Government is sleep walking into the end of the professional game as we know it- https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/stoke-city-port-vale-fans-4557494.amp it’s going to be a grim country next year- Brexit + Covid-19 is going to change everything forever.
I’d say the elite clubs are doing that as well. Look at this morning’s news on Sky Sports, reporting that the Dortmund player Sanchez is being touted for a move back to England. Fee £60 million rising to a potential NINETY million. Obscene piece of transfer business. Absolutely shocking. But hey, it’s ok. So long as the Man Utds of this world survive that’s all that matters. Then the PL has the gall to plead hardship conditions due to the current restrictions. If my club should go under (could happen, along with scores of others) I’ll be finished with football for good. So much about the modern game stinks and it’s not getting any better.
News report I saw said they’d offered 100 million but Dortmund were holding out for 120(can’t remember if was pounds or euros). Alan Mcinaly followed up with a rant about if Man U really want him just pay the 120. It’s that sort of attitude that drives the greed
Government are stopping fans being allowed back so it should be them who compensate clubs. I don't see why the PL should bail clubs out. If I owned a chicken shop and Boris shut me down I wouldn't be going after KFC to help me.
The government is choosing to allow certain industries to fail. Football being one of the highest profile. Live music/comedy is another - both add many billions into the economy. If either were fishing it'd be putting out all the stops.
Pompey losing , 700k per month. Average players wage £3250 pw. x 4, £13k pm. x30 players (guess) £400k pm other staff and overheads £300k. Bonkers. Were still Looking to still sign players in the £15k pw bracket. In August. Wtf.
If the worst starts to happen and the Prem clubs do nothing to help those further down the ladder then my Sky subscription will not be renewed. I agree if our club were to go under that would be me done with football for good too.
I've not watched sky this season. Don't like football in empty stadiums, I'm loving watching my son play because there's more of an atmosphere!
I don’t make that statement lightly. I’ve been hooked on this game since my Donny Road school days when I found I could actually play it (a bit). I found my way down to Oakwell to join the faithful 2 to 5,000, enjoying visits by the likes of Workington Town, Darlington, Chester - all the big names! Somehow the habit grew. I sold programmes. I agonised when I had to miss kick offs, and sometimes the end of matches to get back to Harston’s paper shop to deliver evening papers. Even moving away from the area didn’t stop me travelling, sometimes hundreds of miles just for home games. It’s a hard habit to break but the will is crumbling a bit. At the moment I’m talking about the wider world of football. As I hinted above it’s starting to smell. Rotten fish comes to mind. This worries me a bit but if the current problems destroy my club, and plenty of others like us, then that’s the end of the story for me.
Yep, don’t enjoy watching football on TV best of times. Swapped going to games with taking my Grandson to kick around.
There was no football during both World Wars and clubs didn't go bust . Clubs survived because Bosman hadn't been born.
That's simply not true. The EFL competitions were cancelled, but there were plenty of wartime competitions. They were generally more local competitions as long distance travel was more difficult. And clubs recruited many amateurs to fill in the gaps left by many players serving in the war effort. Games were played, tickets were sold, clubs managed to get through. And don't forget salaries weren't as ridiculous back then as they are now. Further reading: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1065&context=utpp
Barnsley FC and football in general will always survive in some form or other even if it's as an amateur club in a totally reinvented league system following a crash in viability of professional clubs outside the greed league. The bottom line is we end up with the product we're prepared to pay for. You can't decry the obscenities of the Premier League and its multi million pound wages and transfers while you keep on shelling out £70 quid for shirts and Sky sports subscriptions.
I don’t pay anything into that great big pit of money that Sky store their riches in before doling it out to their chosen ones. I get a limited amount of football and cricket free through my Vodafone account. If that wasn’t there I would never watch a Sky Sports programme
Seen this argument before. My response is the same. Daft analogy as KFC etc don't offer £120m to Burger King to buy one of their 'burger flippers' ....err....sorry...'Food Technicians'- Nor do they pay grotesquely inflated wages of hundreds of thousands of pounds a week. Even journeyman footballers in a Championship team get paid more in a year than many people on a...ahem... 'living wage' do in 10. Most footballers if they did not squander their money would be set for life by the time they are mid 30s and retiring from the game. Putting aside the division between PL and EFL there is enough money in the game to see it through the current problem, but the PL and players carry on as if nothing has happened paying ridiculous wages/transfer and agents fees and do so even when no football is played. It is an entertainment industry and like all entertainment industry and if there is no show in other areas, theatre, music, etc. there is no employment for the actors musicians and DJs etc. Why should football carry on regardless funded by taxpayers many who don't give two hoots about football. In fact , if the Govt did bail it, given how much would be needed to sustain teh high levels of expenditure needed to maintain even a fraction of the status quo e.g. players wages out you would be the first to criticise when essential services were being underfunded even more than now. How many nurses or Covid tests etc does money given to supplement 10 PL footballer's buy. You can only spend it once and I know where I would rather see the money go. A collapse of the football money-go-round is actually what many people have secretly wished for with little likelhihood of it happening. Covid-19 could possibly make it happen. IMO the collapse of the whole structure could bring the whole insane shambles back to reality and in the longer term benefit football fans and the grass roots
