The Future Of Football

[r0cafella]

I don’t understand the agent complaints to be honest. It’s consensual from both players and clubs. After all, the players are the clients and the role to look out for the players interests. 

[ponsaelius]

No VAR is the main one. The biggest assault to the game ever conceived and terrible for so many different reasons. It needs getting rid of ASAP.

 

The other stuff, the structural and financial inequalities across Europe, I'm just really not sure how to fix. I honestly don't really love the idea of financial fair play rules and salary caps as it removes the competitive advantage of benefactor owners improving teams and gatecrashing the established order. I know people hate Chelsea/City for example - but there's a strange dichotomy at play that these kind of clubs do actually upset the established order of big clubs and make things more competitive and interesting. This was the same when Blackburn won the league and we were challenging - and indeed Serie A was ultra competitive for decades in a large part because of the amount of spendthrift owners they had taking over their own local provincial clubs. 

The main problem for me is that the collective TV deals have massively centralised power in the biggest 5 leagues. Countries with over 40 million people, lots of big clubs and ability to sell TV rights collectively. This has centralised all of the money and all the best players in these leagues. European giants, or even relatively big clubs, who just happen to be in smaller countries have been completely cut out of the Champions League. Unless you can have a miracle generation of players, or you're an Eastern European team with an oligarch who can put together a competitive side, you're not getting anywhere. And even when you do those players will be gone in a year.

You can't really fix the above inequality without merging countries league systems together and giving the critical mass to make them competitive. Or going towards some kind of Europe wide league that is actually equitable (not the kind of closed shop cash grab proposed). And in doing so you obliterate the history of the game in these countries. So it's not really got an easy solution.

 

 

Edited May 4, 2021 by ponsaelius

[Tisd09]

I guess agents do varying amounts for each player. I assume foreign players for example who don't speak the language get a lot of like signing them and their families up for Doctors etc? I suppose rather than ban them you could look at their role in transfers? Quite how you would police that I am not sure? 

[Lazarus]

2 minutes ago, gjohnson said:

That's exactly the role of the agent. Their cut comes first the clients 'career' is a distant second.

Obviously some will do other stuff to keep their clients happy like the menial stuff most people have to do on a day to day basis, but cant seen the likes of Raiola/Zahavi etc spend any time making sure that the players butler has turned the bed down for them

While im sure some agents do literally take the money and run, theres got to be others who look after a player a bit more.

image rights, social media, investments, international exposure, reputation management, sponsorships, charity work, etc etc etc

Some of the higher profile players would find no time to train or play with all the other crap their career brings.

[JeffJ]

Three big ones for me :

1) Salary cap. £150m maximum spend per season on your squad. If Salford Red Devils FC want to keep paying £350k a week to their back up keepers then that’s their choice but it will limit their ability to spend elsewhere. More of the players will look to get deals at other clubs and stop the stockpiling of players at a few clubs.

 

2) Celebrate the death of Rupert Murdoch with a fan lead barn dance at Yeovil aerodrome. Properly policed. It must not, repeat must not, turn into an all night rave. 

3) Sack Richard Masters for being unloyal .... disloyal to the game. And for joining in talks with the 6 teams to stop the Saudis. And sack him for being an absolute idiot and inefficient.

[ponsaelius]

One thing that would help in the Champions League would be just getting rid of group stages and making it straight knockout from the beginning. Maybe have some qualifying rounds, and some degree of seeding, but otherwise have jeopardy in place from the very beginning in August. Perhaps even get rid of the two legs and make it single ties with huge home advantage. You'd get far more upsets and make it far more likely that outside teams could go on runs through the competition. 

The TV money would probably fall as the amount of games, and indeed big games, would be reduced. But that's hardly the end of the world. The TV money that is generated could then be divided more evenly. When going to teams from smaller countries a percentage (say 50%) of it should go direct to that country's domestic league rather than all to the team - to prevent the issue of the CL money allowing them to monopolise their league. APOEL got the the quarter finals in 2012 and have then won seven titles in a row off the back of it.  

The problem with all of the above is it would be enormously unpopular with the owners of the big clubs and likely accelerate any further push towards a super league.

 

 

Edited May 4, 2021 by ponsaelius

[r0cafella]

Salary cap so billionaires become even richer?

[gjohnson]

6 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

While im sure some agents do literally take the money and run, theres got to be others who look after a player a bit more.

image rights, social media, investments, international exposure, reputation management, sponsorships, charity work, etc etc etc

Some of the higher profile players would find no time to train or play with all the other crap their career brings.

Ok...in that case make the clubs deal with it through an HR department.

There is literally no reason two clubs couldnt organise a transfer directly between them without a middle man taking a big slice of any fee just for arranging something that could easily be done in house

 

 

Edited May 4, 2021 by gjohnson
Error

[Chapo]

Black boots and short back and sides for everyone. 

[r0cafella]

1 minute ago, gjohnson said:

Ok...in that case make the clubs deal with it through an HR department.

