Ipswich chairman on promotion/relegation

Aha. It's not surprising at all to hear this (even if you factor in that these comments are from the chairman of a newly relegated team).

I don't think it's got anywhere near the critical mass to happen right now, but it's bound to happen sooner or later if things continue the way they're going now. Still, that'll be too late for the clubs that finally do knuckle under and succumb; that, too, is only a matter of time.

Lest you think Sheepshanks is some maverick shooting his mouth off, he's not; he's the former (?) chairman of the Nationwide League, IIRC.

 

Here's a radical idea: merge the Premiership and the Football League again, and work it out so that dropping to Division 1 doesn't mean Chapter 11 (or whatever it is in the UK) also. Seems to me it would be in the best interest of the Premier League to give a little extra money to Division 1 if it meant a PL club would survive if it actually got there.

Or, have Fox Sports World throw a little money to the Football League so we can get Worthington Cup and league games here in the U.S.

 

Actually, I think fewer and fewer people are pushing this as the financial reality of soccer in the USA becomes clearer and clearer.

 

Pimping

http://www.soccer365.com/_365_Features/page_121_43222.shtml

 

He neglects to mention a couple things. First, with the draft, talent is spread out evenly, with the best talent (in theory) going to the worst teams. Secondly, the salary cap is already a great leveler, so dynasties like Manchester United are currently enjoying would never last (see the NFL).

Pro/rel also makes no sense until we get to 18 or 20 teams or whatever we think is full strength, so this idea Rochester is joing in 2 years only to be kicked out in 3 is not going to be happening. Plus, the league would have to go away from single entity, which won't be happening for a while anyway.

I think pro/rel is a worthwhile goal, but not for a while.

 

Re: Pimping

The guy who wrote that article didn't do his homework....

"The fans of teams like Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal will never know what it’s like to fight for survival"

True, Arsenal have never been relegated (or genuinely promoted for that matter, they were rather shadily arbitarily 'promoted' after the first world war) Man Utd have been relegated 5 times (the last time in 1974 was only 6 years after winning the European cup) and Chelsea have had 7 separate spells outside the top division.

"The way I see it, MLS has jumped ahead of the world soccer curve on this one."

I'd just say that the system in the US, where there is a small number of viable clubs (11 at present) is very different from, for example, England, where there are perhaps up to 40 clubs who would be financially viable premiership clubs (about 60 have played in the top flight at one time or other), so what suits one situation would be unsuitable for the other.

As has been said before, oooh at least once or twice, if you had 18 MLS teams and another 18 or so Rochester sized teams in the A-League then you could give it some thought, but that day is a long way off. If England had 20 teams pulling in 40000 and below that nobody getting more than about 10000 then questions would be asked, but that isn't happening either.

"The top European clubs tried several years ago to guarantee their position in the Champions League when talks of a European super league cropped up. Those guys don’t like the system either because on the off chance that everything falls apart and they end up in a lower division, they know the road back is not paved with romantic memories."

There was no talk at all of scrapping relegation. That is just a misconception inferred by people who don't understand what is going on. The big clubs from the big leagues just wanted to play one another more often as that would generate more TV money, hence 4 teams from Italy, England & Spain playing in the 'champions' league.

 

Re: Re: Pimping

I'm that guy.

1. Wow. 1974. That's really relevant in the modern era. They were relegated 30 years ago. My, oh, my, the pain must still sting. For Chlease, yeah, it's been 15 years but for Arsenal, it's been almost 85 years. I think my point is made - the rich clubs know nothing about a relegation struggle, making the romanticism notion a joke.

2. I didn't specifically spell out the size of the league as an issue, but it is. But I did touch on SEM and the problems expanding would bring to a proposed relegation system. Still, just because there are a lot of teams doesn't give them the right to be in the top division.

3. I never said there were talks of scrapping relegation. What I said was they don't like the system, so they stack the deck. I discussed guaranteed entry into the Champions League, which did come up in 1998 and since then.

And why do they want to play each other more? To make more money. And why do they want to make more money? To keep it out of the little guy's hands. Expanding the teams going to Europe does just that. Putting teams who don't advance from the first group phase into the UEFA Cup did that.

You made my point perfectly in your last sentence. They don't want real competition where only a few teams go to Europe to make money. They want the elite to make more and more money so they can crush the teams in the lower half of the table time and time again. If the stories of Bradford, Wimbledon and Leicester aren't cautionary enough, I don't know what can keep people from swallowing the G14 party line hook, line and sinker.

