Money Money Money

[wor jackie]

Right, just wanted to see if anyone was similar to me in their views that IF Chelsea were to sign Kaka for 70million and Robinho for 30million, would it make you sick of football in this league? I would never stop loving and watching Newcastle United fanatically but it kind of gets like feeling what's the point? Yes we are nowhere near to catching the top four but it is the fact that if we were to ever do so again, we will have to spend near 100million ourselves and it just gets to the point where it all seems hopeless.

  Even in 2000 when we finished 11th, next year we bought Robert and Bellamy and finished 4th. That just won't happen now due to the huge amounts of money going into the top four continually so their squads are unrivalled. I'm just personally fed up of it all, although it may just be frustration as we haven't done much in the market yet!

[Guest Gh0StFaC3]

Just means you have to set your supporting goals differently.. back in the early naughties, I used to urge the club on, to go forth & possibly win the league!

These days, it's more a case of pushing to get 5th spot.  Still as exciting watching the team play like, just an absence of trophies on offer at the end of the season!

[merlin]

Right, just wanted to see if anyone was similar to me in their views that IF Chelsea were to sign Kaka for 70million and Robinho for 30million, would it make you sick of football in this league? I would never stop loving and watching Newcastle United fanatically but it kind of gets like feeling what's the point? Yes we are nowhere near to catching the top four but it is the fact that if we were to ever do so again, we will have to spend near 100million ourselves and it just gets to the point where it all seems hopeless.

  Even in 2000 when we finished 11th, next year we bought Robert and Bellamy and finished 4th. That just won't happen now due to the huge amounts of money going into the top four continually so their squads are unrivalled. I'm just personally fed up of it all, although it may just be frustration as we haven't done much in the market yet!

 

Already sick of it, but , as was discussed on a different thread, I think the forthcoming economic downturn will solve some of the problems - the Top 4 will continue to prosper, but as other clubs begin to feel the pinch(AND the Sky money will dry up if people cannot afford the subs- this is one area I expect to be the FIRST to be sacrificed when budgets get really tight),they will have no competition and the attraction of the EPL will start to fade for fans ; no-one wants to watch a competition where the results are already certain before it starts.

[Guest nufc_geordie]

The way the league is now you have to improve in very small iterations. As much as people don't like to hear it any positional improvement (or points improvement) on last season will be a good result. As long as that positive differential is continued then I would argue that the club is being handled in the correct manner. If the final league position (points tally) is lower at the end of the season then something has gone wrong. Once the team has climbed as high as fifth (five six years down the line), then a major cash boost is required to break into the top four. This would be a sound strategy in my mind.

[Guest MaetihS]

Right, just wanted to see if anyone was similar to me in their views that IF Chelsea were to sign Kaka for 70million and Robinho for 30million, would it make you sick of football in this league? I would never stop loving and watching Newcastle United fanatically but it kind of gets like feeling what's the point? Yes we are nowhere near to catching the top four but it is the fact that if we were to ever do so again, we will have to spend near 100million ourselves and it just gets to the point where it all seems hopeless.

   Even in 2000 when we finished 11th, next year we bought Robert and Bellamy and finished 4th. That just won't happen now due to the huge amounts of money going into the top four continually so their squads are unrivalled. I'm just personally fed up of it all, although it may just be frustration as we haven't done much in the market yet!

 

Why sick? How i wish we are in Chelsea's shoes! They can afford it so that's their business. Instead of being sick, i would applaud their ambitions as finishing second to them makes their players, fans and owner sick. Remember we used to be big spenders last time round, that does not make me sick one bit but if it makes the other fans sick, thats their bloody business.

[Guest MaetihS]

Like in other commercial driven team sports and other businesses, its the survival of the fittest climate; only the one with the most resources(money,intelligence, network etc) and , determination, spirit and ambition stand out. as it stands now, we lack in most of these factors maybe only our fanbase in terms of resources.

[Elbel1]

Right, just wanted to see if anyone was similar to me in their views that IF Chelsea were to sign Kaka for 70million and Robinho for 30million, would it make you sick of football in this league? I would never stop loving and watching Newcastle United fanatically but it kind of gets like feeling what's the point? Yes we are nowhere near to catching the top four but it is the fact that if we were to ever do so again, we will have to spend near 100million ourselves and it just gets to the point where it all seems hopeless.

   Even in 2000 when we finished 11th, next year we bought Robert and Bellamy and finished 4th. That just won't happen now due to the huge amounts of money going into the top four continually so their squads are unrivalled. I'm just personally fed up of it all, although it may just be frustration as we haven't done much in the market yet!

