to be damned happy and serve your contract until it is over.
The player salaries should not only be reduced, but also be much more performance based. A whole lot of bench warmers and mediocre players have superb contracts where a certain amount of money is guaranteed no matter what. These players are slowly ruining economies for many clubs.

It may not be the darkest moment in football, but still...