http://football.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9753,788093,00.html Food for thought in this article. The writer claims (correctly , imho) that it's the stress of trying to be promoted or avioding relegation which causes clubs tooverspend and thus get into financial instability. He also gives the NFL as an example of an exiting league without pro/rel. There may not be much new for readers of this forum but I don't think I've ever seen this argued in a UK paper before.
I've believed for a long time that pro-rel will go away in European leauges eventually. It will eventually make more sense for clubs to admit they are in a certain financial bracket and they aren't going to get bigger, but they could get smaller. The author is right that the financial yo-yo of pro-rel is wrecking havoc with club finances. I could see the first crack in the dam coming in one of two ways: 1. A small club miraculously wins promotion and the owner says "I'm sorry, but I can't afford to spend 10 of million of pounds for stadium renovations and new players for one season. We'll have to decline." or 2. A super-club, say Arsenal, has a unearthly terrible run of form and actually gets relegated. I could see them fighting the relegation through legal means in an effort to stay up. Obviously #1 is more likely than #2, but either way, it will be a massive blow to an institution that, IMHO, has far outlived it's usefullness. Sachin
This has to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. The only reason that clubs like Derby and Leicester are strugling is through their own mis-management. Newly relegated teams are compensated for some degree for their loss in TV revenue. If you take away promotion and relegation, you may as well do away with the entire pyramid outside of the Premiership. If you don't have the money then don't spend it. Clubs like Charlton and Southampton have prove that you can survive in the top flight whilst being financially frugal. Just because you get promoted doesn't mean you have to spend 3 times your income on players wages. Good managers can find good players for little money. Just because a couple of teams have gone for broke and failed doesn't mean that the system should be changed. The article says that only 3 teams have a realsitic chance of winning the title, so why not just make the Premiership a 3 team tournament? To build up your side you need to do it gradually, not expect instant gratification and to be challenging for the title.
On what basis would they base their legal claim? They know what happens if they don't perform, and there can be no excuses. If they don't make the grade then they don't deserve to be in the Premiership.
I agree that a number of leagues across the world will eventually get rid of pro/rel, for many of the reasons mentioned here, but the English seem to be among the more tradition-bound people in the sport. But we've seen successful resistance to pro/rel elsewhere. A few years ago in Mexico, I think 99, Puebla was supposed to be relegated and Union de Curtidores of Leon was supposed to be promoted, but they worked a deal so that Puebla bought Union's "franchise" in the first division and stayed up. And anyone think that the clubs owned by Televisa or TV Azteca will ever be relegated? In 97 in Brazil, Bahia and Fluminense were relegated and weren't able to re-gain promotion on the field, but wound up playing in the de facto first division again in 2000 when the big clubs organized the Copa Joao Havelange. They're back up now because the CBF decided to keep them up in 2001, citing a desire to avoid litigation. What's interesting was that Clube dos 13 (the big clubs' association) agreed that all the big clubs need to be in the first division no matter what and have effectively convinced the CBF. It's probably just a matter of time before the tv networks agree, too.
As his last line says, "The lessons from other sports in other countries are well worth considering." Indeed they are, but not quite in the way I suspect he's intimating. I wonder how familiar the author is with the manner in which US sports leagues are run as effective cartels, and, because of the false shortage of franchises this produces, how team owners can play off communities against each other in order to garner the best financial deal for stadia etc? Or have how, consequently, teams just get up and move to a different part of the country? He should also take a look at how many professional leagues exist under the NFL (i.e. none). Two other points are worth bearing in mind. Firstly, he claims that it's virtually impossible for a newly promoted team to establish itself in the Premiership. And yet that's what fully half of the teams currently in the league have done since the first Premier League season ten years ago. Secondly, his claim that only three teams are championship contenders is very unlikely to be addressed by removing pro/rel. Those teams that compete in Europe still will have a huge financial advantage. A more pragmatic way of addressing the problems in the English game would not be to get rid of pro/rel but to introduce some form of revenue sharing between teams in the same division and between divisions. Lack of pro/rel would almost certainly decimate English teams except in the top division, something I would contend is extremely unhealthy for the sport as a whole.
Promotion/Relegation is one of the best features of world soccer. Promotion rewards those who are willing to spend the money to pursue a top flight team. It punishes those who, for whatever reason, lose... but also allows them to find a level where they can be successful, and regroup for a return to the higher level. Relegation lends real interest to results at the bottom of the table, just as promotion lends interest to results at the top of a "lower" league. Promotion/Relegation actually reduces the extraneous costs of getting into the top flight, since it eliminates the necessity to "bribe" the top league with exorbitant franchise fees to get into the league. You just shell out $ on quality players (not fat cat owners), perform well in a the lower league (who's games now have significance to fans of major league sports, at least in the local market) and voila, you too can soon have a club that plays with the big boys. If MLS had this structure, Rochester and other good A-League cities would have the MLS teams their fans and ownership groups deserve. And the league wouldn't have had to kill the Mutiny; just let them fall to the lower level until the team mgt got it's shyt together (ok, assuming ownership issues were resolved).
