Yes he will. Graham Souness who was saying this was all about greed wrote an article a week ago saying 200m for Haaland was a bargain. How do people think this is sustainable? Chelsea lost money the year before the pandemic and then spent 150m last summer - without fans in stadiums. How much will they spend this year? Without spending controls the whole thing is fecked. The bubble is about to burst.
The Disgusting Hypocrisy of Sky Sports and the Premier League
- Thread starter Lentwood
- Start date
I agree with you, everyone is complicit in this. The challenge of a capitalistic system is that it has it’s own inherent logic that seeps into all actors in it. The only way to implement some other value (human values, morals, god, whatever) in it is by everyone agreeing to contain, regulate or prohibit it. So we are all bound to be complicit in it, unless we, by way of collective politics manage to banish or control the flows of capital in interest of the common good.
I think you need to look up the definition of “whataboutery” and then read the last paragraph of my OP again Mr Mahone.
I am not offering an opinion on the ESL. I clearly say that. I also clearly say that my point is that fighting the ESL (and winning) is not the end of the fight. We now have to continue the fight and take it to the PL and to Sky.
No it hasn’t just occurred to me, but now seems like the wake-up call everybody needed
Quite. Contradicting points, no research, and then some weird stuff about TV packages that's come seemingly from nowhere.
@Lentwood I decided to address your OP, because quite frankly, it's a bit of an incoherent mess and doesn't really have much to do with reality.
SIX founding clubs have never been relegated from the Premier League.
That’s six of 22 clubs, meaning 16 have been relegated. In that time, there are four of 20 teams that have never left La Liga (Barcelona, Real Madrid, Valencia, Bilbao), four of 20 teams that have never left Serie A (Milan, Inter, Lazio, Roma), five if you consider that Juve were forcibly relegated with 91 points on the board, and five of 18 that have never left Bundesliga (Bayern, Dortmund, Leverkusen, Schalke, Werder Bremen).
If there’s a similar pattern in the other top leagues, what do Sky and the formation of the Premier League have to do with it?
the chances of any of those six actually being relegated is slim to none
Firstly, Everton were very much relegation candidates for a long time when the league was first founded, and even had a flirtation with it in 2004. Arsenal and Spurs have also found themselves within six points of the drop.
Secondly, as highlighted above, do we think the situation is different across the other top European leagues?
Add in the new-money clubs like City (and to a certain extent the likes of Wolves and Leicester under their new ownership)
I’m not sure what point you’re making here? Investment is needed to establish yourselves at the top? That’s the same in any league, in any sport. If the Premier League is a system that unfairly protects a select number of clubs from the threat of relegation, then you either a) accept that every other club in the league has to face that threat, or b) accept that the other clubs will need investment to protect themselves from that threat.
You can’t argue in one breath that there are six founding clubs that have never been relegated and that’s because of money, and in the next start mentioning clubs that have seen investment to avoid relegation.
it is increasingly difficult for promoted clubs to establish themselves in the Premier League
You’ve just mentioned Wolves and Leicester. We’ve also got Palace (in the division since 2012), Southampton and West Ham (in the division since 2011). Are they not established?
Even the few that do manage to earn promotion and stay in the Premier League for a few seasons seem to scrap tooth and nail between 20th and 10th before eventually being relegated
I’m not sure what you want. You opened this post going on about six teams not being relegated, but you’re also saying it’s hard to establish a firm position in the league.
Which is it? Is the Premier League and Sky money so good that after a few years of it you’re set and have no chance of being relegated, or is the Premier League and Sky money not actually enough to maintain a foothold and in fact, the league is somewhat competitive?
only SEVEN clubs have won the Premier League in the 30 years the competition has existed
I went through this in another post. There have been seven Premier League winners since 1992/93. In that time, there have been six Bundesliga winners, five La Liga winners, and five Serie A winners. It’s a similar story across pretty much every other European league. There were also only eight winners of the old First Division in the 28 seasons prior to the Premier League’s formation, so just the one more in the same time frame.
