That's the problem that most Americans have no idea about the hundreds of clubs with a history going back very long, starting at humble settings. Many start with their awareness when they see the clubs appear in the time the USA started to pay attention to and made matches available to watch.
I'm actually well aware of Chelsea's history, actually. I'm not shocked that that was your basic assumption; rank arrogance is a hallmark trait of both our cultures, frankly. But yes, I'm aware Chelsea was good long before Ambramovich. But you're crazy if you don't think that Chelsea hasn't dipped into Roman's piggy bank substantially while he's been there. That his blood money hasn't funded some of your wins and what you root for. You keep wanting to make this the same dichotomy: the wholly pure, for the love of the game and the community European football fan, and the insane greedy capitalist Americans. I don't blame someone one bit for sticking with their club even when it's no longer a club, even when a person who has literally contributed to the economic destitution of a massive nation buys it. It's hard to leave something you love. What I can't take is English football fans looking the other way as their teams buy success with blood money AND then getting sanctimonious about the purity of their sport and system. Stop pretending this is American greed inserted. You let the devil in long ago, and as long as it didn't threaten something you liked, you were happy with it. Reveled in it. Abramovich murdered and stole his way to his fortune -- and his massive theft of a nation's resources is a big reason why Russia struggles and is autocratic today. Stop acting like this is some high and mighty principle. You rooted and stuck with Chelsea when they made the premier league and took money from the other teams. I just think there's a massive element of hypocrisy. Good on you for stopping the ESL. But let's stop pretending this is a pure sport of clubs and community. If that were true, you'd be happy if Chelsea lost but actually went back to being a real club. I don't see the protests there.
We understand it. Like I said before, we have our own proxies, often in college sports. I have a lot of respect for lower league fans and truly local fans. I don't have a lot of respect for fans that pretend to be on a moral high road and then root for Oil Money FC. Root for Oil Money FC. That's fine if you want. I root for my local teams win or lose and don't like bandwagoners, but hey, if your local team happens to be Oil Money FC, what are you going to do ... I mean, except that with all those hundreds of clubs, there's probably another you could move to? But hey, no, I'm not gonna judge. Hate hypocrisy, though. Don't get high and mighty on me if you gleefully celebrate the wins of a club built on blood money. One or the other.
I'm not a big fan of Oil Money FC. But I'm also not a fan of a European league getting rid of Pro/Rel because of the long history these clubs have relying on merit for promotion/relegation (this includes promotion/maintaining status to Champions league).
I could have sworn this was the Yanks Abroad board. But it seems I've stumbled into the board on assumptions and generalizations about the American sports fan.
I think Crawleybus needs to take a trip to Green Bay in December. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers community owned 1919 .... meat packing company. ... from wiki ... "The Packers are the only community-owned franchise in North America's four traditional major leagues." no billionaire there to fund or support or manage the team .... owned by the community.
When did I ever say it was anything to do with 'American greed'? I simply pointed out that sporting culture is 'night and day', I also made a point of saying there was no 'right or wrong' way of doing it, just that sporting culture between the two countries are at polar opposites, you seem to be the one getting all worked up. Money has ALWAYS had a part to play in English football, Arsenal weren't called the 'Bank of England' club in the 1930's for nothing and while Chelsea were skint in the 1980's United were throwing the cash around. The difference is in the US sport owners expect to make money whereas here no matter how much you earn youre expected to spend it all (and more) chasing success on the pitch - THATS the difference. I don't give a rats ar*se how much money Chelsea have in the bank I only care that they win football matches, thats all I've ever cared about no matter how skint or rich the club is at the time (and they have in the past managed to put together a good team despite poor finances at the time) and if RA helps to put together a winning team then good, for your information though there isn't a Premier League club out there that isn't 'stinking rich'. Oh and when have Chelsea 'taken money from the other teams' exactly!!? Your post is another good example of the lack of understanding when it comes to the differences between what Americans percieve as sport and what Europeans percieve as sport.
Chelsea literally was a part of a group that resigned from a league and reformed a new one to secure a higher percentage of media rights. Sound familiar? Just calling a spade a spade.