Some quotes from the article How true is this? I know that all three newly promoted teams stayed up last year. He's making a logic error here. He's trying to make a change in the system that is based on the idea that Club X is destined to be at a certain level for the foreseeable future, but he's using this year to make the point. Pretty dumb. If he was talking about a league like Scotland, where two clubs are going to split every league title for the foreseeable future (not just this season), that would make more sense. A really cynical person would point out that by his logic, ManU should just breakaway from English football, based on their recent success and current income. I mean, if his point is that it's unrealistic for a fan of Millwall to dream of winning the EPL because of their inferior catchment area, doesn't the same point hold for the bottom feeders in the EPL now? By what right does English football say, Charlton Athletic and Southampton and West Brom fans can forever enjoy having an EPL team, but Derby and Coventry fans never will again?
Looking at the artguement that only certain teams have a chance of winning lets look at it this way. In the UK the EPL is very much a winner takes all elague with bigger financial rewards going to the teams that do best and also with no split of gate revenues. This rewards the bigger clubs and helps perpetuate their dominance. In the US, however, most leagues have implemented measures that encourage all teams to be competitive ( draft, equal split of TV revenues, part of gate revenue going to the away team.) This has been done because there is a belief that the League will grow if it is more competitive. These measures will never be implemented in the UK at the business is currently run because if a team allows other teams to get more equal then the following will happen. 1) It will find it harder to enter the champions league leading to loss of revenue. 2) It may even be relegated. Unless pro/rel is eliminated then clubs will never allow greater revenue sharing and will therefore never reduce the grip of the big clubs on the title. There is no doubt that if clubs could not be promoted or relegated they would be less likely to spend beyond their means as they would not be hoping to be promoted. Equally a club which was comfortable in the premiership could not be relegated and therefore be plunged into a financial crisis. Would this greater financial stability be worth the loss of pro/ rel. In my opinion, yes but I am far less traditional and sentimental about this stuff than most British football fans.
The Premier League of 10 years ago contained such luminaries as Norwich (who came 3rd), QPR, Oldham and Sheffield Utd. Of the original 20 teams, only 11 remain in the top flight, and only 8 have remained in the Premier League throughout the past decade. That must mean that a good number of sides have been promoted and done well. Newcastle are the prime counter-argument to this articles claim. They were not in the original Premier League, but were promoted and subsequently challenged for the title.
It isn't just about small clubs having dreams though. Clubs such as Derby & Leicester are hardly small clubs. Nottingham Forest have been European champions. Pro/rel isn't just about tradition either. It's what provides the interest in the season. A good example is the conference, just below the English division 3. Until 1987 there was no promotion from this division. Crowds would average about the 600 mark and top teams would get about 800. Winning it was nice, but it didn't really mean much. Now the better teams average 2 or three thousand. That is purely down to the promotion place available. Remove the carrot of promotion and crowds would plummet. How do the best supported minor league baseball teams compare to the MLB for example? There are teams in division 1 pulling in more than some premiership clubs do. Deciding who would be in this new relegation free premiership would also be difficult. Taking the current 20 would be too arbitrary, but picking 20 would not be easy. The urban landscape of England is very different to the US. You, over there, tend to have large cities with suburban sprawl around them, then nothing at all for 200 miles until you hit the next city. That lends itself quite nicely to franchising. The UK is comprised mainly of large towns and small cities which often blur into one conurbation over an area, but each town/city will still regard themsleves as being distinct form the other. I know there is salary capping (or something similar) in the NFL. Imagine if the smaller NFL teams couldn't really afford to spend the full amount allowed, but were doing so to try to be competetive, and in doing so were getting into debt. Imagine someone saying "well to stop these teams going into debt we're not going to let them take part in the play-offs, it's for their own good". Watch their crowds tumble as their games become meaningless. Even if their was a secondary competition for all the clubs barred from the play-offs, what would be the point?
There are so many flaws in the article's arguments that they are hard to count. lanman addresses the author's major mistake concerning English soccer. Mr. M pretty much captures the flaws of the author's understanding of other sports (I wonder how much he would like it if a team decided to move to another city, as has happened in the NFL several times -- sometimes with the blessings of the fans that lost the team, sometimes without the fans even finding out until the deal was already done). In short, there's a reason why 99% of the people disagree with him.
The problem with this argument is that it doesn't address the financial implications to lower division teams. Take away pro/rel and I suspect that essentially you're taking away professional football outside a 'major league'. Interest will be decimated in teams that are permanently locked out of a higher division. So much for financial stability of the game.
Given 1) why will removal of promotion and relegation make the slightest difference to the big clubs willingness to revenue share?