Again, if there’s a similar pattern in the other top leagues, and there was a similar pattern in England before the Premier League, what do Sky and the formation of the Premier League have to do with it?
only NINE English clubs have ever qualified for/played in the Champions League.
Firstly, eleven English clubs have entered the Champions League at some stage. For comparison, twelve Italian clubs, and fourteen German and Spanish clubs have.
Secondly, of those eleven English clubs, ten have made the proper tournament. That’s the same number of Italian clubs that have made it through qualifying rounds, with thirteen Spanish and German clubs making it.
Getting a bit of déjà vu here, but if there’s a similar pattern in the other top leagues, what do Sky and the formation of the Premier League have to do with it?
In the first 12 years of it's existence, before foreign ownership, Manchester United and Arsenal won the title 11 times
In the last 12 years of Bundesliga, Bayern and Dortmund have shared 11 titles between them, with Bayern winning eight in a row, being on course for a ninth. In the last 12 years of Serie A, Juventus and Inter have shared 11 titles between them, with Juventus winning nine in a row, and Inter being on course to win this season. In the last 12 years of La Liga, Barcelona and Real Madrid have shared 11 titles between them.
The most titles won in a row in the Premier League is three, and in the last 12 years of the Premier League, we’ve had five different winners, and only one title retention.
You know the drill by now. Premier League, Sky, not a Spanish, Italian or German thing, competition?
So, what the Premier League and Sky Sports had created was a competition which is was basically only possible to win by investing huge sums of money, and since the clubs at the top earnt the most money, it created a positive feedback loop for those clubs
more money piled in from outside as the TV deals grew larger and larger and more foreign owners came into the league
Take your pick from any of the other addressed points to sort this one out. I’m not sure what foreign owners have to do with Sky or the formation of the Premier League, I’m not sure how investing money is a new phenomenon when it comes to building the best sports team, and I’m not sure how it’s specific to English football.
Teams with long established histories and large fanbases have fallen by the wayside (Derby, Nottingham Forest, Sunderland etc...) and are sat languishing in the lower divisions
Is this because of the Premier League, or because of the clubs being ran poorly?
Also, are you saying because they’re storied clubs with large fan-bases they should have a place in the Premier League? I thought your whole argument was that there were a set of clubs with guaranteed places in the league because they’re good and that is somehow unfair?
You finish it off talking about Sky and BT and TV packages and PPV games, which there's definitely a discussion to be had there, I just don't get what relation it has to any of the points made above.
Yep and now we've got this thing stopped we shouldn't stop here, truly challenge FIFA, Sky, UEFA etc and reclaim even more of the game we've lost. If people just now roll over and fade back into the background then the last few days was for nothing and they will have no right to complain when something like this happens again.
If Neville just goes back to taking a nice wage from sky like a good little boy then I don't want to hear another (football based) moral crusade from him ever again.
Ok, so I didn’t make it to the last paragraph. There were a lot of paragraphs, to be fair!
Generally agree with what you’re saying there. It would be good to fix this. Although I’ve no idea how. We’re definitely being charged way too much money to watch and attend games.
I’m less fussed about fairness than you. I’ve accepted that I support a second tier club who can’t possibly compete on an even footing with Chelsea/City’s finances. That’s ok though. It’s basically what every fan of every other club put up with when United were dominating the first decade of the premier league. What goes around comes around. And it didn’t stop Leicester and Liverpool having seasons their fans will tell their grandkids about. Hopefully we can do the same some day. I still enjoy watching us regardless. It hasn’t spoilt football for me as much as it seems to have done for you.
I have already responded to those statistics and highlighted my fear that these numbers will get worse.
You mention how Everton nearly got relegated in 2004. Is this Everton ever likely to get relegated? The Everton that can turn down an £80m offer for a player and spend £50m on Gylfi Sigurdsson?
If the Premier League remains on it’s current trajectory, let’s look back in five years and see how many of the teams in the PL in 2015/16 are still there in 2025
Remember, you can criticise some of the individual points but these aren’t PHD thesis (although some posters analyse them as if they are!) - I imagine like most posters I bash this stuff out in five minutes in between doing other things. I don’t think the odd mistake here or there undermines the wider point that is being made. Which I will repeat...
