the game of football is hurtling toward self-destruction. (oh, yeah -- good morning, BTW ) this is a superb article by the excellent Miguel Delaney, talking about how greed - clubs' greed, owners' greed, player greed, FIFA, UEFa - is eating the game alive. a bit of a long read but it pulls together a lot of the influencing factors we see today, and how its end point is very predictable and - at this point - possibly unavoidable. https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/football-finance-money-uefa-fifa-b2305664.html Greed has brought football to the brink of implosion – now the entire structure could collapse == within that piece is a 2010 article by Delaney that provides a great background / alarm bell to how we got to this point. an even longer read, but again very informative eg In 1983, the UK FA had regulation called Rule 34 which prohibited directors from being paid and restricted dividends to shareholders. This was to acknowledge and support the fact that clubs were a social institution. But when Spurs wanted to become the first club to float on the stock market, the FA allowed them to form a holding company to evade Rule 34, and then then by the mid-80s changed gate-money distribution, which saw home teams receive bigger proportions, inherently loading more towards the biggest clubs. https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...l-man-utd-barcelona-real-madrid-a9330431.html How modern football became broken beyond repair
what life is like for a PL ref ..... https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...mol-howard-webb-andre-marriner-darren-england The impossible job: inside the world of Premier League referees
The Premier League Hall of Fame was launched in 2021, with players who featured in the division since its inception and are now retired eligible for consideration, and Liverpool icon Steven Gerrard was among the first to receive the honour that year. Included in the new shortlist of 15 candidates – from which three will be inducted – are former Reds strikers Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen. Fans can have their say on the 2023 inductees via a vote on the Premier League website, with the deadline 6pm BST on Monday April 10. The three winners will be decided by a combination of the votes of the public, the Premier League Awards Panel and previous Hall of Fame inductees.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/65128593 Human rights abusers won't be able to own clubs anymore. No mention of Man City in the article though.
So dumb. Why does the UK get to tell the Qatari's or Saudi's their stance on homosexuality is an 'abuse?' Maybe no Brits should be allowed to own clubs because the UK government has never paid reparations to any of its black and browns colonies while also intentionally keeping its minority population out of Parliament. Should someone from the US be banned if they gave money to a Republican? Where does the moral posturing end?
What really is dumb is the Saudis claiming Newcastle is not controlled by state institutions. At the same time in the US, the same parties are claiming immunity from prosecution because, you know, they are state institutions.
Because it is an abuse of human rights and if they want to own British clubs bad enough, they'll change.
Mexico’s football federation have launched an investigation after footage emerged of a referee appearing to knee a player in the groin during America’s Liga MX match against Leon on Saturday. video here: https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...-knee-groin-of-player-who-demanded-var-review I don't know why they say "appearing" to knee him - he kneed him! PL refs should learn from this next time MU's Fernandez is in their face.
UEFA just needs to outlaw clubs sending monies to agents. They can take 10% of their players salaries, signing bonuses, endorsements, etc. as is standard over here. Such a sh*t system where clubs have to pay agents in order to transfer their players.
But the racist Brits can keep on doing as they do? Their 'human rights abuses' are fine because it 'only involves the darkies' but the world is supposed to bend over at every chance for the gays?
you're contradicting yourself .... anyhow, throwing purity tests in all directions doesn't accomplish much does it - no country / government / whatever is pure - never have been, never will be. especially when ppl keep looking further and further into the past to point shit out. to your point: who TF said their abuses are OK? and anyway what is your solution -- everyone just shut up until every group claiming grievances is satisfied (like that'll ever happen) before paying attention to current injustices?
keep in mind - if some of our absolutely ********ing knuckle dragging supporters and glory-hunters had their way - Klopp would be fired too.
Doucoure got straight red last night for putting his hands on Kane's face. deffo a red, but Kane is getting a lot of criticism for the way he reacted. seems like Carragher and Neville got into it after the game. I've highlighted a few comments from here ... which I find bloody disgraceful. wtf is the game coming to? ex-players praising cheating!! Carragher: “I’ve got no problem with people diving or trying to win a penalty. The thing I really don’t like is players trying to get fellow professionals booked or sent off. I’ve got no problem with someone going down, winning a free-kick, jumping back up and getting on their feet.” Neville: Neville stressed that most players would understand Kane’s reaction, and thinks the Spurs players would have congratulated the striker for his gamesmanship. “As a player, if we’re going in our dressing rooms we’re going, ‘Harry, well done, you got him sent off’. Harry Kane’s gone down, whether he should have or not, it’s to make sure that Doucoure does get sent off. It’s a part of the game people don’t like but in our dressing room, if our forward [does that] we are there to win leagues, win games. He does dive, he does go to ground and he’s clever" https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...rton-doucoure-dive-cheat-injury-b2313707.html
FWIW ... difficulty of remaining games, for each team. ours look ok BUT Spurs, MU and Brighton all have it easier.