General Football Nonsense

[Mac76]

1) They still beat us to the title, which would be pretty embarrassing

yes although also quite funny

[WMUG]

A single 10 point deduction is nowhere near enough for what City and, of course, Chelsea have done to the game.

They've utterly destroyed it by setting the precedent that buying trophies is the only viable strategy for success.

They're the antithesis of what football's supposed to be about, and no punishment will come close to reparing the damage that they've inflicted on the sport because they've opened the door to the likes of Newcastle in the PL and (at a smaller scale) Salford, Wrexham, AFC Fylde and others.

Even relegation from the PL would be too good for them, because they'd just come straight back up (in the place of a Championship team that would otherwise have got promoted) and be able to say that they'd served their punishment and wiped the slate clean, at which point it's effectively "as you were".

I want both of them to be expelled from the football pyramid entirely.

The legal entities of Manchester City FC and Chelsea FC need to die.

It's not like those clubs would stop existing. Their fans would inevitably start phoenix clubs, as has happened with countless clubs with far smaller fanbases who've gone bankrupt or been stolen. Wimbledon, Bury, Macclesfield, Hereford, Chester and so on all had to start again at the bottom, and they're all the better for it because they're owned and run by their fans with their interests at heart.

Their phoenix clubs could play at their current stadiums, claim all the history of the previous incarnations (other than the trophies they can be proven to have cheated to win, of course) and their fans could sing all the same songs.

This would be the starkest warning possible to send out the warning to anyone who might try and follow in their footsteps.

But best of all, City and Chelsea wouldn't merely be the sportswashing arm of a dictatorship or the cock extension of an oligarch any more.

They'd be football clubs again.

[Letters]

There’s a lot to agree with there, but one thing I would say - Chelsea didn’t create the situation which meant that money and success were so highly correlated. Nor did they set the rules which meant a billionaire could come in and spunk money until they bought their way to the top.
Any more than Trump created the post-truth world which allowed him to become president (and is looking increasingly like he’ll be so again next year, unless he’s in prison).

Money and success have always been correlated up to a point. I think Sky are complicit - their subscription model massively inflated the money in the game. They promised “a whole new ball game” and boy did they deliver.
Before that Jimmy Hill pushed to abolish the maximum wage. Now, one could argue that a maximum wage isn’t really viable, but it at least levelled the playing field a great deal.

The money has spiralled out of control and I don’t see any way of reigning it in. Ultimately, we have the power to do it. Stop going to games, subscribing to the sports channels, buying the merch. If people did that on mass then the money would dry up. But too many people are willing to pay £100 and more to watch games, buy the kits and subscribe to the channels. So…

But it’s not the game I grew up with. I sometimes go to Enfield Town these days. They’re a fan owned club and sure the quality isn’t as good but it just feels more fun.
More like the game I grew up with

[WMUG]

You're right, of course, and even in Germany where pretty much all clubs are fan-owned, there are some with more money and some with less, and the ones with more are the ones that are at the top.

And of course Chelsea didn't create the rules allowing a billionaire to buy trophies the way you and me would buy a TV, but they were the first to exploit them to such a blatant degree (possible exception of Blackburn here, but I don't think it's quite the same) and there needs to be some recognition of and consequences for that.

[Letters]

My general feeling is you need to deal with the illness rather than the symptoms. Chelsea and City are the latter. I don’t know if minimum wage would work. Probably not. But I like the draft system in the US NFL where the lowest teams from the previous season get the first pick in the draft. They surely helps level the field (does it? I don’t know anything about American Football, but the principle seems sound). Proper FFP that has teeth. Make clubs live within their means so some billionaire can’t swoop in and declare his assets the club’s assets.

The trouble is the whole way football is structured means that money brings success and success brings money. It’s a positive feedback loop designed to keep the top few big clubs up there and the rest in their place. It seems impossible to resolve while the gap between the PL and the rest, in terms of money, is so huge. And even within the PL you now have the expanded CL which keeps a group of clubs at the top where they are. Back in the day only the champions qualified which meant you didn’t get a group of clubs who qualified year on year.

Ultimately it’s all being driven by supply and demand. The PL has very successfully marketed itself worldwide. Pre season tours are now little more than pandering to that global fan base.

[WMUG]

Yup fully agreed about illness vs symptoms, and I don't pretend that expelling City and Chelsea would immediately fix everything wrong with the game.

What I do think is that it would act as a deterrent to any other would be Abramoviches or Abu Dhabis, and trek then that we're serious about FFP and it has teeth.

I don't think the NFL draft thing can really be applied or here because it doesn't really work if you have relegation and academies. That and I'm just opposed to it on sporting merit grounds, because it means teams are actively rewarded for failure.

I don't have the solutions to rid football of all its structural issues, though fan ownership of all clubs would go a long way.

I was a bit disappointed in the aftermath of the Super League fiasco that we didn't keep pushing for that, honestly. We just stopped once they pulled out. I was in the mood for a revolution and we had the fuckers on the run, I don't know if we'll ever have an opportunity like that again.

Oh well, I'll just keep going to watch AFC Wimbledon too remind myself that final can be done the right way

[Letters]

In other news, France beat Gibraltar 14-0 in the Euro qualifiers

[HCZ_Reborn]

In other news, France beat Gibraltar 14-0 in the Euro qualifiers

Actually their first loss by double figures in their nine year history, which isn’t bad when you consider it’s a place with the population of Billericay (showing my Essexness)

I think there should be an international tournament for dependent territories, principalities etc. Actually could be reasonably entertaining, especially given almost no one globally will have much in the way of vested interest in an outcome and may just adopt a team for shits and giggles.

It also wouldn’t have a massive impact on the existing football calendar. The nations league is kind of half way there but a) make it global and b) make it completely separate from other competitions involving the big boys

[Letters]

I’d missed that they had a player sent off quite early doors.
The idea of a separate tournament for this sort of “country” is a good one.

[WMUG]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot...e_Island_Games

That's basically what this is.