Sky and the PL have shown NO consideration for fans until their position came under threat. Then it was supposedly all about fairness and protecting fans. Bollocks. It’s about protecting THEM.
IF we don’t appreciate that, and we believe we have now “won” this fight, we’ll sleepwalk into many of the same issues.
On the current trajectory, we will have a football pyramid whereby you need a billionaire investor to win a trophy and the same 14/15 teams compete in the PL each year (all owned by billionaires).
Do you agree with the general conclusions being made?
Who do you support, out of interest?
For what it is worth, it hasn’t necessarily spoilt football for me, I had just given up and accepted it for what it has become. I can still enjoy watching games on TV and I am actually delighted with how my team (United) are doing on the pitch.
Very much like Gary Neville in the post recently doing the rounds on Twitter, I initially rallied against the Glazers at Utd and then gave up and just tolerated them whilst they remained in the background.
What I would like to see is this acting as a wake-up call to all fans to keep going and pushing for more legislation to increase competition in the game and to put fans first.
I support Manchester United.
I was exactly like you with the Glazers. Initial disbelief and fury but am resigned to it now. But this ESL move really fecked me off. Although not because I necessarily saw it as a bad thing for United.
Why are you lying? There are nine clubs that won the old first division in its last 28 seasons. They are:
Leeds United
Arsenal
Liverpool
Everton
Aston Villa
Nottingham Forest
Derby County
Manchester City
Manchester United
I take your general point that the difference between 7 and 9 is not that great however.
It seems like your general point is that money is ruining football. Yeah, sure, I agree with that. Ever increasing transfer fees and wages can't be a good thing long term, and as you've said it's creating a gap between the teams at the top and those below them.
I'm not sure I agree with the idea presented in your OP that Sky and the formation of the Premier League caused this. Football is a global game, and increasingly so. It's also a sport with incredible global interest commercially, and again, that's increasing.
I think the point being made by Pogue, and by me, is that you write an awful lot of words to ultimately say "too much money bad".
You spent the entire OP (and are still) highlighting Sky and the Premier League as if they are the causes of this, and I just really don't believe it to be true. Complicit? Yeah, I guess. The cause? Well, no. We've seen all of the phenomena you've highlighted occur across Europe, as I've pointed out. I imagine a deeper dive will show it to be true across other nations in other continents, and likely across other sports too. You brush your points regarding all of this off as "the odd mistake" but it was the bulk and foundation of your post.
So yeah, too much money in the sport, Sky and the Premier League definitely happy to go along with the gravy train until their bottom line was threatened, but ultimately, nothing new, and not exclusive to Sky and the Premier League.
It seems to work well for Bayern Munich?
@Alex99
I don't intend to labour the point but I just did a bit of research on the disparity in TV revenue paid to Premier League clubs compared with Championship clubs.
According to PlanetFootball, Norwich earnt £94.5m for playing in the Premier League in the 2018/19 season. The season beforehand, in the Championship, they earnt £7m. I have chosen Norwich because they finished bottom of the PL table (so earnt the least) but finished top of the Championship table (so earnt the most) and are good for direct comparison purposes because they yo-yo between the two leagues. The teams at the top of the Premier League earn about £125m+ from domestic TV deals. That is before you take into account additional revenue they earn from commercial endeavours, European competitions, sponsorships, ticket sales etc....
Now, I haven't got the statistics to hand to compare how these numbers have changed over the years. I COULD be totally wrong, but I would suspect that that gap has widened significantly with each new Premier League TV deal.
I repeat my earlier point(s) - the Premier League is not a 'closed shop'. I haven't ever claimed that. I would say it's currently a halfway house between 'closed shop' and 'level-playing field', with the danger being we're sliding closer and closer to that 'closed shop' as more and more money flows in at the top.
My worry is that if we do nothing and continue down the current path, teams who earn 20x what Championship teams earn in domestic TV money alone, will pull so far clear of the rest it will be, to all intents a purposes, a 'closed shop' i.e. even if the rules don't necessarily guarantee teams a place in the league, their comparative spending power will do.