I didn't do my homework? I think not.

 

Re: Re: Re: Pimping

A lot of big clubs have been involved in relegation battles. They might have won them, but that doesn't mean they weren't involved. I don't think it's likely that Man Utd, Arsenal of Liverpool will be down there for a long time but it only takes the unholy trinity of big debts, bad management and bad signings to set the alarm bells ringing. There is nothing romantic about relegation nor is there meant to be - it's a punishment not a prize.

as I said I don't think there should be pro/rel in the MLS, but that's not because I believe 'the American way' of having franchised leagues is a better system. It took about 35 years for the football league to get to 92 clubs. It started with only 12. It expanded to two divs of 18 teams in 1898, becoming two of 22 after WWI. Div 3 was added in 1921 and Div 3 North in 1922. In each case the league expanded by absorbing existing clubs, not creating new ones from scratch. Who's to say that the MLS couldn't expand in a similar way?

So what does give a team a right to be in the top division? Is a cartel really better than a free market?

well if I misunderstood what you were saying I'm sorry, but your statement "Those guys don’t like the system either because on the off chance that everything falls apart and they end up in a lower division, they know the road back is not paved with romantic memories" does kind of imply that 'the system' they dislike is relegation.

apart from the larger number of countries competing, I don't think the number of teams going into European competition has increased, it's just which of the two (previously 3) competitions they enter has changed. Whereas before a large country might have had 6 European entrants with 1 team in the European cup, 1 in the cup winners cup and 4 in the UEFA cup, now they might have 3 in the champions league and 3 in the UEFA Cup. The larger leagues have always sent more teams into Europe than smaller ones, it's just that previously they went into the UEFA Cup.
I don't think they want more money (for Euro TV rights in this case) to keep it out of the little guys hands, as it wouldn't have gone to the other teams anyway. It's not so much wanting a bigger slice of the pie, just wanting a bigger pie instead.

As much as a gravy train the champions league is, the changes were not purely about money. The big clubs seemed curiously annoyed that smaller clubs would have the cheek to knock them out of the competition. The group stages, as well as generating more cash, lessen the chances of that happening. Yes they want more money, but they want more money so they can improve the team, rather than buying club directors new mansions from share dividends (what exactly does happen to all the profit generated in American sports?)

Much of Bradford & Leicester's debts are to do with the cost of stadium building. Those debts would have been there even if they'd stayed up. Wimbledon are a strange case of a club who were punching way above their weight. Always a poorly supported side, they went from the bottom division to the top after being promoted 3 times in 4 years. Even in the season that they got promoted to the top division, they could only draw on average 4,800 fans to plough lane. They were expected to have one season in the sun before swiftly departing, but they stuck around. For many clubs, the dream of 'doing a Wimbledon' is one they aspire to. For some, such as Rochdale, just getting out of the bottom division for the first time in 30 years would be nice.

You could probably create a relegation free British League featuring Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Leeds, Liverpool, Man City, Man Utd, Newcastle, Sunderland, Spurs, West Ham, Celtic & Rangers and it would very profitable, but is guaranteeing financial stability for an elite few worthwhile if the cost to the rest of the game would be so great?

Perhaps the best way to explain it would be to imagine a world cup where FIFA had decided that is was wrong that countries such as Holland miss out because of poor year's qualifying so from now on entry will be by franchise only, and only a select few countries, big names and a few others such as Japan thrown in as they are good TV markets, will be allowed to compete. The other countries can host their own minor world cups if they want. For TV ratings and profitability it would be a winner, I'm sure, but even those countries invited to take part wouldn't want it as they realise there is so much more to the game than an elite few. Profit isn't everything. Never have fans poured onto the streets in celebration because their club achieved its greatest ever net profit. When it comes to sport, the bottom line isn't about the bottom line.


As to whether you did your homework or not, well all I'd say is anyone who believes that the idea of scrapping relegation is growing in popularity in Europe has been reading the wrong textbook.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Pimping

Show me where I said the idea of scrapping relegation is growing in Euope and you'll have a shred of credibility. All I have said is that the big teams have stacked the deck in regards to entering European competition to keep the money flowing so they will never face the threat of relegation, realistically.

Sure, MLS will expand, but who knows what the world soccer landscape will hold by then. So why even talk about it. MLS is a small league with a precarious financial position - something that keeps promotion and relegation from being realistic.

