Pretty sure most season ticket holder’s will either have had their money back, or in credit for next season.
But yes pay per view is a lot of money for people to find when many are on short hours or worse.
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The 2020-2021 Football Thread
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But yes pay per view is a lot of money for people to find when many are on short hours or worse.
Agreed. I think the only way it would sound like a good idea would be if the money went to supporting the lower league clubs who are really struggling.
Pure greed, unconscionable greed, especially when one considers that fans who have paid a steep price for a season ticket are unlikely to have it reimbursed, or to receive any sort of value for it, as they will not be able to actually go to games, a situation that is likely to continue for most, if not al, of this season, as well.
However, it may come back to bite the clubs, as, with increased unemployment, and decreased disposable incomes (both on account of Covid, and Brexit), having to pay for the privilege of watching a game of football (twice, in the case of those who are season-ticket holders) may be beyond the limited means of an increasing number of fans.
That is a excellent idea.
Project Big Picture is the big news....a proposal (apparently cooked up by Liverpool's owners FSG, with Man Utd supporting it) to reform the English league / revenue structure. Too many details to repeat all here, but the Prem drops to 18 teams, 17th and 18th are automatically relegated and the 16th place finisher has to play a playoff with the 4th-6th place Championship teams. League Cup and Community shield are discarded.
My reaction is twofold. On the one hand, there are a lot of fairly common-sense changes, based mostly around sharing TV revenue more broadly beyond the pyramid. The changes would strengthen the finances of the EFL, reduce fixture congestion somewhat, allow for some infrastructural improvements, and lower some ticket prices. Some of the proposed changes are good ideas that others have raised before and they should be implemented - less teams in the prem, less competitive fixtures, more revenue sharing, more money for grassroots and women's football, ticket price controls...
On the other hand, the plan could be seen as akin to a junta voting itself into power permanently...it gives the top six clubs in the premier league even more power and influence than they already have, and ensures that (barring any one of them "doing a Leeds") they will maintain that advantage forever. Some would say that the big clubs will always be the big clubs anyway - which is probably mostly true - so any reform will have to be done in a way that does not threaten their status or they will kill it. This is probably the case, but I am uncomfortable formalizing that state of affairs within what is supposed to be a competition.
In short, I like a lot of the details but judged as a structural reform it does not go anywhere near far enough in terms of addressing inequality in the game. With that being said, I am not sure how, in the short term, we can do better without much more active government intervention, as the football league is essentially run by corporations who are looking to make money. Reducing inequality necessarily means reducing profit for the big dogs.
EDIT: it's also worth noting that the Premier League has come out against the proposal, or at least against the manner in which it has been revealed to the press so it's probably not going to happen anyway - at least not in its current form.
My reaction is twofold. On the one hand, there are a lot of fairly common-sense changes, based mostly around sharing TV revenue more broadly beyond the pyramid. The changes would strengthen the finances of the EFL, reduce fixture congestion somewhat, allow for some infrastructural improvements, and lower some ticket prices. Some of the proposed changes are good ideas that others have raised before and they should be implemented - less teams in the prem, less competitive fixtures, more revenue sharing, more money for grassroots and women's football, ticket price controls...
On the other hand, the plan could be seen as akin to a junta voting itself into power permanently...it gives the top six clubs in the premier league even more power and influence than they already have, and ensures that (barring any one of them "doing a Leeds") they will maintain that advantage forever. Some would say that the big clubs will always be the big clubs anyway - which is probably mostly true - so any reform will have to be done in a way that does not threaten their status or they will kill it. This is probably the case, but I am uncomfortable formalizing that state of affairs within what is supposed to be a competition.
In short, I like a lot of the details but judged as a structural reform it does not go anywhere near far enough in terms of addressing inequality in the game. With that being said, I am not sure how, in the short term, we can do better without much more active government intervention, as the football league is essentially run by corporations who are looking to make money. Reducing inequality necessarily means reducing profit for the big dogs.
EDIT: it's also worth noting that the Premier League has come out against the proposal, or at least against the manner in which it has been revealed to the press so it's probably not going to happen anyway - at least not in its current form.
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My understanding is that all of the clubs have to vote in favour for changes to happen. Although the top clubs would be in favour of reducing the teams in the league, I couldn’t see any chairmen in the lower have of the league agreeing to reduce the numbers.
14 clubs would have to vote in favour. Personally I think that’s still more than would favour it as at least 6 clubs are concerned about relegation.
Also have the 9 clubs who have been in the league the longest have more say stinks of old boys network to me.