There is literally no reason two clubs couldnt organise a transfer directly between them without a middle man taking a big slice of any fee just for arranging something that could easily be done in house

Hr departments would represent the clubs interests no? The role of an agent is to represent a players interests. 

[Wullie]

I just don't understand the constant calls for a salary cap. 

Why would it benefit football that the money generated by e.g. Newcastle United, be kept by Mike Ashley, instead of e.g. Allan Saint Maximin? 

[r0cafella]

1 minute ago, Wullie said:

I just don't understand the constant calls for a salary cap. 

Why would it benefit football that the money generated by e.g. Newcastle United, be kept by Mike Ashley, instead of e.g. Allan Saint Maximin? 

They see the high wages to turnover ratios and think salary cap is the answer. The actual answer is owners taking responsibility for the money they spend on the business. 

as said earlier, the classification of football clubs is partly at fault here as fans feel they are part of the community where as the owners see them as another asset in the portfolio. 

[Candi_Hills]

8 minutes ago, Wullie said:

I just don't understand the constant calls for a salary cap. 

Why would it benefit football that the money generated by e.g. Newcastle United, be kept by Mike Ashley, instead of e.g. Allan Saint Maximin? 

Salary caps + high taxation of the clubs would work. Redirect the money to hospitals, bairns, lower league teams... We can only dream.

[r0cafella]

Just now, Candi_Hills said:

Salary caps + high taxation of the clubs would work. Redirect the money to hospitals, bairns, lower league teams... We can only dream.

So we should increase corporate tax across the board or just on football clubs? 
 

if it’s an issue of taxation I’d like to see us go after those billionaires or those Amazon’s who don’t pay a dime. Footballers already pay massive amounts of tax (rightfully so). 

[Guest neesy111]

The government gets plenty from football.  Players pay 45-50% income tax.

[r0cafella]

Also, bear in mind. Any change made at a domestic level would have implications on the standing of British clubs in European competition. Ideally reform would take place at international level but given FIFA being corrupt it’s not going to happen. 

[Yorkie]

58 minutes ago, ponsaelius said:

You can't really fix the above inequality without merging countries league systems together and giving the critical mass to make them competitive. Or going towards some kind of Europe wide league that is actually equitable (not the kind of closed shop cash grab proposed). And in doing so you obliterate the history of the game in these countries. So it's not really got an easy solution.

I would love to think there could be some sensible discussions about this prospect in the not-too-distant future, but fear that what's happened recently will just have people anti anything of the sort without giving it a fair debate. I'm sure there'd be massive political hurdles to overcome but surely merging the Scandinavian leagues/Benelux/Hungary-Romania-Serbia/yep even England-Scotland would prompt more equitable distributions of wealth, arguably even creation of wealth, if it was done right? 

I'm probably not educated enough on the topics of economic competitiveness and European politics (probably even European football) to fully understand the potential drawbacks of moving to a more regional model, but I feel fairly confident that we wouldn't be losing a great deal, certainly in a sporting sense. I'd love to see a proper shake-up. 

[Disco]

1 hour ago, Lazarus said:

The role of agents does need looking at - not sure about getting rid entirely though.

I dont exactly know what an agent does but presumably its a bit more than negotiating the most finacially advantagous contract?

Have read a fair bit about it recently and I think it's very much down to the player. With the known ones they're effectively negotiators and brand builders but then have staff below them to sort other aspects of their life like endorsement/media stuff, moving house, investing their cash etc. etc.

[Yorkie]

The Set Piece Menu podcast about Agents and their role the other week was (as usual) a brilliant listen, and I would recommend to everyone here. Needless to say the opinions presented in my last post in this thread were basically robbed from a different episode of the same podcast also. 

[Wullie]

9 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

I would love to think there could be some sensible discussions about this prospect in the not-too-distant future, but fear that what's happened recently will just have people anti anything of the sort without giving it a fair debate. I'm sure there'd be massive political hurdles to overcome but surely merging the Scandinavian leagues/Benelux/Hungary-Romania-Serbia/yep even England-Scotland would prompt more equitable distributions of wealth, arguably even creation of wealth, if it was done right? 

I'm probably not educated enough on the topics of economic competitiveness and European politics (probably even European football) to fully understand the potential drawbacks of moving to a more regional model, but I feel fairly confident that we wouldn't be losing a great deal, certainly in a sporting sense. I'd love to see a proper shake-up. 

If we were starting from scratch, these things would probably be a good idea, but we're not. It's basically fucking off the fans of all but the biggest few clubs in each country.

Take a club like St Johnstone. Scottish League Cup winners, Scottish Cup semi finalists, between 2013-16 they played 4 consecutive seasons in European competition. In a merged UK-wide competition, they're a League One sized club at best. No more European trips, no more cups or trips to Hamden. Why would anyone other than Rangers and Celtic sign up for this?

[Lazarus]

16 minutes ago, Disco said:

Have read a fair bit about it recently and I think it's very much down to the player. With the known ones they're effectively negotiators and brand builders but then have staff below them to sort other aspects of their life like endorsement/media stuff, moving house, investing their cash etc. etc.