 

The last few years the Premier league has become a predictable shadow of its former self

It has become a procession similar to Formula one where you know before hand which teams will finish on the podium

 

It is only a matter of time before fans become disillusioned with how the game, as a whole, is developing and turn their backs on it en masse

 

 

[SEMTEX]

I think its just a slower process for us, getting as much young cheap talent in as we can - selling some, keeping some... Until we work our way up the league, make a few quid in Europe etc etc. And then get a massive massive chunk of luck. I don't think Roman spending £150million guarantees him anything above Man Utd/Arsenal/Liverpool.

[Cronky]

I don't mind clubs spending money, but it really should be money that they've generated for themselves. Whether that's through commercial activities, gate money or TV doesn't matter. If clubs are all self-financing, it ensures that there's some scope for competition, even if you don't have complete equality. When you get a mega-rich billionaire who's prepared to dip into what is effectively a bottomless pit of money from outside the game, it distorts the whole picture and only inflates transfer fees and wages to a dangerous degree.

 

I know Ashley has pumped in some money, but it was to clear a debt and safeguard his original investment. He's quite right to insist that, hereon in, the club should only spend from its income.

[midds]

I don't mind clubs spending money, but it really should be money that they've generated for themselves. Whether that's through commercial activities, gate money or TV doesn't matter. If clubs are all self-financing, it ensures that there's some scope for competition, even if you don't have complete equality. When you get a mega-rich billionaire who's prepared to dip into what is effectively a bottomless pit of money from outside the game, it distorts the whole picture and only inflates transfer fees and wages to a dangerous degree.

 

I know Ashley has pumped in some money, but it was to clear a debt and safeguard his original investment. He's quite right to insist that, hereon in, the club should only spend from its income.

 

I hear what you're saying but what if the Premier League top 10 are all run/owned by billionaires? Wouldn't that even things out a bit? 

[Wullie]

I don't mind clubs spending money, but it really should be money that they've generated for themselves. Whether that's through commercial activities, gate money or TV doesn't matter. If clubs are all self-financing, it ensures that there's some scope for competition, even if you don't have complete equality. When you get a mega-rich billionaire who's prepared to dip into what is effectively a bottomless pit of money from outside the game, it distorts the whole picture and only inflates transfer fees and wages to a dangerous degree.

 

I know Ashley has pumped in some money, but it was to clear a debt and safeguard his original investment. He's quite right to insist that, hereon in, the club should only spend from its income.

 

Well put.

 

I'm always annoyed when people say "Yeah Chelsea have spent loads but so have Man Utd" when Man Utd have earned it by being absolutely fucking brilliant for the past 15 years on account of their incredible manager and the youths they brought through in the 90s, not by being the fashionable choice for Abramovich's toy.

[relámpago blanco]

I don't mind clubs spending money, but it really should be money that they've generated for themselves. Whether that's through commercial activities, gate money or TV doesn't matter. If clubs are all self-financing, it ensures that there's some scope for competition, even if you don't have complete equality. When you get a mega-rich billionaire who's prepared to dip into what is effectively a bottomless pit of money from outside the game, it distorts the whole picture and only inflates transfer fees and wages to a dangerous degree.

 

I know Ashley has pumped in some money, but it was to clear a debt and safeguard his original investment. He's quite right to insist that, hereon in, the club should only spend from its income.

 

I hear what you're saying but what if the Premier League top 10 are all run/owned by billionaires? Wouldn't that even things out a bit? 

They pretty much are anyway or at least will be soon.  Say us and Spurs break into the top 10 this year you'll have;

 

Toon

West Ham

Spurs

Man U

Liverpool

Villa

Chelski

Man City

[kingkerouac]

The Chelsea situation has to be resolved. I mean the fact is they are owned by an apparent 'criminal'.

Now, the Premier League must take action. There should at least be an attempt to look at his background, finances etc.

When he took over, I remember people saying 'it'll be good for the Premiership".

Well, is it? I happen to think it's turned the Premiership into the SPL.

And we all used to laugh at the ridiculousness of that didn't we.

I think that when it was Arsenal & Manure who were the two to beat it was more exciting. But with Chelsea in the fray it just seems like...cheating.

[Yorkie]

I don't think you should be allowed to spend that sort of money to be totally honest.

 

I know, i know, it's their own gain - they've not done anything wrong, but it's an unfair advantage as far as i'm concerned. And given that the 'majority' of the Premier League have private ownership, a la Chelsea, then all clubs are on a level playing field in terms of where their money has come from. If that makes any sense.

 

They won't all have had generated money for themselves, but they will all have had injections. So there's balance and a budget cap, for eg, would be legitimate.

 

I'm finding this really difficult to explain.

[afar]

TBH it wouldn't make me sick at all, Love to see a player of Kaka's quality in the PL.

 

Fact of the matter is we are not competing on the same level as Chelsea, so who they sign is really immaterial to us.

