The fight against modern Soccer(football)

Thats why I love the Argentine Primera Divison since its still pure.

The day Argentine soccer becomes overly commercialized like European Leagues or Americans Sports, I'll give up sports watching.

 

The minor teams have all the same problem. Americans and Asians don't understand this problem.

Back in the days when most players in the Ajax squad where from Amsterdam, you knew the guys from the street, school, family. Whole stadium red of flares. Stadiums that smelled like piss. Winning european cups with 11 dutch street kids. That was something you could identify yourself with. It made you proud, you gave everything for the club, the club was your city, a part of you.

But then the money came. The best players where bought by the richest teams, so that they never were able anymore to become an international top team. Every time we are building on something beautiful, reaching the quarter finals of a Champions League with youngsters, the rich teams come to buy them for offers they can't refuse.

It's like building a house, and just when you are building the roof, the Barcelona's of this world come to tear it down. And because of our players they get better, and richer. And as a big thank you, they steal our players when they are 14/15, giving daddy a good job and a house, because they are free at that time. Just like they have no money.
Now we are building on another good team, but after this season or after next season, Suarez, S. de Jong, Stekelenburg are all gone.

My solution is, a salary cap of one million euro, 7 countrymen in the team, and only champions in the Champions League (like the times that you didn't know the result of Casino Salzburg against AC Milan before the match was played)
And no major debts allowed. In Holland when you have debts they take your pro license immediately. In Spain or England all teams would have been 20x bankrupt in Holland.

 

Those days they played for honour and pride and more than average money. Now they have nothing with the club they are playing and always have in the back of their mind that whatever the result, they still earn a crazy load of money after the game.

 

I agree and disagree with some of the things vifvaf says. I'm also curious vifvaf, who do you support?

 

the only things i really don't like about the modern game is impatience with managers and the trend towards defensive soccer

 

I think the two go hand in hand. No one is allowed to be creative anymore. Look at Tony Mowbray.

 

I think what ElJefe was saying was that when people have nostalgia for "the good old days" it was a time when things were better for them only. There's been a lot of that in politics recently where a former socially-privileged class is wishing for "the good old days" ignoring that the "good old days" meant very hard times for at-the-time underserved and underprivileged segments of society.

In football, we can look at the example of the Bosman Rule - before the Bosman, a team could hold on to a player even after their contract expired. While some may see this as "fair" because of the investment the club made in the player, it also means that the contract almost doesn't matter. Great for supporters, but not always for the players who can see their livelihood in the hands of someone who no longer values them. In American Sports, there is a similar (amazingly Bosman-free) setup in MLS and in college sports - where the implicit contract is essentially money for tuition. But that is a case where the supporters of a school team (boosters, etc) have used the law to KEEP things the way it is.

In other (baskeball, gridiron, baseball, hockey, ...) professional sports in America, the labor friction came from the fact that the owners started making inordinate amounts more than the players - mostly from the 1970's on. Also professional sports (except baseball) did not/could not recruit local players of any age. Their players mostly came from the colleges.

Personally I think everyone is to blame here. Professional sports has the money problems it has today because supporters will pay what they are asked to pay. As that famed philosopher Notorious B.I.G. once said, "Mo Money, Mo Problems" and that's what has happened - in everything. If people were more financially educated and aware, they wouldn't stand for half of the things that have gone on in the name of comfort or convenience. I notice that the Salzburg club were in dire financial straits before Red Bull came in. Well, why were they in so much debt? Why weren't they more strict on the terms of a deal with Red Bull? It's the same with the Glazers in Manchester. Fans can wear those green/gold scarves all they want (which, I assume are making SOMEONE a lot of money) but until they DO NOT SHOW UP AT THE STADIUM nothing will happen.

Also - as far as the all-seater stadiums - I was under the impression those were instituted as a result of the Hillsborough and Heysel disasters (more old-times that I'm sure we don't want to go back to).

And while MLS as a league started in 1996, teams (and loose associations of supporters in different geographic regions) have been around across various leagues and teams for the better part of a century - even if a lot of the players were imports. But in true American fashion, the leagues didn't always play well with FIFA or the FIFA-recognized American FA at the time. Who are those Europeans to tell us Americans how to organize

 

agreed.

 

Supply and Demand my friend. If you don't fill the seat for a price someone else will and until no one wants to pay that much for a ticket, they'll continue to jack up the prices

If they replaced the seats in the rowdier fan sections with bleachers it would work. Bleachers are cheap, allow people to stand without much hindrance, and are still able to be utilized as seats. Don't forget stadiums are now multipurpose venues for concerts and such

If the stadium has no history and someone offers the club a boatload of money, sell. If the stadium has history sell the name of the pitch (i.e. Samsung Pitch at Stamford Bridge) Money makes the clubs better and allows maybe a slight reduction in ticket pricing. Red Bull is a unique case. Because their expansion into clubs is very recent, I want to see if they truly care for the clubs or are utilizing them purely for profit. We are yet to see.

You can thank Brandi Chastian for the reason shirts no longer come off. Also as for celebrating in the stands with fans, that can be dangerous on occasion, so prevent that 1000-1 instance

Fixture congestion for one. These players are only human after all and can't play 3 times a week for 4 weeks in a row or else they'll tire out. Then you have TV contracts. TV wants to put the best match at the best time to get the most viewers to get the best in advertising money to give to the club pay for the contracts of the players. It's an endless cycle.

Personally I believe Modern Football can be merged back with its former self it just takes the abilities of both sides of the situation to compromise.

Also I agree that knee-jerk firings has destroyed creativity.

 

I think we do. I don't think we all necessarily agree that there is a problem because of the way American sports leagues are organized. The sort of atmosphere you're describing throughout this post does in fact exist in the USA. We have it in high school and college athletics (well, except for the piss-scented stadia).

Why is this important to you when we're talking not about scholastic football but about someone's job? Is having a spot reserved for the guy down the street more important than having a better team with better players that you do not know personally?

I agree that this is a cool thing, but one serious injury or death from a fire would be too many to risk it.

I do not agree that this is a cool thing.

Sounds like your club needs more money or you need to accept your club's lot in a free market. There's no reason that a successfully run club like Barcelona (not a Blaugrana fan, just using them becaue you mentioned them) shouldn't be allowed to spend its finances the way it sees fit.

Make the Eredivisie richer by getting more people to go to games and charge more for tickets. You'll be able to buy players that make the experience worthwhile.

It's an athletic business, not an army or a government. This obsession with citizenship is silly, especially in a global environment. There are people from at least five continents posting here on BS. It's very plebian for any of us to be thinking in terms of citizenship these days.

If the best players are citizens of another country and you can afford to buy them, being prohibited from buying as many as you can afford doesn't encourage the maintenance of a successful business. I want my club to field the best players it can afford, and I am willing to grant that right to every other club on Earth. All your suggestion does is make it easier for less-productive businesses to compete on an artificially leveled playing field. Don't handcuff Barca- work harder to make your club like Barca.

This is not how the NFL works, but it's the only league of its sport and almost every player is American, so there's no interleague spats about money or culture (which is the biggest reason anyone would want to discuss imposing a citizen quota on a fotball club).


Your ideas about solvency make absolute sense.