Going back to Derby, Forest, Sunderland, Birmingham, Sheffield Wednesday etc...yes they have been mismanaged...but why? The answer is because their owners have chased the riches on offer in the PL and ended up in financial peril. What would you do in that situation? You're earning £5m p/a in the Championship but you know promotion is worth about £100m a year...of course some clubs are going to go for bust. Unfortunately the people who suffer are the employees and the fans.
It's just not right and this is a DIRECT consequence of the Premier League breaking away from the Football League, encouraged and funded by Sky. That makes them hypocrites in my book.
EDIT: I have just read your response above and yes I do write a fair number of words but this is a forum in my defence. You need people to post opinions to be shot at, otherwise the quality of discussion is very poor. I am happy to put my opinions out there, yeah I could probably spend more time researching and writing them but I'm not a sports journalist, I'm an IT Salesman who should be doing his day job right now
I don't intend to labour the point but I just did a bit of research on the disparity in TV revenue paid to Premier League clubs compared with Championship clubs.
According to PlanetFootball, Norwich earnt £94.5m for playing in the Premier League in the 2018/19 season. The season beforehand, in the Championship, they earnt £7m. I have chosen Norwich because they finished bottom of the PL table (so earnt the least) but finished top of the Championship table (so earnt the most) and are good for direct comparison purposes because they yo-yo between the two leagues. The teams at the top of the Premier League earn about £125m+ from domestic TV deals. That is before you take into account additional revenue they earn from commercial endeavours, European competitions, sponsorships, ticket sales etc....
Now, I haven't got the statistics to hand to compare how these numbers have changed over the years. I COULD be totally wrong, but I would suspect that that gap has widened significantly with each new Premier League TV deal.
I repeat my earlier point(s) - the Premier League is not a 'closed shop'. I haven't ever claimed that. I would say it's currently a halfway house between 'closed shop' and 'level-playing field', with the danger being we're sliding closer and closer to that 'closed shop' as more and more money flows in at the top.
My worry is that if we do nothing and continue down the current path, teams who earn 20x what Championship teams earn in domestic TV money alone, will pull so far clear of the rest it will be, to all intents a purposes, a 'closed shop' i.e. even if the rules don't necessarily guarantee teams a place in the league, their comparative spending power will do.
Going back to Derby, Forest, Sunderland, Birmingham, Sheffield Wednesday etc...yes they have been mismanaged...but why? The answer is because their owners have chased the riches on offer in the PL and ended up in financial peril. What would you do in that situation? You're earning £5m p/a in the Championship but you know promotion is worth about £100m a year...of course some clubs are going to go for bust. Unfortunately the people who suffer are the employees and the fans.
It's just not right and this is a DIRECT consequence of the Premier League breaking away from the Football League, encouraged and funded by Sky. That makes them hypocrites in my book.
EDIT: I have just read your response above and yes I do write a fair number of words but this is a forum in my defence. You need people to post opinions to be shot at, otherwise the quality of discussion is very poor. I am happy to put my opinions out there, yeah I could probably spend more time researching and writing them but I'm not a sports journalist, I'm an IT Salesman who should be doing his day job right now
‘Too much money ruining football’ is the simplistic way of looking at it, but I think it’s a bit more complicated than that.
The ESL debacle was the consequence of the clash between football being about clubs still rooted in communities where they have existed for 100+ years, and the EPL and CL being products worth billions because of their global reach.
The only possible way of squaring that circle is through meaningful financial fair play rules, which would prevent billionaire-funded clubs from dominating forever. But UEFA have made it abundantly clear that they have absolutely no intention of enforcing FFP, which I believe resulted in the elite clubs taking the nuclear option of the ESL (for all the good it did them)
The ESL debacle was the consequence of the clash between football being about clubs still rooted in communities where they have existed for 100+ years, and the EPL and CL being products worth billions because of their global reach.
The only possible way of squaring that circle is through meaningful financial fair play rules, which would prevent billionaire-funded clubs from dominating forever. But UEFA have made it abundantly clear that they have absolutely no intention of enforcing FFP, which I believe resulted in the elite clubs taking the nuclear option of the ESL (for all the good it did them)
Nah I just can't count. (I went to 1970 for some reason)
I get your point, and I don't necessarily disagree with it. It's clear that something has gone wrong when the bottom team in the Premier League gets nearly £100 million but the team replacing them from the Championship gets less than £10 million.