As far as the romantacism, that was a direct comment on a previous column on the site which called the struggle just that. It is a punishment as you say and the big clubs have spoiled themselves so they will never be punished. First the 1992 creation of the EPL, then the 1998 agreement with the CL to get them more money (which led to the G14) and now the fight to create some sort of two-tiered CL so they won't have to play these smaller teams for fear of losing.

That's exactly what I've been trying to say but you've been trying to poke non-existent holes in my argument to see it. That is what those teams want. They want to be guaranteed everything - that's the whole point of the G14.

And MLS just went ahead and did it instead of couching it in some BS system where some teams think theyhave a chance, but are forced to spend themselves into administration to follow a drea. Whatever the causes of Bradford and Leicester, it was to try and keep up with those big teams that had stacked the deck. Doing it in the guise of true competition is wrong.

 

Re: Re: Pimping

C'mon, 30 years ago? Render unto me a freakin' break. Even if you forgive the European tendency to reach back into the past, 30 years is several lifetimes in soccer. Please... any mention of anything before the formation of the Premiereship and the Champions and Assorted Losers League is completely and totally irrelevant. You may as well talk about the Enclosure Acts or the Corn Laws.

The reality is that none of the major clubs will face a relegation battle unless either something goes horribly wrong or I get my wish to see one of them get relegated.

Define financially viable. When clubs like Leicester (sp?), Nottingham Forest, etc. go into administration, one has to presume the number of clubs able to compete to win the Premiereship while sustaining a European campaign at the same time is extremely limited. I'd be surprised if there were more than 15.

Just because it's been said, doesn't mean it's true. The reality is that promotion and relegation is a fool's paradise, at least here in the USA. And given the large, and increasing, gulf between major and minor clubs in Europe, the system is increasingly untenable there.

Smaller clubs have two choices:

1. Live within your means and accept that you will never be among the leading lights of soccer.

2. Spend more than you make in the hopes that promotion (or getting into Europe) tomorrow will make up for what you spent today.

Too many clubs have chosen the latter option, and you can see the result.

But nothing will change unless a major club, like Real Madrid or a Manchester United actually does get relegated. I doubt the owners would accept relegation gracefully and just vow to come back stronger.

Sachin

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Pimping

Maybe I interpreted your points wrong. You stated that the MLS' relegation free system was better than the way Europe does things. You also stated that the big clubs disliked 'the system', which I took to mean pro/rel. I inferred from this (perhaps incorrectly) that you believed there to be support for scrapping relegation.

I only mentioned it to show that I believed the system in the MLS is best for the MLS as it is currently, and that I wasn't advocating introducing pro/rel unless things radically changed.

They've actually voted to change the format of the champions league so there is only one group stage. This will increase the chance of 'shock' results. Surprising as it may seem, I really don't believe that the G14 clubs want a breakaway G14 league - they know how much the national competitions mean - but such threats are a very good bargaining tool. If the G14 clubs really wanted their own league they'd just go ahead and create it.

For Bradford & Leicester the dream was to stay in the premier as long as possible. They were not competing, or trying to compete for the title. As I think I said before, both spent a huge amount of money on stadium improvements, which have historically been the biggest cause of debt in British football history. If Arsenal & Liverpool's new stadiums run badly overbudget both of them will be deep in trouble.
Even if in England it looks like there are a few who won't worry about relegation, look at somewhere like Seria A for a warning of what can go wrong. Napoli, a very big club even by Italian standards, have spend many recent years in Serie B. Genoa, Sampdoria & Torino really 'shouldn't' have gone down, but they did. Fiorentina went bust completely. They now compete in Serie C2 and because of pro/rel they have the chance of working their way back up. Had they just reformed in a sterile minor league there's no way they'd be getting 35,000 to watch them as they do now. What'd be the point?

 

Re: Re: Re: Pimping

OK, you say history isn't relevant. 30 years ago Chelsea were a big successful club. They capitalised on this success building a big new stand. It cost them a fortune and they had huge debts. They could not afford to replace their ageing, highly paid players, and got relegated. They then had 15 years of bumbling along in the doldrums before things picked up again. In recent years Chelsea are a big, reasonably successful club. They have capitalised on this success by rebuilding their ground. It has cost them a fortune and they have huge debts. Chelsea have a team of ageing, highly paid stars that will be hard to replace. Miss out on European competition (they are hardly guaranteed entry) for a couple of years and they could be digging out the old maps to Walsall again in a few years time.

Man City are a big club, but they were in Division 2 a few years ago.