They certainly did, but they didn't succeed did they? And how do you think that made me feel? This takes the conversation full circle - some US supporters couldn't see the issue with this and pointed out that perhaps a 'Superleague' without pro/rel would be a 'good thing' yet UK supporters where horrified and up in arms, so back to the original point, the sporting 'landscapes' between 'over there' and 'over here' are very different which might explain why some English club supporters from elsewhere in the world couldn't see any issue with this disgraceful act whereas nobody in the UK was going to stand for it.
And yet everyone stood for the creation of the EPL. Perhaps I am conflating some of your comments on here with others, who have basically decided that all of this was American greed and we simple, greedy Americans can't possibly imagine the purity of the European model. I'm glad you folks killed the ESL. Kudos. But I don't need the sanctimony of an entire continent that used to be full of robust and unique national leagues with changing landscapes and is now far gone on a path to monetary dominance and boredom. And that's without pointing out how European money slaughtered the Brazilian leagues to the point that I have to hear that Pele wasn't impressive because he never played in Europe. The ESL is dead for now, but unless something is rolled back, it'll be here anyway. Whittle by whittle.
I get your objections against certain financial backers of some clubs. However the existence of European clubs doesnot come from money, but from the communities these are part of, literally with a history of over a hundred years. The loyalty of those local fans isnot based on some dodgy financer, but part of family traditions of generations. The fact you call them out to swap the club they support is exactly what I describe as being far from understanding what makes the European fan tick. Just read this again: and match that with your simplistic "advice" to swap the club you support. Fans in Europe donot support their club, because some sugardaddy pours money, dirty or not, in it. They're fans out of their family traditions. To suggest they should answer to your moral highriding call to swap clubs is in itself a blatant denial of what the tradition of the bond between fan and club is. If there are fans who back clubs out of gloryhunting and star gazing financed by dodgy owners it are the non European fans in Asia and the USA, as these chose the clubs by their success and that goes not further back than when they got the chance to watch CL and EPL matches. This whole ESL endeavor was aimed at especially those "fans" without the connection of the homebased ones. Screw them.
The Premier League is NOT and has never been a closed shop though. Its a completely different anmal altogether to this so called 'super league', if the Premier League was created to only benefit Premier League clubs then Blackburn Rovers, Coventry City, Ipswich Town, Middlesbrough, Norwich City, Nottingham Forest, Oldham Athletic,Queens Park Rangers, Sheffield Wednesday and Wimbledon would all be 'taking money off other clubs' right now would they not?
There was a more equitable distribution before the big clubs took their ball and forced things. Sure, it was not as bad as the ESL, but that is a matter of degree. It's an important degree, and I understand the line, but it's a matter of degree.
Is it a club anymore if your vote means nothing? If it is owned by a foreign nation using it to sportswash? Are the leaders of the UAE truly in touch with the city of Manchester? Man City isn't a club anymore -- it's an asset used by the sheiks of the UAE, regardless of how their local fans feel. I have no doubt fans have a very emotional connection with their teams. I have no doubt there are still many actual clubs in European football. But these super teams are no longer clubs anymore in many cases. And even the giant "clubs" often act as if they are no beholden to their members -- after all the Super League was the brainchild and led by the leadership of Real Madrid. Are the Spaniard club members of Real Madrid in favor of this? My point is that the view of club that you espouse may exist in many spaces, but it doesn't much anymore at the top of European football. Money got in, and it's very, very hard to get out. Eh, this is kind of my point. You want to blame this on the godless heathens of somewhere else. The world you espouse doesn't exist at the highest levels. Or longtime club Real Madrid and all these other teams wouldn't have tried it. You all want to blame it on the American owners. But there's British, Russian, Italian and Spanish all on board. There are plenty of a hundred year old teams in the US that have a strong connection with their community and fanbases. Local fans grow up supporters and die supporters. This is not unique to Europe. Actual clubs are different, and we only have a few that are. But Man City or Chelsea are no longer clubs, and you sound ridiculous when you pretend that Red Sox fans or Cubs fans don't have a comparable connection with their team.