However, I still think your points are confused. In one moment you're explaining the untold riches of the Premier League and how it means Premier League clubs will stay Premier League clubs, and in the next you're highlighting clubs that have fallen out of the Premier League and can't get back in. You're acknowledging that the likes of Sunderland and Birmingham have fallen out of the Premier League because of mismanagement, but then you're saying that the mismanagement is caused by them chasing a place in the Premier League, when it quite clearly can't be both.
I get your general point. I agree with your general point. Something does need to be done about the insane amounts of money flowing to those at the very top. Something does need to be done about TV companies and the amounts they charge fans to watch football. Despite all of this, I disagree with your conclusion that Sky and the Premier League are the direct cause of these problems, because they extend further than the reach of Sky and the Premier League, as evidenced by what we see in La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, and pretty much every other league in Europe.
What I should have done is be clearer about the fact I expect this to get worse. I suspect with every new TV deal signed, the problem is further exacerbated. I kind of touch on this by saying the 'new money' flooding into teams like Leicester, Wolves and City makes it unlikely these clubs will now ever get relegated again (having previously been yo-yo clubs) but yes granted I dedicate about one sentence to that and it's not really clear.
On the point about other leagues, I couldn't really comment, other than to say that perhaps they are also uncompetitive for similar reasons, even if it's not Sky who broadcast those games (I do know Sky hold the lion's share of rights to Serie A). Obviously the competitive nature of the French league is skewed by the oil money invested in PSG, I don't see that changing regardless of how TV revenue is divided.
You might be right with that, but all we can do is wait and see. Wolves already seem to be having a wobble, and even Arsenal are on the slide. There were times when the relegation of the likes of Leeds, Newcastle and Villa would have seemed impossible, and yet that happened.
As I said, I agree with your general point that the money in the game, particularly how it flows very much to those at the top, is a problem, as is the way TV companies seem to have free reign to charge whatever they want for even the most uninteresting of matches.
I think Gary Neville is a fan who cares and makes money, I believe Roman Abramovich is a fan who cares about Chelsea and also has ulterior motives for investing in the club, I think Marcus Rashford and Juan Mata to a degree are fans of United,care about the club, care about society and the fans and also make millions of pounds doing it. Even us fans have our own different motives, no one are impartial in this. Fans of Leyton Orient and Accrington Stanley rightfully scoff at us fans of Man Utd and Chelsea proclaiming our woe to the world. Will we be sitting outside Stamford Bridge or wear green and gold until the PL is dissolved and there is a salary cap making Northampton competitive again, without rich sponsors? Doubtfully - but it would be cool!
Feel free to have a read I've attached below, If you don't have access to the athletic, I've attached a quote. Plenty of similar articles in recent days echoing my exact sentiments about the pay gap and the hypocrisy of it all.
The big 6 in England isn't based on just their current success, its based on their historical success also.
Spurs recent bump in progress under Poch saw them get into that bracket, yet they still haven't won a tin pot never mind a league or champions league.
Arsenal have an FA Cup or two in recent years and no league title in best part of twenty years.
Liverpool have a single league title in 30 years for god sake
As much as we've faltered in recent times, we are and never will be in trouble of finishing lower than the top half any time soon, nor will any of the traditional top 6 in reality. Why? Because of unfair funding and the pay gap with many other sides.
Is that not a closed door in essence?
https://theathletic.com/2531668/?so...z9ozkSdVinPJK5CzTu0Nh-6zS9spmzlxIpxcVzfDuTWzU
" At the same time, there is no getting away from the fact that the gulf between the first and second tier has widened alarmingly over the years, to the point that a club finishing bottom of the Premier League earns around £90 million more in television revenue than a Championship club that isn’t receiving parachute payments. Good luck with trying to get the top flight’s member clubs to vote to distribute the wealth in a way that would narrow that divide and reduce the risk of the sort of scenario that is unfolding this season, where two of the three relegated Premier League teams appear certain to go back up and the third, Bournemouth, may yet join them. "
Ceferin took a Euro 400,000 raise during the Covid pandemic year.
