Parky

Since 2001 bar us twice and Everton once no other team other than the 'the big 4' have qualifyied for the CL. Good point. And the sad thing is that when Everton qualified, Liverpool still got in as well. The only way out of this is limiting to 3 foreign players and getting rid of the group stage - which is only there as insurance that one of the top clubs doesn't get upset.

Since 2001 bar us twice and Everton once no other team other than the 'the big 4' have qualifyied for the CL.

The point is that is the nature of the competition - generating too much money for too few clubs, making a nonesense of domestic competition bar 4 clubs?

We could do with some of that.

You're slipping Dave.

They're getting in the way of my 'serious' threads I tell you!! blueyes.gif

2 isn't it? 3 mong.

Can someone merge all these fucking new kit threads?

Sorry Indi but that's fantasy land stuff.

Perhaps all PL clubs should have a basic wage budget that they all have to stick to. Another way of levelling the playing field perhaps.

I have also been tinkering with the idea of a two legged play off between 4th and 5th.

What's the answer though? A Super Euro League of sorts? Reduce the size of the CL? Revenue sharing? Something needs to be done, that's for sure. Buying power would be severely curtailed if THE THREE FOREIGN PLAYERS RULE was brought back in. That would be my first step. My second suggestion would be that the PLAYER has to stay with the club that developed him till he was 23. That would cut out a lot of this snaffling up young talent.

Do you now?

So? No one on this message board is a professional footballer but I don't see how that stops us from having opinions Newcastle players. We don't run multi-million pound businesses so we can't comment. Ridiculous? You said it. Koven and his Amazon analogy...

It now seems year in year out those 'big 4' clubs (we used to be in there once) have got a stranglehold on the CL places. The continued momentum of rollover qualification is widening their financial muscle as compared to the rest of the Premier League. Clubs like Man U have netted £100m or so over the last 8/10 years of the competition and in other countries Bayern Munich have netter £116m over the last decade and this is just the TV money, another £15-20m can be added over this period for bigger sponsorship and branding deals. If the now fast becoming obvious second tier of the PL clubs like Everton (one qualification in recent times), Newcastle, Spurs and perhaps recently Bolton cannot get into the top 4 the fianancial gap and abitlity to compete for players widens....Is it becoming truer now more than ever that only 4 sides have the chance of winning the Premier League?

Are you a professional footballer? No? In that case please refrain from commenting on whether anyone was ever 'rubbish' etc. He is wrong, I run a business of 70 million sterling. yeah but I bet its not a football club, so you still aren't allowed to comment Meh, I'm the only one on here qualified to comment on football club finances. But I cant be bothere most of the time Well stop winding us up with your supposed knowledge and do one.

Good point. Also I think the clubs who have managed to stay on the CL train have secured huge financial advantages over the rest of us. It is almost a story of how the CL has destroyed the competitive nature of the national game.

The thing is Alex dividends are a good thing, but imo we have regularly paid too high dividends. This has stopped recently as FS and to his credit can't justify dividends due to poor financial performance. The summer of 2003 is where it is at yes. Wasn't it the summer of 69? Wat it Bobby Joe or Mary Sue?

The thing is Alex dividends are a good thing, but imo we have regularly paid too high dividends. This has stopped recently as FS and to his credit can't justify dividends due to poor financial performance. The summer of 2003 is where it is at yes.

Filthy bugger!

NE5 and HTL ?! Never seen them accused of that before

Just remind me are these the same angels who undermined and then sacked SBR?

Too many variables coach it's making me heed spin.

Yeah, cos speculate to accumulate doesn't apply to any other industry apart from online bookstores... What an incredibly naive outlook on business. Mate, there are fundamentals in business that apply to almost all sectors. Hence why there is books about business in general and not "a book on how to run an online bookstore". Why don't you tell me about those fundamentals from your books, I'm all ears. I don't understand. What do you think they teach in business school? On on business degrees? There are general business practices that apply to nearly all businesses. One being you can't not spend money and expect to be successful. Is it a coincidence that the most financially successful football clubs are also the most successful? People are reading way too much into the Amazon thing. The point was that Amazon spent millions of pounds even when they were making a loss because they were confident in their business model that that investment would pay off. Arguably, the football industry is a lot safer. Amazon were on unknown territory with similar dot.com businesses failing every day. It's no secret in the football business than if you spend money, wisely, on good players you will be more successful in the league. Chelsea is an extreme example of this. And with that success comes a lot more money. Quoting Amazon's turnover and profit is neither here nor there because that isn't the comparison I was making. NUFC is stuck in Newcastle and has a limit on it's success. Amazon has the whole world as a market. We don't. Yes that's what I meant by 'blue sky business'. See you learn summat everyday.

Yeah, cos speculate to accumulate doesn't apply to any other industry apart from online bookstores... What an incredibly naive outlook on business. Mate, there are fundamentals in business that apply to almost all sectors. Hence why there is books about business in general and not "a book on how to run an online bookstore". There are dozens of links to the 'amazon model'...I do take your broader point. Altough where the analogy fails for me is that football isn't in real terms a blue sky business...Newcastle will never be worth a billion pounds regardless of brand development. Football in the last decade has grown in financial terms PRIMARILY due to TV money. You're not comparing us to this surely: Financials Sales: $10.71 bil Profits: $190.00 mil Assets: $4.36 bil Employees: 13,900