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Is Football heading for a meltdown?



heathgate

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Apr 13, 2015
3,866
It has got to come to a head eventually.

☆Can the flow of billions of pounds be maintained by the TV companies?

☆Can the ridiculous salary levels for players be maintained?

☆Is the public going to continue to pay premium prices for increasingly mediocre entertainment?

☆Will the average atmosphere seen in most grounds now, continue to 'sterilise' in the wake of seating and restrictive stewarding?

☆Is the increasingly self established godlike status of players, setting them further and further away from their core supporters?



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pishhead

Well-known member
Jul 9, 2003
5,248
Everywhere
I really hope so. It's our game but the privileged few are so far beyond reproach that we will never get it back. The FA are completely powerless and are totally in the pocket of the premier league. The game was lost in 1992 and the formation of the premier league.
 




Mo Gosfield

Well-known member
Aug 11, 2010
6,362
I really hope so. It's our game but the privileged few are so far beyond reproach that we will never get it back. The FA are completely powerless and are totally in the pocket of the premier league. The game was lost in 1992 and the formation of the premier league.

Agree with that.
The PL was formed to strengthen the position of the elite few. The two main drivers of the idea, were two smart guys, Irving Scholar and David Dein. They wanted to protect the interests of their respective clubs. The PL is divisive. It doesn't unite football, it divides it. The gap between the top division and the rest gets ever wider. We now have a national game dominated by overseas players and managers, to the detriment of home-grown talent and the national side.
It has created worldwide interest and made players wealthy beyond their wildest dreams but the sad fact is that the overall quality has never been lower. It has to be continually hyped up because the product is ever
 




Gwylan

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
31,830
Uffern
Agree with that.
The PL was formed to strengthen the position of the elite few. The two main drivers of the idea, were two smart guys, Irving Scholar and David Dein. They wanted to protect the interests of their respective clubs.

Don't forget Alan Sugar, who was owner of Tottenham at the time of the formation of the PL, and, co-incidentally manufacturer of the satellite dishes used by Sky. There was no conflict of interest there, no siree Bob
 


loz

Well-known member
Apr 27, 2009
2,483
W.Sussex
Agree with that.
The PL was formed to strengthen the position of the elite few. The two main drivers of the idea, were two smart guys, Irving Scholar and David Dein. They wanted to protect the interests of their respective clubs. The PL is divisive. It doesn't unite football, it divides it. The gap between the top division and the rest gets ever wider. We now have a national game dominated by overseas players and managers, to the detriment of home-grown talent and the national side.
It has created worldwide interest and made players wealthy beyond their wildest dreams but the sad fact is that the overall quality has never been lower. It has to be continually hyped up because the product is ever

Sorry but I cant agree with that, in fact I would say the opposite. Go back and look at the top league football back in the 70s and 80s it was far worse.
 


Arthur

Well-known member
Jul 8, 2003
8,761
Buxted Harbour
☆Can the flow of billions of pounds be maintained by the TV companies?

Yes.

☆Can the ridiculous salary levels for players be maintained?

Yes.

☆Is the public going to continue to pay premium prices for increasingly mediocre entertainment?

Yes.

☆Will the average atmosphere seen in most grounds now, continue to 'sterilise' in the wake of seating and restrictive stewarding?

Yes.

☆Is the increasingly self established godlike status of players, setting them further and further away from their core supporters?

Yes.

Hope this helps.
 




Mo Gosfield

Well-known member
Aug 11, 2010
6,362
Agree with that.
The PL was formed to strengthen the position of the elite few. The two main drivers of the idea, were two smart guys, Irving Scholar and David Dein. They wanted to protect the interests of their respective clubs. The PL is divisive. It doesn't unite football, it divides it. The gap between the top division and the rest gets ever wider. We now have a national game dominated by overseas players and managers, to the detriment of home-grown talent and the national side.
It has created worldwide interest and made players wealthy beyond their wildest dreams but the sad fact is that the overall quality has never been lower. It has to be continually hyped up because the product is

( cut off in my prime )....continually failing to provide value for money. The PL has driven the cost of watching football beyond the pockets of many. Whilst the overweight, forty-something, business owner, Range-Rover driver and a group of similar mates can afford to hold simultaneous ST's at their local club and also at the clubs they actually support, there are many who have simply had to turn their backs on the game.
As long as fans continue to pour millions into the coffers of satellite broadcasters, nothing will change. Players will get paid more and more, irrespective of achievement. Uncontrolled agents will earn more and more. The grass-roots of the game will continue to suffer. The gap between the PL and the rest will get wider and wider. Our national team will continue to struggle, to the point where, eventually, it will be selected from outside the PL.
Football ignores normal constraints. It pays no heed to inflation or wage controls. It continually expects the fans to pay more and more to try and cover its ever increasing costs and for many, that tipping point, where outlay doesn't return value for money, is fast approaching.
 