Aye - as i mentioned above, they essentially become a 'brand', rather than just a 'player' and wouldnt have time to play or train if they had to manage on their own.

[Shearergol]

It's obviously a very personal thing, but for me when I think back to when I really used to enjoy football:

• All matches were at 3pm on a Saturday (I realise Covid has changed the landscape for kick off times).
• Because of this, match of the day was able to show all of the matches, rather than just extended highlights of 2/3 games. Used to love MOTD.
• Football was affordable. It now costs too much to get into games and too much to pay for sky/bt sport/amazon prime.
• I have absolutely no interest in european matches anymore. Go back to a proper knockout competition.
• The FA cup and league cup aren't special anymore either. Too many big clubs resting players to concentrate on league placings.
• Lower league clubs never used to loan young premiership players. They had more local players and if they managed to get someone from the top league it was a marquee signing. Stop top clubs signing every young player in the country.

[Yorkie]

36 minutes ago, Wullie said:

If we were starting from scratch, these things would probably be a good idea, but we're not. It's basically fucking off the fans of all but the biggest few clubs in each country.

Take a club like St Johnstone. Scottish League Cup winners, Scottish Cup semi finalists, between 2013-16 they played 4 consecutive seasons in European competition. In a merged UK-wide competition, they're a League One sized club at best. No more European trips, no more cups or trips to Hamden. Why would anyone other than Rangers and Celtic sign up for this?

Yep, great point, can't argue with that. But if we're renovating league systems across the continent, including on this island, then we would be renovating the European competitions that ran in parallel as well. If you're making wholesale changes to lots of domestic leagues, of course you couldn't just bolt everything onto the existing CL/EL structures, for the reason you've stated. I'm talking about changing the whole lot.

At the moment there's two levels of European competition; CL and EL. Soon there'll be a third (Conference League) which, tbh, I've not seen/heard much debate about yet. But, basically, if you're going to have three tiers of European competition, then why not make at least one of them accessible to the likes of St Johnstone/Wigan/Sunderland/whoever, or create a fourth tier? That way they're: still competing for a domestic honour which enables that access (merging the leagues wouldn't necessarily mean deleting the Scottish League Cup (or 'Scottish Cup'), for example, or perhaps the current version of the Johnstone Paint could be revamped to include a European prize at the end of it), they're still getting the Euro away days, and they're getting access to the riches of their unbelievably wealthy neighbours that they wouldn't otherwise have shared by staying in an exclusively Scottish league. Riches which, if invested well, could enable them to reach the new version of the Premier League. 

I realise this is pie in the sky. And even if England/Scotland wouldn't work, maybe it could work in the other regions I mentioned. 

[Consortium of one]

Max roster size with a limit on loans:  Discourage player hoarding.

Transfer tax:  Fixed percentage of all transfer fees paid goes to EFL.  Paid by each club.  Maybe 0.5%  A club buys a player for 10M they must pay a tax of 50K.

Game day squad must contain 2 U21 players trained by the club:  Hopefully forces clubs to develop more of their own players.

 

 

[Optimistic Nut]

19 hours ago, ponsaelius said:

No VAR is the main one. The biggest assault to the game ever conceived and terrible for so many different reasons. It needs getting rid of ASAP.

 

The other stuff, the structural and financial inequalities across Europe, I'm just really not sure how to fix. I honestly don't really love the idea of financial fair play rules and salary caps as it removes the competitive advantage of benefactor owners improving teams and gatecrashing the established order. I know people hate Chelsea/City for example - but there's a strange dichotomy at play that these kind of clubs do actually upset the established order of big clubs and make things more competitive and interesting. This was the same when Blackburn won the league and we were challenging - and indeed Serie A was ultra competitive for decades in a large part because of the amount of spendthrift owners they had taking over their own local provincial clubs. 

The main problem for me is that the collective TV deals have massively centralised power in the biggest 5 leagues. Countries with over 40 million people, lots of big clubs and ability to sell TV rights collectively. This has centralised all of the money and all the best players in these leagues. European giants, or even relatively big clubs, who just happen to be in smaller countries have been completely cut out of the Champions League. Unless you can have a miracle generation of players, or you're an Eastern European team with an oligarch who can put together a competitive side, you're not getting anywhere. And even when you do those players will be gone in a year.

You can't really fix the above inequality without merging countries league systems together and giving the critical mass to make them competitive. Or going towards some kind of Europe wide league that is actually equitable (not the kind of closed shop cash grab proposed). And in doing so you obliterate the history of the game in these countries. So it's not really got an easy solution.

Agree with all of this apart from VAR which I just think needs tweaked rather than taken away. Bollocks to losing 2 points to clear offside goals like the Aguero one up here when we drew, etc. Wasn't so long ago 'was there daylight between attacker and defender' seemed to be a guideline for instance. Bring this back rather than this ridiculous 'was his armpit offside' law (which is stupid even without VAR).