Football is a bloated corrupt game that has lost its soul.

I don't believe that that Wimbledon will move to MK - there's a couple of years yet in which fans can mobilise against this - although Wimbledon are vulnerable because of the small fan-base and will need help.

Player-power is another huge problem, not so much because of the money they get, but because of the Bosman rule. Players have clubs over a barrel and they know it. If they decide on a whim that they want to move clubs, they can, because eventually they'll be free agents anyway and the club will get no transfer fee. The days of loyalty to clubs is gone, and that's a shame. We'll never see the likes of one-club servants like Steve Perryman, Tony Adams etc again.

Foriegn players - yep Bergkamp, Zola, Viera, Van Nistelrooy etc are players that you want to see, and who have contributed to the game in this country. It's possible that they enhance the game at National level as the best English players face some of the best foreign players week-in, week-out. But the influx of second and third rate foreigners has screwed up the strength in depth of the English game, and has further alienated supporters. I want to see young players come up through the Chelsea youth team and establish themselves in the first team. I do NOT want to see crap like Stanic, Jokanovic, Boogarde, Zenden wearing the shirt. I suppose it's arguable that these players were established internationals who have failed to take to the English game. Maybe that's a fair point, but what about other clubs - what are/were the likes of Korsten,Schnoor,Uhlenbeek,Wilnis, Peralta, Soltvedt, Grimandi, Garde etc, doing in our game?

I predict a very different game in this country in 10 years unless something is done. Fewer professional clubs, fewer players and though the FA are blind to it - fewer supporters. The FA, the Premier League and the Clubs between them are killing the game. Enough for now.

(in the queue for LotR in leicester square i was standing just ahead of jim white)

Got this last night from someone heavily involved in their fight to stay in London:

We have fought an excellent campaign. When I say "an excellent campaign", I mean I think it has been excellent, many other Dons fans think so, and many supporters of other clubs around the country agree.

We have kept within the law.

We have gained the respect of huge numbers of people within the game.

The FA and the Football League agree with our position.

We have enjoyed - free - the services of professional stadium designers, a city law firm, accountants and many other professionals.

We have the support of our local council.

We have presented our case to the Football League, to the arbitration panel and to the "independent" FA Commission.

We have produced a professional-standard "alternative matchday magazine" which has won plaudits from all over the country.

We have had, since August last year, two and sometimes three people working full-time on our campaign and many, many others putting in many, many hours on the fight.

We have had an EDM in the House of Commons, signed by over 100 MPs, including two former Sports Minsters.

We have had an adjournment debate in the House of Commons.

We have the fastest-growing Supporters Trust in the country, and the second largest.

44% of our season ticket holders are members of our ISA.

Yes, of course, we will complain to the IFC, and our lawyers will go through the full text of the decision with a fine-toothed comb. But honestly...we've lost.

MK Dons will happen, and will fail. We will do our bit to make sure it does, and I hope other fans will help out.

And while that's going on, Wimbledon will have a football club - we may have to play in the new Ryman 2, or even lower if needs must. But we'll be back.

(wsc was kind of the london review of books of football zines anyway, no?) (i mean jeeps, i bought it for a coupla years and i HATE football!!)

(if this reads like i'm taking a pop, i'm not)

They've covered us once at Supporters Direct, and they seem to prefer stories that are a bit doom and gloom rather than positives. I still get it because despite this, it's a million times better than 442 and occassionally makes me laff. Which is important - I want football to be fun, and lately, it ain't been so. My own club are about to be taken over by either a 'mercurial' character (John Fashanu) or a war criminal's best friend (Arkan's lawyer and business partner). Joy.

And the same old jokes again and again (some of which hit the spot occasionally).

Also, he's a sub, not the deputy editor.

It does worry me. I mean (and with no thought of winding anyone up), what if, to take a random example, Exeter were to slip out of the League, and the city council were to decide to financially incentivise (I heart Americanisms) a better club, say Bristol Rovers, to move there. We'd all be pissed off and the Exeter fans would rather their own club recovered. (Yes, Tim, I'm painfully aware that we are rather closer to the vice versa of part one of that scenario at present.)

x-post: It all went downhill with the rebrand in 86 for Coke.

http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8652_2695824,00.html

This article touches on whether the huge outlays in the premiership this year are sustainable, and whether certain clubs may overspend

While that may or may not happen in specific cases, it seems to me that a lot of the investments that are coming are actually huge huge piles of debt at low interest, interest that is surely only going one way, up

Are premiership clubs, far from being cash rich, over-leveraged? and is the premiership in danger of becoming another huge bubble ready to pop?

the article doesnt mention general debt or bubbles, and i don't know how vulnerable clubs are to their debt, but they must be exposed to some degree?

this is what happened to Leeds right?

I foresee a 2006 post from Dave B saying "Ha, I was still a Wimbledon fan back then!"

-- Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, June 20, 2004 4:36 AM (3 years ago)

I foresee a 2009 post from Dave B saying "Ha, I was still a FC United of Manchester fan back then!