His salary is now Euro 1.9 million per year.
Ponder people ponder!
His salary is now Euro 1.9 million per year.
Ponder people ponder!
This really, it's not just souness either, you got the likes of keane and micah Richards saying united and city should just go and buy kane or haaland for 150 million, and these are the same guys blasting the esl as being nothing but pure greed. The media and fans have created this monster by setting these crazy demands on the clubs of having to spend 100 + million every summer for marquee signings that come with crazy wage fees on top of the transfer price.
People have been saying for a while that football financial bubble will eventually burst, well I think the proposed super league was the equivalent of that bubble bursting.
That’s very true. The influx of oil money has removed any possibility of remaining consistently competitive at the very top and running a sustainable business.
I’ve no idea how we put that genie back in the bottle but the Super League was a terrible idea, doomed to fail. Liverpool’s last two campaigns prove that it is possible to occasionally usurp the gulf state’s dominance. Maybe that’s what we have to settle for?
You cant take one season where the teams that got relegated and came back up and say its the norm, The Athletic after a decent start has became the same sensationalist BS it said it would stamp out. This the "PL is a closed shop" is rubbish, the proposed SL was actually going to pick and choose the teams that were in it, that's a closed shop.
Absolutely true.
UEFA, FIFA, Sky and the rest had only one objection to the ESL. It was taking the money out of their pockets and putting it somewhere else. They couldn't care less about the fans, they have been screwing us as hard as they possibly can for years.
It's why i supported the ESL. I didn't like the idea itself, but there has been no bigger blight on football than the Sky led consortium that brought us to this point. It needs breaking up in any way possible.
They're all over the ESL fallout now trying to paint themselves as the good guys in the hope we won't notice when they put their prices up yet again.
UEFA, FIFA, Sky and the rest had only one objection to the ESL. It was taking the money out of their pockets and putting it somewhere else. They couldn't care less about the fans, they have been screwing us as hard as they possibly can for years.
It's why i supported the ESL. I didn't like the idea itself, but there has been no bigger blight on football than the Sky led consortium that brought us to this point. It needs breaking up in any way possible.
They're all over the ESL fallout now trying to paint themselves as the good guys in the hope we won't notice when they put their prices up yet again.
If you do not spend your money wisely, then you will eventually go down or lose 'status'. Likewise if you do not have a big budget but you consistently spend wisely then with time, you will eventually supersede the teams with bigger budgets. If United have proven anything over the past 10 years, it is throwing money around if of itself does not buy success. You still need to show an element of 'skill' in using it.
The ESL did not reward skill in any shape or form.
There are some points well made in the OP and throughout the thread - the game certainly still needs reform' - but lets not kid ourselves and think Sky and the EPL have just been 'bad forces' for the game and equate them to what the ESL was about.
You're all over the place, mate. One minute the Premier League is a closed shop because "very few" of it's original members have even faced relegation, except 16 of the original 22 have been relegated, and three of the remaining six have certainly faced the threat of it at least once, then it was a closed shop because it's only had seven winners, but that's more than the other top European Leagues have had in that time, and now it's a closed shop because the 'big six' won't face finishing in the bottom half of the table, except that's also untrue. Arsenal are very much in danger of that this season for crying out loud. On top of that, Chelsea scraped 10th as recently as 2016.
You're then linking to an article about how the relegated clubs from last season are set to come back up, as if that's evidence of anything, and as if we haven't seen plenty of other examples of clubs dropping out of the PL and not making it back up (at least immediately). Sunderland when straight to League One the other year, Wolves did it a few years before, Wigan, Bolton, Blackburn and Blackpool have all ended up in League One a few seasons after being relegated from the PL, and plenty of other clubs (Huddersfield, Birmingham, Middlesbrough, etc.) have all faced relegation battles in the Championship not long after being relegated from the PL.
