The Guardian: Football is Broken

SuperRash

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A pretty interesting article although a little bit of ‘City are the devils’ undertone.

Although it’s very true that the money in football is crazy these days and unless you have a super rich owner or wealthy backers then you will not be breaking into the top six in England. It’s even worse in the French league where PSG have totally monopolised the league.

There is always been rich clubs but something doesn’t sit right about super rich owners coming in and just buying success. City have done so well since the money came in but take the money away they would be nowhere and I bet good money on that a good percentage of fans would leave if the owners upped sticks and the success on the pitch faltered.

Sure fans in other countries/clubs feel much the same as English fans. It would have been a sad state of affairs this year if it wasn’t for Liverpool’s freak season. The title would have been wrapped up by City many moons ago.

Do we ever think a Super League will really happen? For me it’s never going to happen, why would teams like City, Bayern, Juventus and Barca leave their home leagues where they can walk the title year after year?
 
You can't take away from City how great their coach is, they had the money long before Pep and didn't dominate like they are now.
 
The thing with City is they haven't just thrown more and more money at the problem they've actually built a club structure that should sustain success and keep them at the top and grow the club. Yes they will need to spend money to keep buying the best players but they're buying £50-70m players not £100m plus like PSG unlike PSG City seem to have gone about it with a bit of a plan and some longer term thinking not just chasing the stars probably because they've realised domestically it's not as easy as PSG have it. City don't need to compete for worldwide attention in the way PSG do because the PL has that worldwide audience whereas Ligue Un doesn't. There's even rumours that PSG are thinking of scaling back things at PSG because it hasn't worked the way they were hoping because everyone hates them and they can't stop the wrong questions getting asked in the way City seem to be doing.

The issue is that they are so far ahead right now they've played 60 games this season and scored 5 or more in 11 of those games that isn't normal some of that is skewed by some easy cup games but they've stuck 5 or more past a few of the top 10.

I think the super league is inevitable the clubs are already pushing it with UEFA they want CL games played on weekends with bigger groups meaning more games and more certainty for the top sides with a promotion/relegation structure rather than qualifying through league positions in domestic competition. The question will be will these clubs want City/PSG involved in it because competing with royal family wealth is going to be impossible which is why the clubs demanded FFP rules come in 10 years ago.

If the super league thing happens I think that'll be me about done with football it's hard enough to care at the moment with the way fans are treated by clubs.
 
If the super league thing happens I think that'll be me about done with football it's hard enough to care at the moment with the way fans are treated by clubs.

womens football is the way forward.
 
I think the cup final was very dissapointing. I haven't seen the viewing figures but I can't imagine it was very well watched. It felt like a non event. I had to be reminded it was on. Everyone already knew what was coming.

I can't see the super league happening. It would destroy football as we know it. The big clubs would actually lose fans not gain them because part of the football rivalry is discussions with other fans. We can't sit down the local, or in school classrooms arguing with Juve/Barca/Munich fans.

As for curbing spending can City really be to blame? Yeah they've pumped a lot in to catch up but Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Us aren't exactly spending pennies are we.
 
I think the cup final was very dissapointing. I haven't seen the viewing figures but I can't imagine it was very well watched. It felt like a non event. I had to be reminded it was on. Everyone already knew what was coming.
I’ve felt that the FA Cup has become a bit a non-event in recent times anyway, I remember when I was a kid growing up the FA Cup was THE event. There was a crazy long BBC programme previewing the game, the papers were always full of it with pull out guides but now it’s like meh. It seems to have lost some of its glamour and prestige.

Yeah the super league would destroy football and I for one would be less than impressed just playing the big boys around Europe week after week. Also why would City go from top dogs in their own country to being potentially 3rd or 4th best in a super league? It would be ludicrous for football.
 
The FA Cup final is no longer the prestige event in the calendar because it used to be one of the few live TV games a season now we can watch live football from anywhere in the world whenever we want the world has changed. As a result the FA cup has lost some glamour and prestige. You also used to have 3 or 4 sides playing in European competitions now we have 7 every year so it loses priority at clubs. Finishing 2 or 3 places higher in the league is probably worth more than winning the FA Cup to a mid table club.

I think the point of the super league is to destroy football as we know it. If the clubs do it the way they want it they'd own it and control it and take all the profits from it rather than just get a share of it from UEFA. It has the potential to be a full breakaway league and once it's broken away they can take it wherever the want to play the games.

The reason FFP came in was the clubs were all running up huge debts trying to compete with each other now thanks to FFP most clubs are actually making profits because they know if they over spend then they will be punished. It was basically them saving themselves from themselves. It was really a reaction to Chelsea but City/PSG got in just before the bridge was pulled up and it's why no one else has really come in since them trying to throw money around in that way.
 
I also read if the clubs break away the players would not be able to play for their national sides, killing the world cup and European cup too.
 
I also read if the clubs break away the players would not be able to play for their national sides, killing the world cup and European cup too.

That is the threat from FIFA but the reality all the power is with the clubs now as they bring in the money and pay the players.

The only thing they need FIFA and the associations for is dealing with the admin.
 

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