Eventually all leagues will dispatch relegation. It is a dinosaur. It disrupts the stability and financial viability of the leagues. It just makes no sense. However, some kind of system of promotion could remain. The idea, even being enertained by MLS, is to set aside 2 or 3 slots per season for 2nd Division teams to occupy for one season in the top league. It would give those under leagues a valuable fan attraction, and at least create the opportunity to attain the highest goals, while keeping the top teams in year by year competition.
You can also adjust the number of seasons that determine which teams get relegated. The Mexican system, for exmaple, doesn't necessarily relegate the club that finishes with the fewest points in the current season. They relegate the clubs with the fewest percentage of points won over a period of several seasons. So, you can have one, or possibly even two, disastrous seasons, but still not be relegated if you can have a couple of good seasons. This system almost ensures that big clubs won't get relegated because some big bucks spent for the following season can probably raise your point percentage over time back up to a safe level. It also gives newly promoted clubs more than one season to try to survive in the top division.
???????? This is not being considered by MLS. After the way you were a total jerk on the Premiership boards, I could really blast you for this. Instead, I'll just say you're wrong.
Most of these leagues have been around for awhile and have to be considered relatively stable. The current problems being experienced in Germany, Italy, and in the lower divisions of England have nothing to do with promotion and relegation, and everything to do with relying on TV money, esp. when the TV companies couldn't, it turned out, keep their ends of the bargain. And superdave already handled the issue of MLS toying with the "idea" of temporary promotion....
Re: Re: Should Promotion & relegation be scrapped in the UK Imagine if the NFL TV deal collapsed and nobody else offered any more than a 1/4 of the old deal's money - would the NFL be stable then? That's what's happened in Italy and also to the English football league clubs (not the premiership). England has over 30 clubs who, from a fan base point of view, are completely viable as premiership clubs, and about another 15-20 who with good management could survive there. But there is a smooth progressive drop-off in club size which would make any attempt to whittle that down to 20 who 'deserve' to be there very difficult indeed. But even without relegation there is no reason why the worst premiership clubs would be any more competetive. A 20 team league with only 5 teams in with a chance of the title becomes considerably less interesting with relegation out of the picture. The comment about how the clubs left out of the premier would relish the chance to compete in a competition they could win just shows he hasn't got a clue. The interest would drop off as the league would cease to be of any importance. There are other sports in Britain where there is no relegation, (Ice) hockey for example, but that is purely because the clubs outside the top division just aren't financially viable and couldn't afford to field a team of Canadian imports. Any club can apply to join but most choose not to. Cricket has only just introduced pro/rel after well over 100 years of being a closed shop. Take away the salary caps (possibly illegal under EU law), take away profit sharing (which none of the top clubs would ever agree to) and take away the draft (there is nowhere to draft players from in the UK) and how exciting would American sports leagues become in a few years?
Re: Re: Re: Should Promotion & relegation be scrapped in the UK well, I would say that, given that attendance is not diminishing (save perhaps in Italy), and since the game will still have its position of prominence in the culture, I would still consider those leagues to be stable in spite of the loss of TV revenue. If anything, the loss of money could result in teams coming up with more workable business plans that would, in the long term, create even more stability in the leagues.
Should I Stay or Should I Go Its interesting to look at eliminating pro rel in England because it shows the advantages of the system and why it is so vastly superior to the American elitist, "socialism for multi-millionaires" approach. What I would like to see, is an accounting study done on the value of all professional baseball teams in the USA/Canada today, and compare that to hypothetical values if AAA, AA and A teams could be promoted/relegated. Also, thanks to FSW for showing A-League games on Friday nights. How much better would the ratings be if Minnesota and Milwaukee were battling for promotion to MLS? Teams, by the way, do have the option of turning down promotion. Some Rugby team in England did it last year. Of course, the fans must wonder about why the team bothered in the first place, if they weren't willing to upgrade the grounds in a timely manner.
I suppose theoretically you could refuse promotion, but more likely is that promotion would be denied if your ground and facilities do not meet the standard of the league above. This is particularly common in non-league football. A few years ago a couple of teams (Stevenage were one I think) were denied promotion to the Football League as they did not meet league standards for the grounds by the deadline.
I think it was Rotherham who couldn't go up to rugby's top division. Their ground was very basic, and I mean VERY basic, even by rugby's standards. I think their only option was to ground-share with Rotherham Utd and neither were keen on that move. As for leagues losing TV money becoming more stable......the problem is if you've got players on 3 or 4 year contracts you have to pay those contracts unless you can sell the players (not easy as nobody can now afford them and the players won't want to go to a club offering them less money). Any business suddenly losing 25-30% of its revenue is going to have serious problems. The premier league clubs haven't lost any revenue yet, buts it's pretty certain that a lower amount will be offered to them too. I think there's far more chance of an invitation only, relegation free European super league being set up than there is of relegation being scrapped nationally.