I don't disagree with the notion that the financial gap between the PL and lower divisions is something that perhaps needs looking at, but I just can't buy into the idea that the Premier League is a closed shop whatsoever. It's the most competitive league (at least top division) in Europe, and there's absolutely no way English football would be at the level it is without Sky and the formation of the Premier League, regardless of their flaws.
You've made your mind up that it's a closed shop and are just constantly shifting your evidence for it to suit.
I don't think the change to the Premier League actually made all that much difference. Football would have exploded in popularity either way, and the same clubs that became financially dominant would still do so.
Manchester United would have still gathered the biggest fan base due to its success in the 90s. It was just well-timed that the change etc. aligned with football's growth in popularity. What was essentially a rebranding to the Premier League didn't do that.
I actually think the change was harmless, and nothing like the ESL. The Premier League remained a domestic league, continues even payments, and allows relegation.
The ESL, on the other hand, would have ended up destroying domestic leagues and cut the funding of lower clubs. It would have damaged youth football funding, also. I wouldn't say it was comparable at all.
The costs are too high, though. But again, this actually has nothing to do with the change to the Premier League. This would actually happen with any TV outlet, and would have happened with the Football League.
You are never going to be able to overcome the financial gap between clubs. The only way you could do that is by forcing a quota on the number of fans a club can have. Sponsorship is one of the biggest revenues, and this entirely based on club popularity.
Manchester United would have still gathered the biggest fan base due to its success in the 90s. It was just well-timed that the change etc. aligned with football's growth in popularity. What was essentially a rebranding to the Premier League didn't do that.
I actually think the change was harmless, and nothing like the ESL. The Premier League remained a domestic league, continues even payments, and allows relegation.
The ESL, on the other hand, would have ended up destroying domestic leagues and cut the funding of lower clubs. It would have damaged youth football funding, also. I wouldn't say it was comparable at all.
The costs are too high, though. But again, this actually has nothing to do with the change to the Premier League. This would actually happen with any TV outlet, and would have happened with the Football League.
You are never going to be able to overcome the financial gap between clubs. The only way you could do that is by forcing a quota on the number of fans a club can have. Sponsorship is one of the biggest revenues, and this entirely based on club popularity.
It made a massive difference, together with the Sky money.
Please take some time and do some research you would realise how it changed the English football fundamentally . Only thing different from ESL was relegation and promotion which admittedly is massive but everything else was driven by same principles.
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I've explained myself, don't know how else I can assist other than have John Barnes echo my sentiments also. He's spitting truth bombs on talk sport yesterday.
The relegated clubs bouncing right back is absolute concrete evidence of a gap. I've explained to you very, very simply.
A relegated club from the premier league has what is termed a "parachute payment". Essentially for being relegated they are given a safety net. The safety net is a ridiculous sum of money no other championship side (unless they've recently been in the PL themselves) can compete with.
Again.... even since I last posted the Championship table now shows that the top 3 teams are all sides only relegated last season...Norwich (already promoted), Watford (2nd, promotion nearly certain) and Bournemouth (3rd, play off).
The year prior, Cardiff & Fulham were relegated and finished 5th / 4th respectively. Leeds & WBA were the top two with WBA... guess what, only relegated the year prior.
No doubt if I did this every year for the last 8-10 years at least, it'd be a similar story.
To add further to this, how often do these "Yo-Yo" clubs manage to stay up in the PL say over a 5 year period? Very few to my mind. Most manage a year, perhaps 2...3 if they are lucky and things fall apart again to drop back down again.
The change to 20 PL sides compounded this ritual or rinse / repeat of teams.
I appreciate the premier has shown itself to be marginally more competitive compared to Spain (where Real and Barca have unfair share of tv revenue vs other 18 sides) & Germany with Bayern winning 8 titles on the bounce (due to the fact they also receive unbalanced funding due to their historical success, added to that they've funding from Audi, Addidas and Allianz with again majority of their rivals not being able to match) it's still closed off to the vast majority of Englands clubs and that's down to the Sky TV deal in 1992 and the gap only widened in the years and decisions that followed.