I'd say a club has to be able to average 25,000-30,000 to be a viable premiership club (not the same as a title chasing club where perhaps 40,000 is the figure). Forest, Leicester, Derby etc could all draw those crowds. Bradford were expanding their stadium to allow them to do so.
One thing that has been raised is the question of stadia suitablility - i.e. only allowing promotion for teams whose ground is suitable so they won't be trying to build a team AND a ground at the same time. Such a limit already exists in Scotland, albeit at smaller scale. There have been talks about introducing this at all levels of the football league.

One thing that you really have to consider is the fact that the premiership isn't the be-all-and-end-all of English football. While it may seem logical to maybe have 2 divisions of teams of theoretically viable clubs with their 25,000+ stadia with no relegation below them, you have to also consider that for many clubs getting into Division 1 is an ambition in itself. Why stop a traditionally lower division club (such as Rotherham) from competing in Division 1 just because they aren't viable for the premiership?

I really have to stress the point, in England (and most of Europe) there is no major/minor club distinction. Southampton, for example, have been in the top division for about 25 years while their near neighbours Portsmouth haven't been in the top division since 1959. Southampton are the richer club and currently have a bigger stadium, but Portsmouth are a bigger club. Yes there are big clubs and there are small clubs, but it's the plethora of medium-sized clubs in-between that really make any line-drawing difficult.

I agree, but it's wrong to suggest that the only way to go up is to spend more money than you can afford. Normally at least out of every three promotion winning teams (in all divisions) will inevitably be described as going up on a shoestring budget. Quite often a small squad will gel better than a team of expensively assembled stars. WBA would be a good example from last season. They also took the step of offering their players large win bonues rather than the usual large pay rises. Players are slowly accepting they they can't expect their wages to doubled upon promotion but stay the same after relegation.

option 1 has to be the way to go but it should never be at the cost of introducing a glass ceiling.

Take away the incentive of promotion and the whole game outside the top division would become meaningless. Sure, the clubs that survived the huge drop in attendances after promotion ceased would never risk a boom & bust scenario again, but the game would have all the excitement of an end of season baseball game between two who have both definitely missed the play-offs. The operation would be a success, but unfortunately the patient would die.

Atletico Madrid not big enough for you? How about Marseille, Napoli, Genoa, Torino, Sampdoria, St Ettienne, Kaiserslautern, Eintracht Frankfurt, Fiorentina or Real Betis. All went down very recently, and not a single one of them fought against relegation. No club has ever challenged relegation. Everton are a pretty big club and they've been within a whisker of losing their premiership status a number of times and if they'd gone down they'd have accepted it. I've see this belief that big clubs would launch some sort of legal action mentioned on these boards before and it's just totally groundless. For a start no club has a legal right to be in a division. err, actually I think that says it all. You might as well suggest a national team would try and legally challenge FIFA for not letting them in a world cup just because they weren't good enough to qualify, or that the NY Yankees would launch a legal bid to be re-instated into the play-offs if they had a poor regular season and didn't qualify.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Pimping

Ummm, maybe manage their finances correctly so they don't have to dissolve the club.

You're really doing nothing to bolster your argument (I think I have it right) that the pro/rel system in Europe - particularly England - is open to all. It's selective enforcement as I have said before because the bigger teams have stacked the deck, first with the creation of the EPL, then with the G14 demands after the 1998 TV contract.

It remains to be seen what happens with the loss of the second group stage because, despite the constant complaining about fixture overload, the big teams know they need to keep the money rolling their way or their big advantage will be reduced.

My biggest point in the column was that the romantic notion of pro/rel as laid out in someone else's column was a complete crock because the financial realities of the current system make relegation completely impossible for many teams. The ones who aren't secure are fighting a losing battle.

At least MLS is up front and tries to put everyone on the same page. Sports is a business but it doesn't need to be a life and death business.

 

I think the European model of promotion/relegation combined with the American model of a college/amateur draft and some form of salary cap could work very well for MLS in the long-term. If the biggest argument is that only smaller teams battle it out for relegation, take a look at the NFL. Chicago is awful, and the league's smallest market by far, Green Bay, could have been #1 seed in it's conference very easily (and is the league's most romanticized team I would argue). So the cap and draft can be a great leveller.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Pimping

The fact that there are perhaps half a dozen clubs who will never go down unless they are badly mismanaged doesn't have any bearing on the viability of pro/rel. So what if Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool etc don't go down? Why is that relevant? If there were 16 or 17 teams who never went down you'd have a point but each year the three promoted teams know they'll be in a dog-fight with perhaps 6 or 7 other teams who are likely to be involved in the relegation scrap. That's pretty much always been the way, even before the premier league (although that is not true in other divisions where the talent gap from top to bottom is much tighter).
Also the big clubs getting huge amounts of cash from Euro TV rights does nothing to prevent clubs from being promoted or staying there once up as that money only goes to a few clubs.


