1. I agree the guy is full of nonsense. 2. Given that, IIRC, half of the world's top 20 clubs for revenue are English, a cap would have less effect in England than elsewhere.
Yeah, I think a well run and/or well supported club should be able to use that to their advantage. If you take away a club’s ability to get the rewards of their investments (in infrastructure, new stands/stadiums etc) then where’s the incentive to invest? So how far do you take it? How many teams do you want to give an equal chance to? Just the premiership teams or do you want to extend that equal chance further? Include the CCC as well? Right down to Lg2? How low do you want that salary cap bar set? Low enough so that if Macclesfield Town got to the premiership then they’d have the same chance as Chelsea? The problem isn’t clubs being richer than others, it’s that the proportion that those richer clubs are richer by has grown hugely.
Serious question: Is this another way of saying that the competitive and financial structure of the CL is "the problem"?
this had me lol And Im sure the rest was meant sarcasticly..to lure out some (spazzo) trolls go play rugby or whatever the fck they play in your desert
Good post. A unilateral salary cap would mean less elite players playing in the league. The NBA, NFL and MLB all pay the highest salaries for their respective sports and for the most part, those league's talent pools consist of the elite players of the sport. Football's elite talent pool spans multiple different leagues and one league independently capping its own salaries would end up diluting the quality of play.
Not really the structure of the CL per se, more UEFA's willingness to chase the money and channel it towards the same few clubs to help perpetuate the "glamour" or the CL. But even without CL money, Man Utd etc still have a huge commercial advantage. When a club's commercial income can outstrip the total income of other clubs in the division, it makes it hard to a maintain even a degree of balance. Clubs don't have to be equal, but it's got to the state that a medium-sized club punching above its weight could find it impossible to claim a CL place. It didn't used to be like like. Nottingham Forest, for example, didn't have the resources of the bigger clubs by a long shot, but they were able to put a title-winning team together. Of course it'd help from a competitive point of view if medium-sized clubs realised you don't have to pay the likes of joey barton £40,000 a week, because no other club in their right mind would pay that sort of money for him. As much as I defend the much derided English pro, an awful lot of them, especially at the top level, are laughably overpaid for their ability (and so are a lot of the imports it has to be said).
First of all I'd like to say the States stole Apple pie from us! And the Bald Eagle! now that that is out of the way. Leg_breaker, I'm curious to know if you actually enjoy football, or if you just like being in a loud drunken environment. The EPL while lop-sided is entertaining IF YOU ENJOY FOOTBALL. I watch football because the first time my dad kicked the wierd bumpy, soft, white and black basketball around with me I loved the sport. I started supporting Arsenal back when I was 8 because they we're the first Proffesional side I ever say play at home. My Grandfather living in London at the time, Lille and PSG because I'm from Paris, and I follow Werder Bremen's results simply because I liked the football they played the first year I say German footy back in 2003. It all comes down to the samething for me. I love the sport so everytime I go home to France I buy tickets for the rest of my stay in Paris, and in England. I'm a university student so I generally flat broke 99% of the year. Plus in my mind I'm paying with Canadian dollars so a match ticket is running nearly $80.00 a shot. Quite frankly you need to figure out if 1) you even like footy and 2) If you don't ******** off, and drink yourself into depression and erectile disfuction.
I'm not actually a heavy drinker, I just don't like the "drive to retail park, eat at pizza hut, sit in silent stadium, go home" world of modern football.
If Leg/breaker hates premiership football so much he should just piss off and support Bury or Stockport in the lower divisions.
Sure, I don't agree with all of leg-breaker's original comments, however I don't see the problem with someone romanticizing about a time when teams were clubs rather than businesses, new stadiums didn't have to be part of some greater hotel/office/little community, etc... He is going to games, supporting his teams and venting a little steam. Big deal.
I went to Stamford Bridge in 1991 and I don't recollect seeing Chelsea village. In the 70s, I don't recollect seeing sponsors names on team shirts, stadiums being named after sponsors, world tours to increase brand awareness. I'm not really sure how you can deny that the nature of operating a football club has changed over the past 20 or 30 years.
Yeah but a lot of it has happened everywhere, not just in football. Golfers never used to have logos all over their shirts and stadia arenas are getting naming rights all over the world. Change is constant. Keep up.
I wasn't denying that it hadn't or even expressing a problem with it. I was disputing the statement that changes to the game have never happened.
Before I say this I AM A GIRL!!!!! the shorts have got shorter since the 1970's...and from where I am standing that can only be a good thing!! MysticRaven xx
anyway, i for one agree with leg breaker. a salary cap wouldnt have the effect that you guys are complaining that it would. you wouldnt see a mass exodus of talent from the prem league just because chelsea, man utd, liverpool, arsenal couldnt offer everyone the top money. what you would see is wright-phillips staying at man city perhaps, or a joe cole ending up at bolton when west ham went down. these guys wouldnt automatically move to spain or whatever. what would happen is that the big clubs wouldnt buy a essien while they have makelele, or buy veron when they have scholes. youd see some of the smaller teams be able to sign a riquelme (maybe not now but..) or a ortega or someone like that to build a team around and create some excitement for their fans. like boro did a while ago with juninho and ravanelli. the key would be that teams should be able to sign home-grown players at whatever value they saw fit and it wouldnt count against the cap (like they can do some small extent in the nba with own drafts), so they could keep their own talent. that would again encourage teams to put more money into talent development instead of just pouring out money on smaller teams who grow talent. i dont think the big teams would suffer that much in the european cups. first of all theyd have more competition domestically and that would make them better. secondly theyd buy what they need instead of just buying because they got money to spend, and using their money wisely. either way, european success doesnt have that big a impact on how popular the english league is. it was the most popular league when they were banned from europe anyway. i think most english fans (and premiere league fans anywhere) would rather have a highly competetive domestic league then have a couple big guns doing well in europe while destroying competition at home. its good for the big four as leg breaker says, but most of the football fans in england dont support those teams. coming from a Juventus supporter this probably wont get much credit. but i wouldnt be against a salary cap in serie a. i think it would be a great thing for the game and the fans.
Hmmm. Kind of you though it is to come and demonstrate to us that your grasp of macroeconomics is on a par with your grasp of football, I'm not sure what it adds to the debate at this stage. Ah yes - Middlesbrough circa 1996/7 - now there's a template for the game. See - you're committing that classic rookie mistake of thinking "Chelsea" and saying "all of football". Actually, your club affiliation has no bearing on that ...
Awwww ... don't cry. I know I am really really howwid to clueless dicks like yourself. But you need to get over that. Let's just focus on the fact that you've chosen not to counter any of my comments, eh? Wise choice. PS - How's the predictions business going? Or have you learnt to keep shtum?
A major reason why Prem has early kickoff times is that it's prime time TV for the Asian markets. It's a smart thing to do, because there's big money in the Asian markets.