Also have the 9 clubs who have been in the league the longest have more say stinks of old boys network to me.
After having read through it again, I am broadly in support of the ideas. I don't like the concentration of power at the top, but I honestly don't know how it can be avoided in the current world. The best we can hope for is to get the rich clubs to share more of the wealth, which this proposal does -though its details are not all to my taste.
The Premier League and the UK Government are both hostile to the plan, so it will likely go nowhere. In doing so both of the chief enemies of a more sustainable football pyramid have just clearly revealed themselves, if they weren't already obvious.
If the impact of COVID really does start to create a domino effect of clubs going bust, the government and league will react - too late, I am sure - but whatever intervention they come up with will be less ambitious and will not address the fundamental imbalances in the game that got us here in the first place.
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My first read is it is all about making money for the big clubs including mine.
That is the first priority, and we need to remember that this was the reason the Premier League was created in the first place: control new revenue streams - particularly TV money - and share the bulk amongst the biggest clubs.
The new plan does share a lot more resources across the pyramid, and partially breaks down the hard wall between the Prem and the EFL -and this is why the Premier League is so resistant.
The Catch-22 is that only the Premier League clubs (dominated by the big six or whatever) can vote for sustainable change. But voting for sustainable change necessarily means clubs voting for less revenue. And in the case of the bottom clubs, it means voting themselves out of the Premier League without a parachute payment. Again, this is why the Premier League was "invented" - essentially it is designed to create and maintain financial inequality.
The top clubs want to be playing other top clubs all the time. Not those smaller ground clubs with no prestige or history.
This is why the European breakaway league comes up quite often. But the reality is Man U playing Madrid isn’t going to work for the fans. Imagine having to travel to Europe for every away game.
But what I love about is that on any day any given team (Villa!) can beat any other team. In theory any team can win the league (Leicester). If the voting and the decision making is just left to the top six, the balance of power will be even worse than it is now.
All they need to do is give a bigger share of the TV money to those lower down the league.
Don't be so sure of that. American sports teams cover distances equal to traveling across Europe every week, and the continually rising cost of attending matches has already made it a firmly middle-class pastime. There is no logistical barrier to a European Super League.
I am against the idea of a Super League, but I consider it very possible. There are certainly a number of very powerful people and institutions that like the idea.
It's a gossamer-thin veneer though. The exceptions pretty much prove the rule. And it's worth pointing out that Leicester rode to their success on the back of major foreign investment. If you talk to lower-league fans about Leicester's rise many will will grumble about financial doping, so it's all relative.
With that being said, the Premier League is probably still the most open league competition in Europe, because it has the most "big" rich clubs. But the bottom half clubs have no better chance of winning the league in England than they do in Spain, France, Italy, or Germany.
I agree, this is the part of the plan I have the biggest problem with. There needs to be TV revenue sharing to the EFL, period. And the Prem is too big at 20 teams.
This.
Agree completely. And with the point you made in the previous sentence.
Interesting discussion, and you both make some very good points.
The Guardian recently ran an article that is also critical of the proposal's approach to the women's game,
The overall reactions to Big Picture seem to be that the fat cats don't like it because it gives too much wealth away, and everyone else feels it doesn't go far enough to address the inequality in the game.
So we are more or less back where we started...the best that can be said is that could be a starting point for further discussions, but the reality is that the Premier League doesn't think it needs to change. They probably need to have their arm twisted by the government if they are ever going to "reform" in the way most people want.
Arm twisting (by governments) is a lot easier if and when support packages have been made available for the game, as conditions can then be set by governments, and/or penalties imposed for non-compliance.ly
While I think these proposals are exceptionally greedy, monstrously selfish, and wholly unfair, and while I also think the treatment of season ticket holders - refusal to reimburse them while still seeking to stiff them further by charging for pay-per-view games, (not to mention the disgraceful treatment of long-serving, and often quite poorly-paid, staff by clubs such as Arsenal) very poor, what the clubs seem to overlook is that with soaring and stratospheric unemployment, slashed incomes, (which will not end anytime soon), a great many fans will not simply be in a position to afford what they offer, and pubs will not be able to show games as they, too, will be shut.
I agree that there is a huge disconnect between what the clubs see as a never-ending spigot gushing money on the one end, and the hundreds of millions of people who are being squeezed for it on the other. They will keep squeezing till they've wrung us all dry, and only then will they change their behavior...too late.