You might say it's the same thing, but the G14 clubs want the cash to keep them at the top, not keep them away from the bottom. Although big teams have gone down in the past, it's usually after a decline over a number of years rather than just 'having one bad season'. After 38 games nobody is in a false position, they are where they deserve to be. Mediocre teams don't luckily win titles and good teams don't unluckily get relegated. It just doesn't happen so to believe that big clubs fear it just isn't true.


The reality is that most pro clubs will never play in the premier league, and the ones that overreach themselves punching above their weight in a higher division usually pay for it for a good number of years afterwards, but I bet if you were to ask supporters of Barnsley for example, now in division 2 as a result of debts incurred during their season in the top division (and rebuilding 3 sides of their ground) if they'd rather have not gone up, not many would say yes.


One thing I've seen people say on here (that I'll point out I don't agree with) is to suggest that the MLS plays a euro-style home & away set of fixtures, without conferences, and determines the champion from a straight league table. The problem with that, as I'm sure you are well aware, is that it would be boring. Two or three teams going for the title and nothing for anyone else to play for. Wouldn't that be exactly what would happen if relegation was scrapped?


I've tried hard, with not a huge amount of joy, to find stats showing attendances in minor leagues compared to major leagues. But from various pages I did find, it looks like in baseball at least, minor league crowds are very poor compared with MLB crowds. Anyone getting over 5000 looks to be doing really well. The conclusion I could draw from that is that in America only the elite major league teams are important and they are all anyone cares about. With that kind of psyche it is understandable that the major league is seen as a product a world apart from its minor league bretheren. A point I've tried to get through is that there isn't the same distinction in English football. People do not view the premiership as a separate competition - it's just the highest strata of the pro game.

To illustrate the point a bit, here are the average attendances for all pro clubs, division by division. (you also have to consider that a clubs crowds will significantly rise after a promotion)

http://www.soccer-stats.com/divisions/attendances.asp?divno=1&orderby=7
http://www.soccer-stats.com/divisions/attendances.asp?divno=2&orderby=7
http://www.soccer-stats.com/divisions/attendances.asp?divno=3&orderby=7
http://www.soccer-stats.com/divisions/attendances.asp?divno=4&orderby=7

It would seem from the admittedly limited research I did into minor league crowds, that you have to go down to div 2/3 level to find crowds similar to those in minor leagues. If you were to believe that crowds outside the premiership are all of that order then it is easier to see why you might assume smaller clubs have no chance of staying in the premiership, and indeed would be foolish to even try, but if you look you may agree that clubs went down because they weren't good enough, not because they weren't big enough.

 

Re: Re: Re: Pimping

??? What choice will they have? Pull a Vite Corleone and make the FA an offer they can't refuse???

EDIT: RichardL already hit the absurdity of this. I know that in some countries, clubs don't accept relegation. I think it was in Mexico where a big relegated team bought a promoted team, and took their slot. But if Chelsea's debts swallow up the club's ability to pay premiership wages and the team goes down, Ken Bates will take it with all of the grace he can muster.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Pimping

I don't think you understand what the minor leagues are. The New York Yankees' AAA farm team is NOT equivalent to Derby or Portsmouth. They're equivalent to ManU's reserves. Minor league teams aren't trying to win. They are trying to develop players for the big club. If an AAA manager has a choice between a pretty good 25 year old shortstop, and a promising, erratic, less good 19 year old shortstop, he's going to play the latter.

You'd be better off looking at college sports attendance, either for men's college basketball or college football. Try ncaa.org. I think that's the NCAA's web address.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Pimping

The point I was making was that in American sports, where you have a major league, that league is effectively the ENTIRE sport within the country whereas in England the premiership is just part of the game. In the American situation it's very easy to rationalise creating a cartel to protect the interests of it's members when there's nobody being excluded - because nobody else of any stature exists. If the larger MLB clubs got together and decided they were going to form their own league excluding anyone who couldn't average 30000+, in effect culling quite a few MLB clubs, would the American public regard that as a good thing? It's all too easy to extrapolate the American system, saying it's happened in America so it's bound to happen overseas too, but that ignores the basic fact that American sports haven't switched from a european pro/rel league system to their current set up, so you can't say the American way is the obvious conclusion.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Pimping

You're not looking in the right places.