Eh, this is kind of my point. You want to blame this on the godless heathens of somewhere else. The world you espouse doesn't exist at the highest levels. Or longtime club Real Madrid and all these other teams wouldn't have tried it. You all want to blame it on the American owners. But there's British, Russian, Italian and Spanish all on board. Uhm, no. The ESL club owners cater for the money of what they call the "future fan", with whom they mean those I mentioned. It's not a matter of whom are the villains, as you imply, but a matter of "what", the closed shop structure. The villains are multinational, the "crime" is distictively from across the ocean.
If we're discussing football 'purity', (which is probably unwise), strictly speaking Arsenal were one of the few English clubs that were 'moved' by their owner from Woolwich, (as in 'Woolwich Arsenal', i.e. the old munitions factory workers who formed the club), to north London... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_F.C.#1886–1919:_Changing_names The other one that springs to mind is, of course, Wimbledon who moved from, (not surprisingly), Wimbledon to bloody Milton Keynes... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimbledon_F.C.#Relocation,_renaming,_and_foundation_of_AFC_Wimbledon I dare say there are others but those are two most people think of. This idea there's some sort of past 'purity' where the owners of most European football clubs were entirely selfless and would NEVER do anything wrong, is a myth. It's the fans support for the club that's been 'pure', (as much as anything is likely to be), NOT the owners and DEFINITELY not the businesses that own most sports teams. The exception, of course, would be the ones that are owned by the fans but, how many of THEM are there in England, France, Italy, etc??
What a weird way of thinking. It's those damn other people that my leaders want to sell to that's the problem! The "crime" is Asian and American fans, huh? Your leaders did not need Americans or Asians to teach them greed. This is the kind of arrogance I am talking about.
??? The "crime" is to kick out competition and install a closed shop. Where do read that shit you plunk on the table?
I mean, Barca and Real Madrid are owned by the fans, but were oddly in the ESL as well. Kudos really to the Germans -- they have repeatedly chosen to fall behind in the race for more cash to keep 50+1, even with the loopholes that are there. There's a lot of pure fan support here. I find it frankly a little off that I've rooted for a a team that's been good for about four years in my 30+ years of fandom, but it's apparently not quite good enough because there's no pro/rel or something. So yeah, I'd frankly love the club model or community owned here. It's not going to happen, but it doesn't mean people don't have a long and lasting connection to their teams here.
The crime being from "distinctively across the ocean." A closed shop isn't some novel disease spread from the awfulness of American sports. Seriously, don't blame Americans or Asians for something your leaders wanted to do.
Gödel: "No system can be both, complete and consistent." Metalogics = expressing language as propositional logic. Convert ethical principles from plain language to propositional logic expressions. No ethical system, converted in such expressions (= exact use of language) can be both, complete and consistent. Conclusion: you can be either ignorant (incomplete ethical system) or a hypocrite (complete, but inconsistent). In other words, total ethical honesty is impossible.
The fact that that half the original Premier League are currently not in the Premier League and the fact that so many different clubs have been in the Premier League goes to show that the wealth it generates is distributed across the leagues (Also Premier League riches hasn't stopped Portsmouth, Sunderland, Bolton or Bradford from falling to lower league football) Three new clubs every year WILL gain access to the Premier League just like before the Premier League was formed and three clubs WILL lose Premier League status every year no matter what. Ultimately pro/rel IS the key thing here which is why fans in the UK (and across Europe) are so bloody defensive about it.
I'm sorry but what happened the days after this so called 'Super League' was announced goes to show that the local fans DO still have the power, DO still have the final say, no matter what John Henry (made a grovelling apology)and sheik Manseur thinks. As one fan eloquently put it on one of the banners 'WE decide when you play'!
another crazy day ... Manchester - wow. this is for Crawleybus and our UK football brethren . it is a good response and history to read of how Packer fans (my father was raised there and he told me the stories and history) own the team. Glazers may own the Buccaneers but a family like them will never own the Packers. It is the only franchise in this form in North America - but it has been this way for over 100 years. https://www.quora.com/How-have-the-Green-Bay-Packers-stayed-in-Green-Bay-for-so-long
Still not sure it wasn’t the players who led this effort, as well as roman needing his personal reputation not to take the hit more than additional money