Not Andy Naylor

Well-known member
Dec 12, 2007
8,996
Seven Dials
Not only CAN the flow of money be maintained, but it HAS to be.

Sky's main selling point to the mass market is Premier League football. So they have to ensure that they win a substantial share of the rights in every bidding round.

BT's entry into the market was the potential game-changer. I understand from someone very knowledgeable in these areas that BT was looking for something to do with their vast profits and decided to take Sky on. They knew that they could take or leave Premier League rights but that Sky couldn't. So now Sky had to outbid not only terrestrial companies but a business funded by the British public's broadband subscriptions and overpriced phone bills.

So until Sky goes bust - which Murdoch can't allow to happen - the upward spiral of money into English football will continue.

One interesting possibility is that the other European Leagues will be stripped of all their good players by their inability to compete with PL wages and that a Premier League 2 will have to be formed for all these players coming here to play in.
 


wakeytom

New member
Apr 14, 2011
2,718
The Hacienda
Agree with that.
The PL was formed to strengthen the position of the elite few. The two main drivers of the idea, were two smart guys, Irving Scholar and David Dein. They wanted to protect the interests of their respective clubs. The PL is divisive. It doesn't unite football, it divides it. The gap between the top division and the rest gets ever wider. We now have a national game dominated by overseas players and managers, to the detriment of home-grown talent and the national side.
It has created worldwide interest and made players wealthy beyond their wildest dreams but the sad fact is that the overall quality has never been lower. It has to be continually hyped up because the product is ever

I guess this is tongue in cheek given what Leicester did last season having recently being in the championship? Bournemouth managing to stay up and the Leeds United great fall
 






Hamilton

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 7, 2003
12,953
Brighton
Not only CAN the flow of money be maintained, but it HAS to be.

Sky's main selling point to the mass market is Premier League football. So they have to ensure that they win a substantial share of the rights in every bidding round.

BT's entry into the market was the potential game-changer. I understand from someone very knowledgeable in these areas that BT was looking for something to do with their vast profits and decided to take Sky on. They knew that they could take or leave Premier League rights but that Sky couldn't. So now Sky had to outbid not only terrestrial companies but a business funded by the British public's broadband subscriptions and overpriced phone bills.

So until Sky goes bust - which Murdoch can't allow to happen - the upward spiral of money into English football will continue.

One interesting possibility is that the other European Leagues will be stripped of all their good players by their inability to compete with PL wages and that a Premier League 2 will have to be formed for all these players coming here to play in.

What will be interesting is if domestic audiences walk away, but international audiences maintain the Premier League.

If you believe the wiki entry that the Premier League is broadcast in 212 territories to 643 million homes and a potential TV audience of 4.7 billion people, then that's a lot of people outside the UK that the rights are being sold on to. Even Nigel Farage would find it hard to claim that 4.6 billion immigrants had been let into the UK.

I can see the domestic audience getting tired of football before international audiences. That's not to say it will die overnight, but it will wither on the vine slowly.

I've just got rid of Sky, and would happily get rid of BT too were it not a free channel on my subscription until the end of the year for some reason. Today, the only football I'm interested in is the Albion. The new Champions League I'm not interested in; Premier League, nope. I can't be bothered to watch MOTD. England? No interest. Really, who cares about England vs Malta? Is it them we're playing?

I have zero interest in footballers. I do have some interest in our own team because the camaraderie appears to be there (the spirit of Calde lives on), but really, players like David Luiz at Chelsea - everyone fawns over his return, and he crosses himself and looks to God as he comes on the pitch, but the bloke is an out and out cheat. If I saw an Albion player behave like that, I'd be disgusted. And I think we all would. Yaya Toure and his agent? We thought Stephens was behaving like a jerk. Yaya and Dimitri Seluk take the biscuit.

So, it's interesting this gamble of billions, or game of billions, that BT and Sky are playing. A waste of money. Sooner or later brands will have to look at who they are associating themselves with and recognise that whilst we all watch football, and love the game, we have little admiration for the vast majority involved in it.
 






SAC

Well-known member
May 21, 2014
2,631
I thought that people would give up their subscriptions during the last recession but it didn't happen. It would need Sky to go bust to burst the financial bubble and this doesn't look likely to happen any time soon.
 






trueblue

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
10,955
Hove
Like or not, and there plenty of aspects not to like, football is in a far healthier state than it was in the 80s before the creation of the Premier League.
 








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