Minor League Baseball Attendance

A-League Attendance

D3 Pro League (now Pro Select League) Attendance

PDL Attendance

W-League Attendance

AHL Hockey Attendance

ECHL Hockey Attendance

CHL Hockey Attendance

UHL Hockey Attendance

WCHL Hockey Attendance

CBA Basketball Attendance

NBDL Basketball Attendance

USBL Basketball Attendance

 

I don't think there's actually a great deal of disagreement between monster and RichardL, they're just emphasizing different points.

RichardL points out that there isn't a great deal of discontent over the pro/rel system, because whatever its faults, it gives the fans and the majority of teams what they want: a chance. Scrapping the system would destroy much of the interest because, for most teams and their fans, there wouldn't be much left to play for.

Monster focuses on the fact that pro/rel, or specifically relegation from the Premiership (or whatever the top division is in a pariticular country) threatens the interests of the big, rich clubs. The rich clubs have fixed the system to perpetuate their dominance. By creating the Premiership, they were able to take TV money that was being divided a hundred ways and instead divide it twenty ways. This wasn't a good thing for the majority of teams in English football, but it was good for the big boys, so it happened anyway. Monster, in my view, simply sees the removal of relegation as the inevitable eventual goal of the rich clubs. Without having to worry about being relegated, the rich clubs could then think about supporting of a salary cap and other cost-cutting measures without it threatening their financial domination of the other 80% of professional football clubs.

RichardL is certainly right that there would be great harm to the significance of and interest in lower division play if pro/rel were abandoned. I don't think Monster would dispute this, but his argument isn't that removing pro/rel would be good for the sport as a whole, but that it will happen anyway because it's in the interest of the powerful.

So the issue then becomes how powerful you think the rich clubs are within the structure of the sport. Monster sees them as quite powerful, pointing to the creation of the Premiership as evidence of this. RichardL sees the benefit to the overall system of pro/rel as so significant to so many teams and fans that the interest of a few clubs will be unable to destroy it. In twenty years I guess we'll know.

 

actually my point was that (from a big club's point of view) there is no discontent over the pro/rel system. No-one should confuse not wanting to be relegated with thinking pro/rel is inherently a bad thing.

It's certainly true that it would be stupid to have a league with salary caps and parity, and also have pro/rel, so I'd agree if the premiership was looking to introduce such measures they'd have to re-think pro/rel, but the fact is they aren't. There is no desire among any clubs to implement an across the board salary cap (the G14 proposed cap was based on a percentage of turnover per club) or introduce any measures at all to bring about parity. Does anyone think that the likes of Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea etc would actively seek measures which would rob them of the advantage that being a big club brings?
The big clubs have always had an advantage. Even in the really old days of the maximum wage, bigger clubs could afford bigger transfer fees and bigger cities produce more talented young players than the largest towns do. It may seem curious over there, but nobody over here minds this lack of parity - it is seen as the natural order of things. We want the premiership to be a peak, not a plateau.

If there's something the big clubs would like it's an end to the packaging of live TV rights collectively. I'm sure Man Utd would just love to be able to show their live games on PPV on their TV channel. It would only take about 60000 people worldwide paying £10 a time per league game for them to make as much money as from the current TV deal. If that happened then suddenly the Southamptons and Charltons of the league suddenly lose the advantage they had over the Div 1 clubs.


To be honest it is the "it's happened in America so it will happen everywhere else too" extrapolation that I find annoying. Although not mentioned in this thread, I've seen others where franchising, and mainly the moving of teams from city to city, is something that's regarded by many as being inevitable in Europe, just because that's the way things are done in America. That only makes sense because America lacks any alternative for clearing out it's dead wood. A poorly supported club, which in the states would be seen as ripe for takeover and relocation, in Europe would be replaced by a promoted team who hopefully would fare better.

 

This is reminiscent of a problem in baseball. The Yankees have a huge local TV deal, and they cream other teams with the financial advantage. (OK, I oversimplified the situation here, but you get the point.) Intellectually, the other teams are like, hey, you wouldn't get that money for intrasquad games. It's the opponent that makes the telecast valuable, so the Yankees owe us a share of the money.

I hear what you're saying, Richard, but Charlton certainly has intellectual and moral recourse. Legal recourse? I don't know.

Also, most fans here automatically compare pro sports to pro sports. I know I've said this many times on bs, but it bears repeating. The organization of club soccer is better understood through the prism of American college sports than American pro sports.