This is the attitude that really grates on me, it's pure arrogance.
Nobody gets to choose whether they were born in Manchester or Mumbai, but not one fan is more worthy than another.
Financial Times: La Liga in talks to hold league matches overseas
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Nobody gets to choose whether they were born in Manchester or Mumbai, but not one fan is more worthy than another.
Obviously the PL will go with however offers the most £££, so expect a lot of games in China and middle east
I dont mind if they play the charity shield or super cup abroad. It's a stage match anyway.
Must never happen to an actual competitive game though.
Must never happen to an actual competitive game though.
I am not from England, but that is exactly what they are. You've misunderstood the whole point of football if you don't understand this point. Football clubs are first and foremost community enterprises.
What's the point?
just got what he was saying. Christ, I'm slowHate the idea. Can't stand that the NFL exports regular season games to London. Pre-season, whatever do what you want. But punishing the local fans by exporting their product is deplorable, whatever sport or league you want to talk about.
£££, as usual.
No, they're not. Some are but Manchester United are not and haven't been for decades. If that's the belief of some local fans then they should support FC United instead.
The hint is in the name. Manchester.
It's not possible though. If i recall it correctly, then league games in another country need to be permitted by fifa, the local fa and potentially the likes of Uefa and friends. There's probably zero chance of that happening, unlesd of course some form of bribery comes into play.
That's a strange attitude. I a United fan who is not from Manchester, but there's no denying that Manchester United belongs to Manchester.
I would hate the thought of any domestic competitive games being played abroad, it's just silly. Short sighted too, it would do damage to local economies if games go outside the local area.
Wouldn't care if they moved the Community Shield though, it's not a competitive game.
It's alright. Spanish fans are notoriously good followers on away days.
Like it or not the PL is global in terms of players, fans, sponsors and basically everything. the name and Old Trafford being in Manchester are perhaps the only things that relate the club to Manchester.
This is just bs. Sorry.
Manchester United belongs to Manchester and its fans, period. Every fan around the world will agree with that.
You are talking out your ass about everything else. The players work for the club, sponsors pay huge sums to be associated with the club and the owners are only looking to run the club.
The club, the ground, the history etc will all be there, in Manchester, long after all those entities disappear.
How many of our fans are from Manchester? A separate argument perhaps but one of my pet hates is local fans who feel like they're more relevant or better than other fans.
The Co92 clearly identify the club with Manchester so we have that Mancunian association from the past. But you look at other clubs like City, Chelsea and Liverpool now even more than us and what ties the club to the city other than local match day fans going to the stadium (forgetting about history, because well, its history), which even in the case of smaller PL clubs is only a fraction of their fan base?
And by the way the ones that don't agree with you now support FC United, so clearly they don't all "know" that.
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Didn't read the article but i'd imagine they want in on the PL money deal. It's up at the end of 2018 season isn't it? Another 30% increase i'd imagine.
No one has said that so why is does it even need to be discussed? What even constitutes a fan? The NFL have convinced themselves that there are 6m fans in the UK. Clearly there are different types of fans with different levels of interest and commitment to a particular sport for all sorts of reasons.
On fans numbers, you won't find a higher percentage of passionate United fans than in Manchester. So it doesn't matter if there are millions more fans among a population of 7 billion dotted around the world. You can't cater competitive fixtures for them all.
You want me to explain what ties a club has to its locality outside of 'history, fans and stadium'? So in other words, outside of everything that makes up a club...
What extra ties do you want the clubs to have?
Ffs I'm a lifelong Manchester United fan that was born in the south, and now lives abroad. I know and accept that they play at Old fecking Trafford. Not Beijing. I travel to them, not them to me. The NFL, in particular, is known for teams moving to new cities. It's not like European football where ties are deeply geographically entrenched.
Doing things like this, is the absolute death of football as we know it.