I still think there is some good in the proposal, speaking strictly as a pragmatist - we have to accept that in the short term the greedy suits and club owners are calling the shots. Given that unsatisfactory context, it's still a good thing if we can get them to share some of their wealth with the EFL.
Fundamental change for the better is a much bigger, longer-term battle and we can't afford to be all-or-nothing about it. We can continue that fight while also fighting smaller battles for modest improvements. Because the fact of the matter is the Premier League are willing to let the entire pyramid under them collapse rather than break their own stranglehold on the revenue streams.
The other thing that has changed in recent times is the transfer system. Prior to the Bosman ruling lower league clubs could sell on their young players for a reasonable amount of money which could fund them for a year or two. But then that changed and players could walk for free or go for a nominal fee if the contract had a year or so left.
Added to that the huge amount of youngsters the big teams have on their books who won’t all make it, the game is not in a good place.
The schemes put in place to ensure financial regulatory don’t seem to be worth the paper they are written on.
This year even the cup competitions aren’t helping the small clubs. When a non league or lower league club drew a top side in the cup they used to get 50% of the gate money. Currently that’s zero. Imagine if you are the chairman of an impoverished club and you draw Liverpool or Man U in the next round of the FA cup. You’d be gutted.
Added to that the huge amount of youngsters the big teams have on their books who won’t all make it, the game is not in a good place.
The schemes put in place to ensure financial regulatory don’t seem to be worth the paper they are written on.
This year even the cup competitions aren’t helping the small clubs. When a non league or lower league club drew a top side in the cup they used to get 50% of the gate money. Currently that’s zero. Imagine if you are the chairman of an impoverished club and you draw Liverpool or Man U in the next round of the FA cup. You’d be gutted.
Bosman had to happen, because under the previous system clubs were flagrantly exploiting players, so the clubs shot themselves in the foot there. But it did open a can of worms in terms of exploding transfer fees and the infection of the game with the agent (and now the "super-agent"), a parasite it may never get rid of.
I see the state of things as at least partially the consequences of applying the US TV-centric pro sports paradigm to the European league system. It was probably inevitable, in any case, given the potential for profit. An NFL team could in theory go bust, but it would take monumental negligence and the league would likely intervene before it got that bad. There is no unified "pyramid" in the US the way there is in Europe. The NFL, MLB, MLS, and NBA share all TV (and some other) revenue among a relatively small number of clubs that never get relegated, so everyone gets a healthy slice of the pie forever. The "lower division" of gridiron football is the college system (or system of systems) which operates on a completely different model (a broken model - but that's another discussion...). All other major pro sports in the US (baseball, soccer, hockey, basketball) operate on relative crumbs below the top division level and there is no path upwards and relatively little financial security.
There is just no room in this model for keeping almost 200 pro clubs afloat in one big system funded from the top - it's designed to keep the money flowing to a small oligarchy of "big" clubs. Without promotion/relegation though, there is also no incentive to mortgage a smaller club in order to go up a step, as there is in Europe. When the Premier League arrived, it took much of that model and applied it to the top division in England, creating a permanent problem that will never be solved without major restructuring.
As a supporter of a team who has been relegated (and promoted of course!), it’s one of the things I love about the game. Without the fear of relegation West Ham is going to to have nothing to play for more seasons than not. Same for a lot of other clubs.
Fascinating, not least because, as @Lord Blackadder observes, while "there is no such thing as promotion/relegation in MLS and never will be", yet, equally, American audiences cannot conceive of a draw, - the US system is predicated on the idea of winners and losers, one must be one or the other, the winner takes all while the defeated team receives nothing - whereas a draw allows for a situation where each team takes something from the encounter (although, quite often, in a draw, one team has the psychological advantage of "winning", or "salvaging" a draw, whereas the other may rue the draw, lamenting the fact that they failed to win, or failed to ten their opportunities, thereby safely securing all three points), for, in a draw, each team secures a point from the fixture.
Former FA chairman David Bernstein has weighed in on the Big Picture debate, calling (and not for the first time) for an independent regulator to run the English game.
This gets to the heart of the issue, really. "self-regulation" is just another term for "self-interested cabal." As long as the FA and Premier League are controlled by the richest clubs, there will be no fundamental change in the game, and we will see a permanent, continual decline in the football pyramid system. Change will never come from within, so it must come from without.
This gets to the heart of the issue, really. "self-regulation" is just another term for "self-interested cabal." As long as the FA and Premier League are controlled by the richest clubs, there will be no fundamental change in the game, and we will see a permanent, continual decline in the football pyramid system. Change will never come from within, so it must come from without.