Is Football heading for a meltdown?

[Murray 17]

All 23. It's a shame that the technology can do it, but the will isn't there.

Now I would pay for that, if it was the same price as the One Day Passes on NOW TV.

 

[El Presidente]

It has got to come to a head eventually.

☆Can the flow of billions of pounds be maintained by the TV companies? Yes, subscribers are willing to pay £1,000 a year to watch Swansea v Stoke, Bournemouth v Watford and Crystal Palace v anyone because they are told so often it is the 'best league in the world' that they believe the hype

☆Can the ridiculous salary levels for players be maintained?Yes, at least 18 clubs out of 20 in the EPL will make a profit

☆Is the public going to continue to pay premium prices for increasingly mediocre entertainment? Absolutely, there are vested interests in the media, both broadcast and print, that tell them they are watching a great product

☆Will the average atmosphere seen in most grounds now, continue to 'sterilise' in the wake of seating and restrictive stewarding? Yes, average age of a fan attending a PL match is 42, but matches are still selling out in th PL

☆Is the increasingly self established godlike status of players, setting them further and further away from their core supporters? No. The use of social media has counterbalanced the gap in terms of remuneration and wealth between players and fans. The latter still lap up instagram photos, tweets etc, and most players are happy to pose for selfies



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Demand will continue to outstrip supply IMO.

 

[essbee]

Football needs to go into meltdown; start again. I will do anything in my power to make this happen.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

The football product that supporters might actually want; a season ticket with inclusive online away games and pay-as-you-view online options for anyone.

Pretty sure in years to come you'll be able to buy a season ticket to watch ALL your club's games online live. Seagulls TV? Clubs would be able to tap into their individual global support. Fans who actually wanted to attend games in person may well benefit from cheaper season tickets than at present because they'd be providing a bit of colourful backdrop to the action. Bulk of the money would come from online sales of the live matches.

 

[wakeytom]

Pretty sure in years to come you'll be able to buy a season ticket to watch ALL your club's games online live. Seagulls TV? Clubs would be able to tap into their individual global support. Fans who actually wanted to attend games in person may well benefit from cheaper season tickets than at present because they'd be providing a bit of colourful backdrop to the action. Bulk of the money would come from online sales of the live matches.

Thank you Tom, was exactly my point earlier on this will happen and cheaper tickets to fill the stands for TV is very possible

 

[trueblue]

I know what you mean -the stadia are clearly better and facilities for fans are too, so in this sense the injection of cash has helped. Whilst I am not sure about this totally, and criticisms are often levelled at the PL for their greed, I am assuming that more money has tricked down the ladder to other clubs and causes that would have been the case without Sky dosh.
But it is the sheer scale of the money which as ever is corrupting individuals, and football is no different to other walks of life when greed takes over. I do feel that slowly but surely fans have lost interest in the PL, as I have. I rarely watch MOTD and tonight it is Everton v Palace. Years ago I would have been glued hoping Palace lose, but I really can't be bothered now. I think the use of the word "meltdown" is rather strong, but in time, when enough fans say "that is it" and a boycott is organised, then things might change. It is very hard to turn your back on the team you have supported all your life, but if pushed, and feelings run high enough, then I could see it happening in the future.

Corruption in football far pre-dates the Premier League and the huge sums of money around now. Some legendary figures in the game were renowned for loving a bung - it was pretty much standard 20-30 years ago. Considering the Telegraph has spent 9 months trying very, very hard to catch someone on that score, seemingly without success bar the assistant manager of a 2nd division club, you could probably even argue that football is cleaner now than it used to be.

As for losing interest in the games, I think a lot of that is down to the saturations coverage. Pre-Sky most of us would watch ANY live football avidly, as there'd only be one game a week on at best. For me, the standard of football isn't the deciding issue as - on average - it's certainly better.

 

[trueblue]

Now I would pay for that, if it was the same price as the One Day Passes on NOW TV.

Everybody would do that. Which is why the football authorities won't let it happen. That really would kill attendances - particularly away support.

 

[Danny-Boy]

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

Have to say I agree. I would not want to see the Premiership cut off from the rest of the FL pyramid which some clubs have sought to do, also I do NOT want to see Celtic and Rangers brought in, which I think would happen in that event.

Basically the FA must bring in limitations of overseas players in all squads. Clubs will get around that by making players adopt UK nationality but a number of countries (which ones I don't know for sure) do not accept dual-nationality for their citizens.

 

[Danny-Boy]

Football needs to go into meltdown; start again. I will do anything in my power to make this happen.

Depends who you are: Steve Burkinshaw? Steve Bruce? Stanley Baker (deceased)?

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

I didnt think you had, although possibly in the old first division. The difference in quality from say football in the 80s to say of that even in the late 90s and definitely now is chalk and cheese - football from the 70s looks worse than non league now

I'm not sure why you have that impression. Sure, players now are fitter but Liam Brady in his prime remains the best player I have ever seen live in any era. I could name other great players and teams from the past who would not be out of place
in modern football. Don't be fooled by the poor quality of tv coverage from those times and remember that pitches are much improved in the last 20 years and tackling has been all but banned.

 

[Buzzer]

I don't think this signals the death of English football but I do mourn its passing.

 

[Gwylan]

One thing that does intrigue me about broadcasting is that it appears to be adopting a different model from the rest of the world. In IT, we see people move to cloud and PAYG service; in California, executives are giving up their cars and using Uber to get anywhere, a trend that will hit the UK in a few years; water companies are moving to a metering service (something other utilities have long done).

Yet for broadcasting we don't have PAYG but subscription; we pay for Netflix monthly and, of course, the BBC licence fee - why is it at odds with the way the rest of the world is going?

 

[Mo Gosfield]

I didnt think you had, although possibly in the old first division. The difference in quality from say football in the 80s to say of that even in the late 90s and definitely now is chalk and cheese - football from the 70s looks worse than non league now

I guess your youth and inexperience has prompted this ill-thought out comment. Suggest you spend the next ten years studying the history of football and trying to watch some of the talent that has played the game and try and learn from it.

 

[Hastings gull]

Corruption in football far pre-dates the Premier League and the huge sums of money around now. Some legendary figures in the game were renowned for loving a bung - it was pretty much standard 20-30 years ago. Considering the Telegraph has spent 9 months trying very, very hard to catch someone on that score, seemingly without success bar the assistant manager of a 2nd division club, you could probably even argue that football is cleaner now than it used to be.

As for losing interest in the games, I think a lot of that is down to the saturations coverage. Pre-Sky most of us would watch ANY live football avidly, as there'd only be one game a week on at best. For me, the standard of football isn't the deciding issue as - on average - it's certainly better.

Thanks for your comments -I certainly did not intend my post to read that corruption is a new phenomenon -of course it has been going on for ages, though am not sure it it was exactly standard, as you intimate. It always will, when money is involved. Absolutely agree with your point about saturation coverage, and I recall the days, when you hurried to be in front of the box when a live match was on, such was the novelty. I also think that your point about the standard of football not being necessarily the decisive factor is valid, quite apart from the fact that it is clearly a matter of opinion as to whether the standard has gone up or not. For what it is worth, with so much knowledge nowadays about fitness, diet, sports science etc, I would be surprised if the standard had gone down. To give one example - goals from expertly taken free kicks in the 60s and 70s were only something you saw when Brazil were playing, or some other flair team, whereas now it is commonplace in England.