No club would want to lose a game's home advantage, so for the FPL it would have to be a 39th game, on neutral territory. And such matches couldn't be held at short notice, during the season or at the end, because the fans wouldn't have time to book time off, travel and accommodation. But they could be held as the first game of the season. Each match sold to the highest bidding venue, the previous seasons 1st v 2nd as the plum, then 3rd v 4th etc, right down to the promoted. Not friendlies, the points would count. Be a cracking world-wide auction for the top match wouldn't you say?
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Those fines are insane. What the hell
Couldn't give less of a feck about the premier lrague being enjoyed globally. The games should stay in england.
Maybe the League Cup could be revived if some of the latter rounds were played abroad? Foreign fans get to see competitive football and there would be no unfair advantages due to teams having extra home/away games. Assuming there's more interest in the games there would be potentially a higher jackpot for winning the trophy. It'd be a big incentive for smaller teams to reach the latter stages for extra exposure and revenue. It's not like teams take it seriously anyways..
How about this idea: a 39th game which would not be random, but stipulated by your league position from the previous season. Could be done in two ways, 1st vs 2nd, 3rd vs 4th, 5th vs 6th and so on
Or
1st vs 20th, 2nd vs 19th, 3rd vs 18th and so on.
Would be fair and not so random. I'd prefer the first one, as it's another big game in the season.
Or
1st vs 20th, 2nd vs 19th, 3rd vs 18th and so on.
Would be fair and not so random. I'd prefer the first one, as it's another big game in the season.
What about this. The 3 newly promoted teams each forfeit a home match vs the 3 top teams from last season for example whoever finished 1st in Championship plays 3rd place of the previous Premier League season, 2nd in Champ vs 2nd in PL and winner of playoffs vs winner of the PL.
So if I used this season as an example the 3 fixtures and there potential locations could be:
Huddersfield vs Chelsea (Beijing)
Brighton vs Tottenham (New York)
Newcastle vs Manchester City (Los Angeles)
Although scheduling these games so that teams do not have to travel far over short periods will be difficult Im sure they can find a way to make it happen
I also feel like this would give maybe some smaller clubs that got promoted for example Huddersfield some much needed exposure worldwide on a grander scale and would help them financially.
Or we could do it the way they do it in America and send the worst teams with the lowest attendances overseas and glamourise it as a true PL spectacle. I'm sure they would be buzzing to watch Huddersfield vs West Brom in New Delhi.
So if I used this season as an example the 3 fixtures and there potential locations could be:
Huddersfield vs Chelsea (Beijing)
Brighton vs Tottenham (New York)
Newcastle vs Manchester City (Los Angeles)
Although scheduling these games so that teams do not have to travel far over short periods will be difficult Im sure they can find a way to make it happen
I also feel like this would give maybe some smaller clubs that got promoted for example Huddersfield some much needed exposure worldwide on a grander scale and would help them financially.
Or we could do it the way they do it in America and send the worst teams with the lowest attendances overseas and glamourise it as a true PL spectacle. I'm sure they would be buzzing to watch Huddersfield vs West Brom in New Delhi.
How about we feck all of that off and keep it the way it is.
fecking hell. It's not hard. Manchester United play their home matches in Manchester.
The extra game played abroad is perfectly in keeping with the drift of commercialism in 2017. PL should have got there first. Lot of griping now but it will instantly become popular. You'd get fans basing holidays around it - unless it's played in China
History has very little bearing on a clubs ties to its locality other than for those who live in Manchester. If that makes your views more important than those living outside of Manchester then that's your own opinion. Go to China and Indonesia and you'll find that the fans are just as passionate about United as those in Manchester.
I didn't say you should cater to all of them, that's twisting words to suit your argument. All I said was that local fans don't own fandom, its a global sport, in a global league, with a global brand, where the vast majority of players and fans are outside of Manchester. Fans and players are the only two things that make up a club and constitute a community in my eyes, the location of the stadium is simply a piece of infrastructure to facilitate them and the history of a stadium is built to some extent by the fans but 99% by the players. If they play more games outside of Manchester to cater to more of their fan base then that's a totally fair and just thing to do. Any disagreement otherwise would undeniably show that local fans believe they own the club. If that's their view then I would suggest they go and support FC United instead, or find an Athletic Bilbao equivalent. You have to choose between the global spectacle of Manchester United or the local community platform of FC United, but you can't have it both ways. I notice you selectively ignored that part of my previous post.