Filey - surely it depends on how that debt is structured? I'd be frankly amazed if even the most gung-ho Premiership Chairman hadn't taken the possibility of interest rates rising into account. They are more likely to be scuppered by the possibility of sheer bad luck causing them to miss out on European football in successive seasons/go down. Especially those spending big on enormous stadiums they might not be able to fill in the Championship.

Also how much is the average Premiership club (say, Aston Villa) now making from a season's worth of football? Assuming they don't go down, is there any likelihood of them going tits-up financially provided TV companies are prepared to go funnelling enormous amount of cash in year after year?

Matt - to sum up and massively oversimplify David Conn's book, no one's denying that HUGE sums of money are coming into the game, the problem is that HUGER sums of money are flowing into the pockets of players and agents. Every time the amount of money coming in (mainly via TV) goes up, the salaries and mrtenpercenter fees rise as well, so clubs are just as likely to go bust as before.

the players and agents take such a massive cut, and some are on such long contracts, how much breathing space do clubs have?

And if they all get hit by problems with their debt, its not going to be a case of, oh lets just sell yakubu to pay the debt, his value would have gone down, and other clubs ability to buy him at high prices would have gone down.

I guess they could just try pass it onto the general public. You know, those people who would also be tightening their belts in such a scenario

Yes that is true - I suppose my question is more about how much of the outlay on players is actually being borrowed. Maybe I have misplaced faith that, say, Sunderland are not taking on huge debt obligations in order to to buy players and gamble on remaining in the Premiership.

I have no such faith in the Tottenham board, incidentally.

(xpost - depends on the club, right? Manchester United, Arsenal or Spurs all have the luxury of being able to hike up prices because there will always be enough general public willing to fill their stadiums in a way that Wigan, Middlesbrough and Blackburn do not).

(I'm not claiming that luxury is a good thing, quite the opposite in fact)

Also the curve is further skewed by the clubs being run as expensive playthings by billionaires, with everyone else spunking cash everywhere in order to even try and compete. Certainly Chelsea and Man City - do West Ham count?

Either way it's like the mid-90s amplified right now and at least one high-profile club is going to implode as a result.

(xpost - depends on the club, right? Manchester United, Arsenal or Spurs all have the luxury of being able to hike up prices because there will always be enough general public willing to fill their stadiums in a way that Wigan, Middlesbrough and Blackburn do not).

Well, not always. There's not an inexhaustible supply of customers willing to pay any price, it's just the breaking point is higher. If Spurs decided to charge £500 per match I can guarantee White Hart Lane would be almost entirely empty.

Demand for tickets was well in excess of supply at Man Utd a few years ago. The excess had fallen before the Glazers took over, but it was still averaging over 8,000 a match (ranging from about 20,000 for a big game like Liverpool to about 2,000 for a small game like Charlton). A lot of this was down to the fact that, as at many clubs nowadays, an incredibly high proportion of the seats (80-90%?) go to season ticket holders, leaving a relatively small number of seats for sale to ordinary members. At United there were about ten members for every seat available to them, but obviously most of these members didn't apply for every game and some probably only went once or twice a year. But the fact that every game sold out and that numerous people were getting knocked back in their ticket applications created an aura that tickets were like gold dust and so kept people keen to fork out for their season tickets.

Since the Glazers arrived ticket prices have gone up by something like 45% (having already risen by about 300% in the previous decade) and the capacity of Old Trafford has increased again. Also, they've forced people to join a scheme where they have tickets to all home cup games, which could easily add several more hundred pounds to the bill. The excess demand for tickets isn't really there any more. Despite claiming that there was a waiting list of 14,000 for season tickets, they had to admit defeat this summer and put them on general sale (i.e. anyone could just go to the website or ticket office and buy one, without ever having been on a waiting list or a member or even ever watched a football match before). Also, some league games are having tickets put on general sale (i.e. not just to members, but to the general public), which would have been unthinkable a few years ago. At the moment there's a big churn effect: people who can't afford their season tickets any more (supposedly 6,000 didn't renew this summer, compared to less than a thousand who cancelled when the Glazers arrived) are mostly being replaced by people with more money, and the tickets on general sale are probably being snapped up by people who have never been able to go before and are just curious to see what it's like. But if the rises continue there will soon come a point when the stadium isn't full for every match. Once people realise that they can easily get hold of a ticket then having a season ticket will become a much less attractive proposition, and people will cancel and just start picking and choosing which games they go to.

er...should say "they've forced to join a scheme where they have to buy tickets to all home cup games..."

fucking fuck! should say "they've forced people to join..."

xposts--Highly unlikely they haven't hedged against interest rate risk, and even if through sheer incompetence they haven't, the premise that they're only going to go up is false. In short, debt might be a problem for clubs but not 'cause of interest rates, which has been the case forever really.

jol out

expensive playthings by billionaires

now this is interesting, as in how much of this is cash and how much is borrowed. i think i saw somewhere that more of it is borrowed than you would think