That's the real Leicester story, innit? Won the league, lost Kante Drinkwater and Mahrez over the next 2 years, couldn't replace them with equivalent talent. Sacking Ranieri also might not have been their best move when they did it...
It's quite common. You see clubs overachieve, and when it starts to reset there's a tendency to believe they are doing something wrong, that they now need a manager who can take them 'to the next level', and they start spending money to try to get back to the level they only reached by being frugal and shrewd.
Ranieri was sacked because of the threat of relegation. A lot of money spent since to achieve the same outcome.
Dunno. But I've been in support of a soft salary cap/luxury tax combined with a salary floor for MLS for some time now, to replace the current system with its myriad of exceptions to the salary cap, allocation money etc.
Rugby Union lost it's 3rd club in one season in England. An inability to budget has seen London Irish fold (or be kicked out of the league, to be exact) after repeated failing to pay their players, while a takeover bid failed. Sport here has a fixation with preventing owners from using their money to make teams punch above their weight, but is hopelessly slack when it comes to preventing a 'loss-leader' arms race, where everyone has to overspend to keep up. Rugby Union even has a salary cap, but it's set at a level so English clubs have a chance to compete with clubs from Ireland and France - the game is just bigger in France, while Irish club rugby has a different structure that allows them to concentrate players and revenues on just four clubs. The salary cap has exemptions though, which allows a daft amount of 'wiggle room' in what clubs can pay. The typical premier club has debts around the £30 million mark now.
I imagine the top clubs would oppose it, because it's hampers their competitiveness in Europe and the players would oppose it under employment law. The top clubs have been doing everything to increase revenue versus the other clubs not give it away.
Again - I have no idea what point you are trying to make with simplistic arguments but Leicester won the league, and finished only once out of the top 10 since - before relegation - with 2 5th place finishes. Brighton won’t be replicating that. Brighton is just a feeder team for the top of the food chain - and soccer teams rely heavily on a few key players. Top teams are going to raid their best players and coaches and they are going to sink back down to the mediocre earth they came from. They had a great season and still finished 27 points off the top. They will be lucky to duplicate that while playing in Europe with their current squad (and especially if they lose Mac A and Caicedo). Leicester was in part cursed by their own success - their best players that weren’t raided eventually got old or injured or worn down and they weren’t helped by extra European games and more players. And they couldn’t keep up with the top teams in signing premier talent. But sustained success is really hard - look at Liverpool’s mess of a season - were they mismanaged too? Sure - maybe Brighton becomes the Dortmund of the Premier League and continues to hit home run after home run to keep a constant supply of talent to keep them near the top. And maybe I’ll win the lottery tomorrow too. Keep believing that Brightons moment in the (6th place) sun means something bigger than it does (assuming you do, not sure your point). They are much more likely to be relegated in the coming years than they are to playing champions league football regularly. Just ask Leicester how hard it is to maintain success near the top when you aren’t a top destination for the best players.
If you can show me a rule that says that I'd be interested to see it! Brighton can be whatever they aspire to be, Brighton have 100x the spending power they had 20 years ago and EXACTLY like any other club (the rules apply the same to all) they can buy whoever they can afford and who is available, Brighton are the ones 'raiding' the best players of clubs that were doing the same to them 20 years ago, how they deal with their new found wealth and power from here on in is up to them. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...club-record-40m-bid-Levi-Colwill-Chelsea.html Brighton putting in bids to 12th placed (big 6!) Chelsea! Is that 'allowed'?
If he was a Chelsea first team regular, and especially if he was a star, there's no way Brighton would be able to afford him, and probably no way he'd want to join. Smaller clubs signing back-up players from top clubs is nothing new.
Is this the time to point out that we just had an example of a entity being unhappy with how a sport was being run (largely) in the U.S., went out and created their own structure, and then forced a merger with the existing structure? The same thing that has been suggested for getting P/R into American soccer? (Yes, I'm talking about PGA & LIV Golf)
It was a panic decision, rather like Leeds sacking Marsch, except much worse. They haven't had a coach of that quality since.
The cost of running a women's team is excluded from FFP calculations. That's good in one sense, but the inevitable result is that the dominant teams are those associated with the "big six". Indeed. Aren't many of the women's teams at the second level semi-pro anyway?
You certainly don't need to have promotion and relegation to make silly, short-sighted, destructive decisions about women's soccer. Viva LA Sol
Yes, it's only been since 2018 that the WSL has required all clubs to be licensed as fully professional. At that point Sunderland were administratively relegated for not meeting the standards, and the WSL added two clubs not based on on-field promotion. The 2nd-tier Championship also has licensing standards but does not require full professionalism.
The FA Cup was on ESPN+, half the time they put Classico exclusively on ESPN+. ESPN is using soccer to drive up their streaming audience so the fact that the Championship Playoff final was exclusively streamed is not an indication of it's wider popularity.
West Ham qualify for the Europa League by winning the conference thingy, an opportunity for them, unlike Brighton I don't see West Ham getting very far in the competition but who knows - you've got to be in it to win it.
Internet stays undefeated. pic.twitter.com/nRpsqdAtbe— David Bearman (@DavidBearmanPFN) June 6, 2023 In all seriousness though, the Middle East is slowly taking over the business world. They are all great business people, and even better negotiators. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY heard a peep about the PGA/LIV Golf merger until it was announced. All the while up until the announcement all the PGA Tour was saying was "F NO! We're NEVER going to do anything with LIV Golf!!!" It wouldn't be a shock if a Saudi PIF backed Euro Super League is announced in the coming years in much the same fashion as this LIV Golf/PGA Tour/Euro Tour merger was. IOW, out of left field.
My first thought was that, if we had pro/rel, Messi would be in a relegation battle for the first time in his life. My next thought was: if we had pro/rel, the chance of Messi signing with Miami would be nil, no matter how much money they might be willing to throw at him.