The Mail Bag
Football's Future
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Whilst Bill wants to get us our own billionaire, I do wonder whether those running the Premier League teams ? including Scudamore as Premier League CEO ? are looking ahead over the next few years and gauging what lies there.
I can visualise a time when the Top 4 has become a Top 6 or 7, all run/owned by billionaires or corporate giants, and they all want their clubs to be exposed on a regular and global basis. The 3 - 4 clubs missing out on the CL will not stand for it. Weekend fixtures of Man Utd vs Wigan will cut no ice and they would want Man Utd vs Barcelona , Chelsea vs Bayern Munich, Man City vs AC Milan, Liverpool vs Zenith St Petersburg. We will be faced with a rebellion of initially 20 European teams all wanting a slice of the global commercial revenues, and maybe in time teams from S America, Middle East and Asia Pacific. Scuadmore will have his wish of globalisation but not the model he was hoping for.
Spectators will be faced with watching their teams only at the home games as the travel times/expenses will be far too much for any ordinary fan to afford. Entry prices will all level out probably at the most expensive price , equivalent to £60 a game today at Chelsea. Hooliganism will not exist as opposing fans will not meet.
These 20 clubs will not run youth programmes as all their players will be bought from the feeder clubs ? Everton, Wigan, Seville, Napoli etc, who will be given hand-outs to allow good academy programmes to be put in place.
Entry to the global league will not be on a promotion/relegation basis but by one club loosing its funder and another one taking its place by placing a non-returnable entry fee of £100m.
A salary cap of £200,000 per week will initially be put in place for all players, but it is expected that this is likely to be broken when Ronalndo is enticed from Man Utd to Man City.
These 20 teams will not allow their players to play in International matches, only in the World Cup finals after pressure from the players themselves; earlier knock-out rounds will only use players from the feeder clubs.
That?s it for crystal ball gazing but I dread the day our beloved club goes down either path depending on whether we have Bill in charge or Mohammed Lotsamoney from Basra.
Mike Oates, Posted 04/09/2008 at 21:28:19
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Back then, the big transfers and large salaries existed in that league and a move to an Italian club had the player set for life financially.
Then it kind of went tits up and now all you have is a selection of 6 or 7 teams with any clout and even they seem limited budget-wise. Surely it can’t keep going this way?
It happens here every transfer window now, Sidwell, Shaun W-P, Benayoun, Pennant, Ramsey blah blah.
Premier league is a joke
At the moment FIFA and UEFA are against the idea, but it only takes a different president of either body to be ellected for that to change. Wenger seems to think it will happen under UEFA’s banner.
The other option for the G14 (or G14+ as its fast becoming) would be to start a leauge that wasnt governed by FIFA or UEFA but again the clubs have said they would not do this. If they did do it then the players that played in said super leauge would loose their FIFA/UEFA registration and would not be able to play for their countries.
This wouldnt lead to a new world cup or anything under a new body because there would not be enough players to represent all the different nations.
Us and Newcastle are two of the worst examples of it as well.
On this site at the moment there are howls from all numbers of Evertonian wanting rid of Kenwright in favour of a richer benefactor willing to ’take us forward’. They also want that benefactor to accede to their demands, and lets face it they are now demands, to keep everton in our city.
So they want this mythical figure to come in, drop huge piles of cash into the club, then just quietly go and sit in the corner. Billionaires tend to do that a lot in some peoples estimation it seems.
The Geordies are the same. Clamouring for funds from this Ashley pillock for transfers and all the rest, but, can he do what he sees fit with ’their club’ no he cant. He must do as he’s told.
Now football is a strange beast in many regards as it has a responsibility to keep the repeat customers, the fans, happy. Fans will always have the power to vote with their feet. Yet gate receipts are increasingly less significant to clubs that have had to find multiple revenue streams just to stay in the business and, arguably, a drop in gate receipts is one area they probably CAN take a hit in over the short term.
Ultimately the fans must also face the logical conclusion of a prolonged boycott is the death of the institution they have pledged themselves too and, often, have family connections with going back generations. How many of us would rather see Everton FC disappear than move to Kirkby if those were the two choices left to us?.
The bottom line to all this is the obvious one. If you want a family club thats close to its fans and is concerned about the community it has grown in then dont expect it to be sat in the top half of the Premier League challenging for Champions League football. If you are the sort of fan that needs his club to be doing that then dont expect your voice to count for anything if your friendly billionaire owner takes your club 6 miles out of town or sells your best players out from under the managers nose!.
What is happening to our beloved game? The blasted stuff is ruining everything we have built up over the last 150 years. What ever happened to football being the 'sport of the masses? It is now elitist, full of over-paid, over-egoed money grabbing players, managers, owners and investors who all want to make money, money and more money!!!
I am really starting to lose my love of the game. I?m bored of it. I?m fed up of it. I?m disillusioned with it.
Let's bring in salary caps Lets see contracts honoured by clubs, players and managers Lets see Managers given more time Lets see cheaper ticket prices Lets see our national team for under £20 Lets see kids get in for a fiver! Lets see only the champions go into the Champions league Lets see the number of foreign players capped for each club Lets see more home grown talent Lets see more respect to referees Lets fall in love with it all over again!!!!
Great post. As Evertonians DK - Goodison - Transfers - Investors, are all things we think about on a regular, if not all day every day, basis and living and supporting Everton in this city is very hard to do when you're bombarded day-in, day-out with shite from the shite. One knobhead actually waits for me in the car park before going into the office to have a go, but your comments are especially relevant to all those against all things blue Bill ? who would/will in fact be against all things Russian/Suadi/American billionaire when things don't go thier way.
You can?t have your cake and eat it... Better the devil you know... A bird in the hand.
It?s not that I am all things blue Bill, far from it, but all those who fear moving to Kirkby with Bill as the worst thing in the world, would be minded to take a step back and consider things going on around the country in other football clubs.
I am just entertaining the thought of playing the likes of Burnley, Blackpool, Sheff Wed, Leeds, Notts Forrest, Derby and so on. Brings back memories and maybe would not be so bad... or at least not as bad as watching overrated foriegners on £100k a game and worst of all, playing in front of an half-empty shed in Kirkby.
Remember, we still get the chance of winning the domestic cups in the lower leagues and that is what football is about anyway. Is?nt it ?
I just read an article about world poverty a bit earlier so what?s going on in football right now is sickening...
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1 Posted 05/09/2008 at 05:56:00
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