Dave the hatosaurus
Well-known member
Not a "deal" as such, in as much as she left because her contract expired and she did not sign a new one which i am assuming we offered her.
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[Albion] Albion Women
- Thread starter amexer
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #442
I really dont envy Bloom in trying to compete with a womens team but admire his perserverance. Can only think there must be big tax concesions. Seems nearly impossible to me. 2/3k attendances and just told by a Womens ST holder that this cost them £66 to rewnew. Yes £66 This includes free bus to and from Amex. So many blame not having a stadium in Brighton but is club really going to spend millions on this .Appreciate attendances may increase to 4k plus but whats the good of this if they can only get ST holders to pay say £100.
Would love them do do well but on these numbers find it hard to justify a full time playing squad that FA insist on.
Even the big clubs womens sections are greatly subsidised by mens game but how long can this go on. If Albions women were in a semi final or a play off game I like many would try to attend. but no way could commit to watching both sides. It therefore needs to attract its own audience that is willing to pay at a level for section to pay its way.
Would love them do do well but on these numbers find it hard to justify a full time playing squad that FA insist on.
Even the big clubs womens sections are greatly subsidised by mens game but how long can this go on. If Albions women were in a semi final or a play off game I like many would try to attend. but no way could commit to watching both sides. It therefore needs to attract its own audience that is willing to pay at a level for section to pay its way.
Hotchilidog
Well-known member
- Jan 24, 2009
- 9,128
To get the game growing it will need to be subsidised and it should be, the men's game can afford it.
As for your last point about attracting its own audience, I think the game is already doing a good job of this. The demographic at WSL games differs vastly from the mens game and I think that audience will continue to grow. The low prices are aimed at encouraging families to attend with intention of creating a new culture that differs from the mens game.
The thing that pisses me off about the women's game is that the authorities have once again allowed the bigger clubs to price themselves ahead of the rest. There was an opportunity to really differentiate the women's league from the men by allowing teams to spring up all over the country and be able to compete for trophies. We are definitely giving it a good shot, but realistically we are not in the same league as City, Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea etc and now the likes of Villa, Spurs and to a lesser extent Liverpool are now flexing their financial muscle. There should have been some sort of a wage cap, that looks after the players but also encouraged competition.
I personally think the greatest threat to the women's game is that it will only be worthwhile for the aforementioned bigger clubs to play it, and fans who do not support one of those clubs will eventually lose interest and drift away
Aisha Masaka now signed from BK Häcken. Key player when they went to the CL quarter last season.
The women's sections of the aren't subsidised by the men's game - they are subsidised by the exact same forces subsidising the men's game: oil money, real estate, betting, and so forth.
You ask "how long can this go on?", which is just hilarious. Tony Bloom has to spend £2m or £3m a year, give or take a little, on the women's team, while he has been covering some £400m+ of costs and losses for the men's team. And its the same thing everywhere.
Its incredibly petty to argue about removing the miniscule money brought into the women's game when it carries itself 10x (at least) better than the Premier League does with its billion deficit.
Yet the numbers are higher than the attendances in the National League, where the vast majority of teams are under 3k and a lot of them under 2k attendances. Only a handful of these clubs are semi professional, the rest are fully pros. Not hearing much complaints about it.
The women's sections of the aren't subsidised by the men's game - they are subsidised by the exact same forces subsidising the men's game: oil money, real estate, betting, and so forth.
You ask "how long can this go on?", which is just hilarious. Tony Bloom has to spend £2m or £3m a year, give or take a little, on the women's team, while he has been covering some £400m+ of costs and losses for the men's team. And its the same thing everywhere.
Its incredibly petty to argue about removing the miniscule money brought into the women's game when it carries itself 10x (at least) better than the Premier League does with its billion deficit.
hart's shirt
Well-known member
Regarding transfers in the WSL, here's an informative piece from BBC Sport's Emma Sanders on the current state:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cx824egxqxeo
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cx824egxqxeo
It's about growth in the long run I would think. In some ways, there are parallels to the growth of the men's game in the US & Canada. Twenty years ago they were playing in cavernous stadiums and often drawing flies Nowadays, average gates are 23,000 with three times the number of teams, stadiums at 90% capacity and the sport has taken it's place on the sporting landscape. That's sort of where the women's game is at in this country - it has no culture and not enough specifically sized stadiums, but build it and they will come.
Obviously the quality of the women's game is not at the level it needs to be, but I firmly believe it will get there if the professional structure is in place.
Blaming the stadium is an easy but poor excuse. Chelsea may own Kingsmeadow but I'd suggest it's far harder to get to from Chelsea than Crawley is from Brighton. Their crowds are really good because they're successful. Being competitive, breaking into the top 4 will change the narrative. The women have struggled to compete in their league and avoided dropping down for a number of years. There appears, from the outside, to have been some serious issues around the management.
Not knowing what each team costs to run, I'd imagine we do not compete financially with the likes of Liverpool let alone Citeh or Chelsea. Though cost would be a lot less compared to the men's team it is still apparent to succeed you have to be prepared to spend relatively big. If the women were competing at the top, the crowds would increase whether at Crawley, the Amex or a purpose built stadium.
No way Bloom is doing this to save a bit of tax.
