Tea Light in the Dark Universe: Bobby Wood at Hamburg

When the germans stopped making war on everyone, the Gestapo switched tack and started collecting taxes.

90% of the worlds tax law is German. Enjoy!

 

No ball winners either, the times I watched. I got the impression midfielders were supposed to just stand in the way and if they happened to get the ball hoof it toward the opponents goal. Honestly, I think worse than some woeful Sunderland midfields of recent vintage, where at least the players showed some individual ability and drove forward to take horrible speculative shots that sometimes resulted in a promising rebound or deflection for a corner.

 

This comes up a lot, but aren't salaries reported post-tax in Europe? Not that it would contradict your point, just a lot more to take home August - December.

 

Wow they were really desperate to keep him.

 

Yeah, Borini, for instance, though selfish, could in fact attack in an AM/SS style.

I know it sounds kind of glib, but I really think HSV midfield could start with any decent, take charge player - whether a destroyer/ballwinner who could just own the middle, or an old-school 10 who could at least free space for Wood up top. Granted I mostly only watched potential Yank-on-yank violence, and Hamburg seemed to have some of their worst game v. Dortmund, Hertha + Werder, but I saw a few others as well, and it simply seemed there was no tactical game plan, shape or directive for the midfield. It really felt like they were all waiting for someone to take charge.

I'm sure there are others who followed more closely that can add a bit of insight, but I was pretty appalled that this was a B1 midfield in the games I saw - and that any number of those players should be good enough to play in the bottom of the B1.

 

I watched maybe 6-8 Hamburg games over the course of the season, so I'm sure others know better than me as well, but I thought Sakai and Jung (if I'm remembering the names and spelling correctly) were pretty decent as destroyers who covered ground in the middle. They just had very limited passing abilities.

For Wood's sake, I'd want Hamburg to add either a better #10/2nd striker (I think that's what Holtby was supposed to be, but he just wasn't very effective) or a dynamic attacking winger, one who either can put in good crosses or one who can cut inside and pull the defense away from Wood a bit. I don't know how many times Wood busted his butt to make a run into the box only for the wide midfielder to cross the ball into the proverbial row Z or how many times he was trying to find space and had both CBs and one outside back collapse on him because there just weren't any other threats for Hamburg.

 

So, what happened to 1860 Munich?

 

Will not be getting the license for the 3. Liga bc of financial reasons. Still not clear whether they will land in the Regionalliga or lower

http://m.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/a-1150533.html

 

I haven't lived there in a while, but when I did I think the top marginal rate was like 42 or 45%, which is not that much more than you pay in Canada or California.

But if reported soccer salaries are in after-tax money, I allow Wood to buy the crappy benz truck if he has to.

 

Netto vs Brutto. Basically, it works like this. If the reported 3mm euros is Brutto his take home is just shy of 45 to 47%. Depends on tax advisor and his insurance. However the real story here is poor HSV. As the employer you usually pay 5mm total. 2mm to fatherland. Then woods gets 3mm Brutto then he pays 1.6mm to the fatherland .

Incidentally this is why Bayern really irritated me. Their Uli was laundering a huge sum of money to keep them artificially competing in Europe and Germany. BM should have come under a massive anti competition lawsuit but the Germans need their heroes too I suppose.

 

Lower it seems. Their sugar daddy, Hasan Ismaik, has said he's had it throwing millions at the club.

https://www.welt.de/sport/fussball/...aesst-1860-zerschellen-dennoch-bleibt-er.html

 

The US is one of the only countries that tax based on nationality. With the bigger paycheck Bobby will have to go through some amount of length to show the IRS that he is paying more in tax in Germany than he would in the US. Even worse is living in a place with a lower tax rate, as you have to figure out the difference and pay that over to Uncle Sam. For a football player, it's annoying but possible. For somebody making a family income of over 90k USD or more, it turns into a massive yearly financial burden.

However, the fun really begins when it comes to things like capital gains, inheritance, and property, where there is no agreement like with income tax. The nice IRS decides in that case to tax (in addition to what has already been taxed by the local authorities) things like inheritance from a dead parent to the non-US partner when they are living abroad. There have been a few cases where, due to this, people have had to pay more in tax than what is earned on an inheritance or property sale. There was a case of an Australian who didn't even know he was a US citizen that was taxed on income after selling his house at a loss in Australian dollars. Just because the AUD appreciated compared to the USD.