Alright, fair enough. I didn't really think about the TV rights being separate for the Premier League, so that would have a bearing on the lower divisions, at least. I'm not sure what the financial rules were like in the old Division One; too young to remember it and I can't find any good list of differences on Google, yet. But would it have actually been able to stop what became the big club's dominance?
Would it have been able to stop club sponsorship becoming such a massive revenue stream for the big clubs (supposedly, the first was in 1980s according to Google)? I think that is the biggest change as it has really switched it away from tickets etc. If they couldn't, I don't actually see how it would have been any different than today.
But this point itself is all over the place.
In the 29 seasons before the Premier League was founded, 42 different clubs were relegated from the top flight, and 44 different clubs promoted to it. In the 28 seasons of the Premier League prior to this one, 42 different clubs have been relegated from it, and 39 promoted to it. If it was a closed shop, as you say it is, you'd expect the PL numbers to be far, far lower than the older numbers, but they're almost identical.
In fact, the numbers run so close that in the 29 seasons before the PL was founded, 32% of relegations from the top flight were suffered by just 17% of all of the teams relegated from it, and in the 28 years of the PL, 32% of relegations from the top flight were suffered by, wait for it, 17% of the teams relegated from it!
The average length of time spent outside of the top flight by promoted teams in the 29 seasons before the PL was 8 seasons. The average time spent outside of the top flight by promoted teams in the 28 years since the PL was founded is 9 seasons. 49% of teams relegated from the top flight in the 29 years before the PL was founded returned within 5 seasons. That number is still only 55% since the PL was founded.
Aston Villa spent 24 consecutive years in the Premier League (28 in the top flight), and were still relegated). Newcastle spent 16 years in it and Fulham 13 and were still relegated. Southampton had 12 years in it (27 in the top flight) and were relegated. It's a similar story with Coventry, 34 consecutive years in the top flight, nine of which were PL seasons, yet they were relegated and have never returned.
Leeds were relegated after 14 seasons in the top flight, 11 of which were PL seasons, in that time winning the title (last season pre-PL), being European regulars, even reaching a CL semi, and it took them 16 years to get back.
Blackburn, Bolton and Middlesbrough were all relegated after spending 11 years in the PL. Stoke, Sunderland and West Ham relegated after 10 seasons.
If the PL money and the parachute money is so good that it's created a closed shop of clubs, why are the numbers for promotion and relegation pre and post PL formation so similar?
21 different clubs have been relegated from the PL despite spending 6 or more consecutive seasons in it. This number is 25 if you count top flight seasons before the PL was founded.
The very fact you're waving Bournemouth around as an example of the PL being a closed shop is just laughable. Their promotion to the PL was their first ever promotion to the top flight, and that happened in 2015!
One coincidental season in which the three relegated clubs might be immediately promoted and a rant by John Barnes is proof of nothing.
Quite simply put, the PL is not a closed shop.
This talk about the number of champions in each league just makes depressed about the portuguese league. We've had 5 winners since the league started about 90 years ago. And considering that of those 5, Boavista and Belenenses only won it once, then yeah, depressing as feck...
That's why I would be delighted with some sort of european league that removed the big 3 from our national league.
That's why I would be delighted with some sort of european league that removed the big 3 from our national league.
Did Sky give hell to the other 6 clubs in Spain and Italy about this? I know Sky like to never acknowledge any form of football they don’t have the rights to show, or even acknowledge English football earlier than August 1992. It wouldn’t surprise me if the thought of financially kneecapping the Spanish and Italian teams crossed their mind to boost the English game.
Is this the place where all the hidden ESL fans can give excuses to justify the greediness from the 12 club owners?
No, it's a thread where I feel we highlight legitimate concerns about Sky now talking about how "we" have won, as if this is the end of it.
Football needs reform, and not on the PL or Sky's terms
This.
This thread is just another way of saying football is getting more and more commercial as the days go by.
These days, supporting a big club feels like watching a hamster race. You cheer your hamster because it's yours, but in truth you know they're all the same.
Several layers of plastic.
These days, supporting a big club feels like watching a hamster race. You cheer your hamster because it's yours, but in truth you know they're all the same.
Several layers of plastic.