 

Things in football are always evolving, at the moment we are light years away from the top 4 but that doesn't necessarily mean we'll stay that way, even if the likes of Chelsea spend 100 mill on 2 players.

 

The top 4 will change in time, it's hard to see that right now but teams drift in and out of that top group from time to time as we did recently. We are fortunate to not be like Spain, Scotland, Holland or Italy where the top clubs just won't change. That's more to do with the fact that our local populations in England are far more loyal to their local clubs than they are in these other countries.

 

IMO, enjoy watching the best leauge in the world, if NUFC were one of the big spenders and successful clubs I think people wouldn't have too many issues with this.

 

We are not going back in times to the day when it was just a game and players had second jobs down the mine. If you want those times back, go watch non league football, it's a much more "pure" form of the game without the commercialism. Personally I prefer the "glamour", the quality in the PL is the highest and that's great to see. 

 

It's big business now and be thankful that our league is the envy of the rest of the footballing world. I have no problem with the way it's evolved, yes the money players get paid is gross but that doesn't really effect me personally too much and it gives kids from all walks of life a dream of huge financial rewards for playing the game they love. Good luck to anyone fortunate enough to have the footballing ability, I sure wish I did.

[Yorkie]

I don't mind clubs spending money, but it really should be money that they've generated for themselves. Whether that's through commercial activities, gate money or TV doesn't matter. If clubs are all self-financing, it ensures that there's some scope for competition, even if you don't have complete equality. When you get a mega-rich billionaire who's prepared to dip into what is effectively a bottomless pit of money from outside the game, it distorts the whole picture and only inflates transfer fees and wages to a dangerous degree.

 

I know Ashley has pumped in some money, but it was to clear a debt and safeguard his original investment. He's quite right to insist that, hereon in, the club should only spend from its income.

 

Well put.

 

I'm always annoyed when people say "Yeah Chelsea have spent loads but so have Man Utd" when Man Utd have earned it by being absolutely fucking brilliant for the past 15 years on account of their incredible manager and the youths they brought through in the 90s, not by being the fashionable choice for Abramovich's toy.

 

Yeah, absolutely Bob. Feel the same thing as you re: Chelsea/everyone else, too Wullie.

[sparta]

The Chelsea situation has to be resolved. I mean the fact is they are owned by an apparent 'criminal'.

Now, the Premier League must take action. There should at least be an attempt to look at his background, finances etc.

When he took over, I remember people saying 'it'll be good for the Premiership".

Well, is it? I happen to think it's turned the Premiership into the SPL.

And we all used to laugh at the ridiculousness of that didn't we.

I think that when it was Arsenal & Manure who were the two to beat it was more exciting. But with Chelsea in the fray it just seems like...cheating.

 

thaksin alleged "criminal" as well?

[Teasy]

Right, just wanted to see if anyone was similar to me in their views that IF Chelsea were to sign Kaka for 70million and Robinho for 30million, would it make you sick of football in this league? I would never stop loving and watching Newcastle United fanatically but it kind of gets like feeling what's the point? Yes we are nowhere near to catching the top four but it is the fact that if we were to ever do so again, we will have to spend near 100million ourselves and it just gets to the point where it all seems hopeless.

   Even in 2000 when we finished 11th, next year we bought Robert and Bellamy and finished 4th. That just won't happen now due to the huge amounts of money going into the top four continually so their squads are unrivalled. I'm just personally fed up of it all, although it may just be frustration as we haven't done much in the market yet!

 

Why sick? How i wish we are in Chelsea's shoes! They can afford it so that's their business. Instead of being sick, i would applaud their ambitions as finishing second to them makes their players, fans and owner sick. Remember we used to be big spenders last time round, that does not make me sick one bit but if it makes the other fans sick, thats their bloody business.

 

No they can't afford it, their owner can afford it, but as a club they should be bankrupt 10 times over by now..  I've got no problem with the idea of survival of the fittest.  But to me that means the club itself, not sugar daddy owners who right off half a billions pounds for a laugh to see if they can make a certain team the best around.  Its no different to athletes taking steroids IMO...

 

You can't compare Chelsea to us either, we spent big but we spent what we as a club could afford and anything more became debt that the club then had to deal with.  If we went too far we'd be f***ed.  Chelsea have spent more money in the last 4 or 5 seasons then probably every other club combined, and if they need to spend more then they can do so at no risk because the money's just being written off, its completely anti competitive.

[Yorkie]

TBH it wouldn't make me sick at all, Love to see a player of Kaka's quality in the PL.

 

Fact of the matter is we are not competing on the same level as Chelsea, so who they sign is really immaterial to us.

 

 

How can you say that, when the very reason we're not in direct competition with them, is because they've signed those players (ie, spent that money).

 

(Alright - i'm being hypothetical - i know we've bombed anyway since the pre-Roman Sir Bobby days. But the point is Chelsea could have bombed too without the cash...)