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Why don't we have NFL style franchises?? Other cities and possibly countries could end up bidding for the likes of Man United.
Nah, it won't be the death but it'll become the norm, like....well... everything. Eventually folk'll look back and realise it's not what they fell in love with, but the new generation will regard it as the norm. Such is life.
We just have to accept that football is controlled by money. It always has been but now that such a huge amount of money is involved and on a global scale, PL clubs are clearly not really related to local communities any more no matter how the club or local fans try to spin it. In money terms, franchising is the natural evolution for the PL and so seems inevitable at some point.
For me location is very crucial, it's the only reason I support Manchester United. I'm sure many would stop following the game if we had a franchise system.
Fair enough.
But if you were a money man you would say that the local fans are only a fraction of the fan base and a fraction of your income stream. If they stop following the club it will be made up for and more by the increased revenue involved in franchising as you could regularly fill a 100k plus stadium in China, India, Indonesia etc. I'm definitely not saying I want this to happen, its just a remark on the financial situation.
If the Glazers moved United to Florida or London for commercial/locality/scenic/whatever purposes, I can assure you that would turn many fans off including foreign fans.
I don't doubt there are many passionate fans in China and Indonesia. I'm also sure there are many passionate Barca and Real fans there too. But try going on a Barca forum and telling Catalans that the club no longer belongs in Barcelona because it now has global appeal and el Classico has more viewer in Asia.
You seem intent on working from the assumption that by somehow saying that club belongs in Manchester, that's excluding global fans.
Maybe 'in your eyes', players and fans is all that matters. History, origins, stadium, youth etc matters to everyone else or they'd be supporting City or PSG now. I don't even know how you can make that comment and then say that fans outside of Manchester are just as passionate about the club. You've badly misrepresented foreign fans there because I know foreign fans don't share that opinion.
Glazers and fans are the only people that matter when it comes to the ownership stakes, its you that has been overplaying the commercial element and brand appeal. The local fans will be there long after all those entities disappear as well as all the fair weather fans. And you've made the 'go support your local club' comment a few times now, which is offensive to local fans when you are trying to make the case for fans supporting the club who are living thousands of miles away.
The 'global spectacle of Manchester United' is a club based in Manchester, with its origins/history in Manchester, built by the local community and with local talent, supported by fans the world over.
Also, what comment have I selectively ignored?
I'm sure most Catalans wouldn't like it if El Classico moved to Asia (not that this is part of the proposal), but they're a fraction of the support as I've mentioned previously. Your comment about Catalan fans not being happy clearly shows your preference for local fans over the millions of Barca fans that live in Asia. Catalan forums do not own fandom as I doubt the majority of African or Asian fans have access to a personal computer. Some of which kill themselves or each other over the result of a game, so to generalize that they don't share the same passion is frankly ridiculous. Many stay up until stupid o clock to catch united games in their time zones. To generalize fans from different areas is a meaningless excersize in any case.
It's not about excluding external fans its about a class system of which fans are more important than others and self entitlement from local fans. A club belongs to its fans and a business belongs to its stakeholders. If the vast majority of games are played in Manchester despite the vast majority of fans not being from Manchester then there's clearly an imbalance in that respect and these proposals seek to address that imbalance.
History and origins are the same thing and youth are players too. Its clear we disagree here. A stadium doesn't become anything of note unless fans or players do great things in it. Please also explain to me how history ties you to the club? Tradition might be a reason for supporting the club in the first place but if its the past and not part of the future I fail to see how clinging on to past traditions and glories should make you a fan of a club, unless you're a Liverpool fan. Including Rashford in the team is the only direct tie to Manchester that I can see at the club right now.
You've ignored all of my previous comments about FC United, its purpose and creation, which effectively shows why thousands of locals agree with me.