- Thread starter
- #450
I knew I should not comment on Albion womens set up. As far as your comments on clubs in lower leagues with small attendances I think even more strongly that these players should be part time. In fact fed up with hearing Accrington owner saying they should get more money from PL instead of saying we need to go p/t unless we can improve gates etc. What a joke a club like Eastbourne have full time players. No sympathy from me if they went bust and just hope Worthing dont do the same.
Dont get your comparison with what TB has put into mens side. About half went into stadium and training ground. that had to be done to save the club. He knew by investing there was at the end if he got it right a possible income of £100/200m income.to look forwaed to. Great he got this right. All I say is there is not much of a return his millions of investment in womens team to if ends up with 4k gates with ST holders paying £80ish.
I know i should not have given opinion on Womens team In you bringing up gates in mens football I also think those clubs getting just 2/3k should have part time players.In fact get fed up with hearing Accrington owner so often saying they should get more from PL instead of saying we need to increase our gates and attraction to sponsors. In my 20s I played senior club football with crowds about 1k. We got petrol money now players are going full time mad.
Strange you justyfying TB investment in womens with the mens side. Perhaps half was put into stadium and training groun without which we would not be here. The rest of his investment was knowing if he got it right there was apotential income of 150/200m to look forward to. If his considerable investment in womens side comes good his return will be 4k plus gates paying £80 for a ST and doubt if there are many large companies queuing up to sponsor.
Hopefully in future womens game can attract the support so it can stand on its own but until then the best thing that has happened is that it is now the norm for young girls to be playing football and like all larger cricket clubs now have womens teams I think this is now the same at football clubs.
Ok, we clearly have very different views of how things should be.
But you are still going on about "women's football not being able to stand on its own" when it is much better at doing that than men's football. Why are the women supposed to self-financing in order to get to play professional football when nearly every men's team is entirely dependent on owners putting in money?
As for your desire to make some 500 national league players unemployed because you think Premier League should have more wealth (which will be spent on giving more millions to people who are already millionaires), can't agree with that. To me, 22 people having a job in Eastbourne is more important than Erling Haaland earning another couple of millions.
It's an interesting subject though. Who finances sport including the diversity there of?
There was talk many years ago prior to the huge TV deals that the lower leagues should be regionalised and part time. Around then Rugby Union was asking the question of professional status. Athletics was amateur and we as a nation won hardly anything. Rugby and Athletics and even county cricket became fully professional. Or in reality showed they were employed to compete in their respective sport. Before that they were all "employed" in jobs that allowed them to be full-time athletes. Cricketers would work the winter months in a sponsors business. All was very shady more so in the envelopes handed out to non league footballers. Women's football missed all this dodgy stuff and insisting the top clubs are professional is the only way of protecting both the integrity of the league but also the individual players.
Men's football remains a mess though, with players playing way down the county leagues still being paid, normally due to the ego of some local sponsor. They get bored and so all the players sod off to another new club. Often bankrupting the small club. Seen it often over the Hasting's direction.
Financing any sport needs to be as consistent as possible. The ECB protects county cricket, Athletics relies on the Lottery, Rugby as we have seen has over stretched itself and like football needs wealthy people prepared to become less wealthy. The women's game is as protected as it could possibly be.
I don't think its reasonable that footballers get paid in a society where you are expected to provide actual value, like in an industrial one. But English society, like most if not all Western societies, is a service society where little "real" (materialistic) value is produced, and so these values are replaced by intangible intersubjective values.
"This guy is worth £40m!!" is not based on anything real... at best his organs will be worth a couple of hundred pounds. The intrinsic value in his capacity to kick a ball is £0. And the exact same goes for your TV subscription: its worthless unless you pretend it isn't. Try to break it down and sell the pieces, and you'll find how you're paying for a myth.
Football is currently funded by those who believe that through manipulation and exposure, the Premier League could improve its intersubjective value in North America and Asia. If a 100 million or more Chinese people can be seduced to pretend that some stranger kicking a ball is worth £50 a month in TV subscriptions, the debts and financial hardcomings in the PL would disappear in no time. Possibly to re-emerge shortly after.
The football grassroots supply seduced individuals and groups. Its through the hours, days and years spent having fun with the ball that the intersubjective "myth" of football's value has the massive reach it already has. And just like you pay Brighton and Sky Sports the money you do, thanks to this myth, the Premier League clubs should be paying grassroot clubs, for being part of continous creation of this (down the line) lucrative myth.
Perhaps even more pertinently, it mirrors the growth of the men's game in England. If you look at the squads for the early years of the Albion there were massive changes from season to season, it took a few years to settle down. Women's football is really still in the early stages still, I expect it will be in a state of flux for a few years yet.
Blimey!! Big words and everything used there. I was talking about the reality of the situation.
Kalimantan Gull
Well-known member
All very interesting. Anyway, to the Albion women's team, does anyone have any inkling on whether Poppy Pattinson is likely to be offered or sign a new deal? My daughter wants to get her name on her shirt, but would be a shame if she was off.
tigertim68
Well-known member
- Sep 3, 2012
- 2,625
Until they get a home in Brighton they will always struggle
If Tony Bloom wanted to significantly reduce the costs and loses he's exposed to through his football operations, his first act would surely be to bin off the men's senior team.