[Teasy]

They would have had to, they were bankrupt before Abramovich came in.

[Guest quklaani]

The Chelsea situation has to be resolved. I mean the fact is they are owned by an apparent 'criminal'.

Now, the Premier League must take action. There should at least be an attempt to look at his background, finances etc.

 

As if that'll ever happen, the league didn't bat an eyelid when Shinawatra bought City, nor did they care when the Glazers bought us out with our own money (still amazes me that thats actually possible.)

 

I think that when it was Arsenal & Manure who were the two to beat it was more exciting. But with Chelsea in the fray it just seems like...cheating.

 

The big difference back then was that although us and Arsenal who tended to win, plenty of other sides would put in a challenge.  Leeds, Villa, Chelsea and you lot all came close throughout that era several times.  Nowadays Abramovich has set the bar so high that the only way to compete is to build a similarly massive squad and be absurdly consistent.  I'm obviously chuffed to bits from a selfish perspective with what we've acheived, but it certainly makes the league less interesting overall.

 

The only light at the end of the tunnel is that Chelsea won't last for long, they've tried to make the club sustainable but once Abramovich quits/gets bored/get shot they'll bugger off back into obscurity.  Couple that with Manchester United struggling post-fergie (especially as the debt begins to bite) and Arsenal post-wenger and the league will be winnable again.  I honestly believe the only thing relevant to what a football club can acheive is its fanbase.  Some clubs will never have enough fans (and therefore the resources) to compete at the highest level, but theres nothing stopping teams like Newcastle, Villa, Spurs, Everton, or City from having success in the long run.  Any one of those teams could win the league in the post "big 4" era, its just about long term planning.

[pinkeye]

It is not only money though.

 

Say a club like Wigan or Bolton managed to hook a multi Billionaire as an owner do you really thing that they could simply buy the greatest players in the world?  I don't I think that the top players wouldn't want to go to Bolton (no disreaspect and just using them as an example - in fact you could replace Bolton with any club outside the top 4 and then outside of London).

 

Chelsea are in a position where they occupy one of the more more geographically desirable locations in the UK (not for me I must add, I wouldn't wish my worst enemy to live in London, I think it's a stink hole!) and have a very wealthy owner.

 

QPR have the richest board in football but, they are not signing anyone that makes the news!!  Players only want to go to clubs that offer them glamour, there are a number of fashonable clubs around - Man Utd, Liverpool because of history, Arsenal have always been there or there abouts, Barcelona, Real, Inter, Milan, etc etc now Chelsea have entered that realm.

 

Personally I now realise that Newcastle won't win the league in my lifetime, I saw them come bloody close in the 90's.  I just want to see a team that can compete and maybe lift a trophy, something to be proud of.  Doing that the right way, as we are, will make it all the more sweet.

[Teasy]

Chelsea didn't buy the top players at first either though.  They spent big on some good to very good Premiership players, then once they were challenging for the league and in the Champions League they could start to attract top players, especially with the rediculous wages on offer.  At a club like Bolton it would take longer and would almost definitely never be quite as successful due to the things you've mentioned, but they could still do something similar with enough cash behind them.

[afar]

TBH it wouldn't make me sick at all, Love to see a player of Kaka's quality in the PL.

 

Fact of the matter is we are not competing on the same level as Chelsea, so who they sign is really immaterial to us.

 

 

How can you say that, when the very reason we're not in direct competition with them, is because they've signed those players (ie, spent that money).

 

(Alright - i'm being hypothetical - i know we've bombed anyway since the pre-Roman Sir Bobby days. But the point is Chelsea could have bombed too without the cash...)

 

Exactly the point I was making, things evolve, Chelsea could very easily self destruct, their model is not sustainable. It's just not our time at the moment, it is Chelsea's and Manure's. But I say again it's not always going to stay that way.

[OzzieMandias]

Right, just wanted to see if anyone was similar to me in their views that IF Chelsea were to sign Kaka for 70million and Robinho for 30million, would it make you sick of football in this league? I would never stop loving and watching Newcastle United fanatically but it kind of gets like feeling what's the point? Yes we are nowhere near to catching the top four but it is the fact that if we were to ever do so again, we will have to spend near 100million ourselves and it just gets to the point where it all seems hopeless.

   Even in 2000 when we finished 11th, next year we bought Robert and Bellamy and finished 4th. That just won't happen now due to the huge amounts of money going into the top four continually so their squads are unrivalled. I'm just personally fed up of it all, although it may just be frustration as we haven't done much in the market yet!

 

I think you've arrived at the same point as Keegan did before his outburst last season.

 

I've read that Abramovich, pre this latest bout of spending, has put £580 million (!) into Chelsea, in the form of an interest-free loan.