 

To which I'd say his response to the IRS really should have been "come get me". The IRS doesn't have the resources to fight international battles for small potatoes anymore.

 

The sugar daddy has the cash to pay the license fee and refused to pony up unless he's given more control. This particular Mexican stand-off has ended with both parties losing, although Ismaik will recover faster and more easily. According to the Associated Press** he hasn't lost interest but, as a billionaire, he has many other fish to fry if he has. If he's serious about continuing if given more control, he can afford to wait until his former partners bleed money trying to run something like a "real" BL club: BL2-type expenses, notably rent on that stadium, with fifth and fourth division revenue streams.

If 1860 are dropped to Oberliga Bayern (South), the fans will come out in numbers for a few seasons so they'd be able to spend their way to D4 within a season or two. It's after that that things get tricky. RL Bayern is said to be the weakest of the five Regionalligas, but it will still contain two BL1 and three BL2 reserve teams next season.

On top of that, if a team wins its RL, its reward is a playoff series with another RL winner or the RL South-West runner-up for promotion to the 3Liga. Three of those RLs (South-West, West and North-East) have a sprinkling of clubs that will be rather similar to 1860; former BL1 sides fallen on hard times and trying to recover lost glories, but 1860 will be much the biggest of those clubs. The pressure, compounded by the frustrated ambition from their own fans in those games will be immense. Choke a few times in those playoffs and things could turn ugly very fast.

**https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...tion-germany-fourth-fifth-tier-unpaid-licence

 

Lower. Their reserve side has already been served notice of relegation to the Landesliga Bayern-Südost, which is D6 in the German pyramid.

That's particularly cruel. They'd finished second in RL Bayern, ahead of the reserve teams of Bayern and Augsburg

 

Not if he ever wanted to enter the USA or do business with anyone in the USA.

 

Bobby is making millions. He has someone to do it for him.

 

Ismaik has NO clue how German football works. He wants to be an England style club owner and acts like this, not understanding rules and traditions in Germany. He didn't refuse to pay just out of spite... he did it with a clear aim, thinking that he could legally buy the club outright once it dropped out of pro football. He was actually surprised to learn things don't work like this either. He said as much to the press and now wants to sue the German FA to overtrun all rules limiting private ownership of clubs.

Costs will be much lower for 1860 now, though. They will likely be able to move out of the hated (by the fans) Allianz Arena, back to their traditional stadium.

Many (non-casual) fans are actually happy 1860 are back in the amateur leagues (on the biggest 1860 messageboard, posters were outright celebrating this). They really, really hate Ismaik (with good reasons, under him the club has become the biggest joke in German football, pretty much). Of course, they had hoped that the club would go into insolvency and could restart without Ismaik... his decision to stay kind of turned the whole thing into a worst case scenario now. As long as Ismaik stays, promotion won't be a priority for a lot of fans, probably.

 

Regionalliga still seems most likely right now.

 

He wants to buy a German club?? How long has this half-wit been around German football (apart from too long )?

And now he wants to sue the DFB. Typical dodgy billionaire.

 

Since 2011. He also has been talking about buying a club in England, since things are so much better there (so far it seems that this didn't amount too much, though)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...ying-Premier-League-or-Championship-club.html

His biggest problem (besides knowing nothing about football and playing real-life Football Manager, basically, of course) seems to be, that he is refusing to learn anything about football in Germany. He really doesn't understand why people don't like him. The guy is the Donald Trump of German football (and also likes conspiracy theories).

 

He seems custom built to buy Rangers.

 

If the case come in front of a German court - the rule which prevents owners from taking over controll of a club will likely be eliminated. Most legal experts agree that the 50+1 rule is against German and European law. And I think it is about time. It might take a few years, but the ruling might seriously change the landscape of German football.

 

The DFL already succeeded in making a mockery out of the rule all by themselves, so it's pretty much worthless anyway. Ismaik is just way to clueless to work around it like Red Bull did (although granted, it's easier if you start from scratch and don't have to deal with any opposition).

 

There's an old Spanish expression, now seldom used: "del lobo, un pelo." From the wolf, a hair. It means getting a little from someone (noxious) who has a lot, when more was expected. The expression though carries the connotation of sleaziness, sort of selling your soul and getting 10% of what you wanted in the bargain.

Ismaik has the money, but his interest in soccer is marginal. TSV is like 0.1% of his investments, if not less.