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Is the Champions League warping the domestic game? (Can we be top 4 again?)


Parky

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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?

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100% true and its a real bugbear of mine (I'll happily go on and on about every time someone mentions the champions league - example).

 

The champions league has killed football as a competition for all but 4. Niether City nor Newcastle nor anyone else from 5th downwards will ever win the league ever again. EVER. Nobody has the money to build a side good enough to challenge the sides who get their budgets subsidised - and if you threaten they'll sign your best player and spike your lasagne.

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100% true and its a real bugbear of mine (I'll happily go on and on about every time someone mentions the champions league - example).

 

The champions league has killed football as a competition for all but 4. Niether City nor Newcastle nor anyone else from 5th downwards will ever win the league ever again. EVER. Nobody has the money to build a side good enough to challenge the sides who get their budgets subsidised - and if you threaten they'll sign your best player and spike your lasagne.

 

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.   

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100% true and its a real bugbear of mine (I'll happily go on and on about every time someone mentions the champions league - example).

 

The champions league has killed football as a competition for all but 4. Niether City nor Newcastle nor anyone else from 5th downwards will ever win the league ever again. EVER. Nobody has the money to build a side good enough to challenge the sides who get their budgets subsidised - and if you threaten they'll sign your best player and spike your lasagne.

 

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.   

 

There is no answer. The G14 (and similar) clubs hold the threat of leaving UEFA/The FA and forming their own superleague if they ever them if they ever lose their magic beans. Thats the only way we'll ever win owt but the authorities will do everything in their power to prevent that happening as they do too well out of hosting these tournaments and using these players in Internationals to consider losing them. So basically, they've got it made and we're all fucked. Forever IMO.

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Guest Darth Toon

It is ridiculous these days mind - everything is geared towards keeping the rich at the top and bugger everyone else - talk in recent weeks of Chelsea/Liverpool wanting to enter their reserve teams in the football league is yet another example.

 

Watch any Championship game these days and there's a good chance the best players on the pitch are on loan from the "Big 4" (watched the Plymouth-Watford cup game a couple of weeks back - thought Plymouth had a canny winger - guess what? He's from Chelsea. Watford's best player? Their keeper, who's on loan from Man U) while any genuine talent they produce themselves is snapped up at a ridiculously young age, and loaned back to them if they're lucky.

 

 

 

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100% true and its a real bugbear of mine (I'll happily go on and on about every time someone mentions the champions league - example).

 

The champions league has killed football as a competition for all but 4. Niether City nor Newcastle nor anyone else from 5th downwards will ever win the league ever again. EVER. Nobody has the money to build a side good enough to challenge the sides who get their budgets subsidised - and if you threaten they'll sign your best player and spike your lasagne.

 

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.   

 

There is no answer. The G14 (and similar) clubs hold the threat of leaving UEFA/The FA and forming their own superleague if they ever them if they ever lose their magic beans. Thats the only way we'll ever win owt but the authorities will do everything in their power to prevent that happening as they do too well out of hosting these tournaments and using these players in Internationals to consider losing them. So basically, they've got it made and we're all f*****. Forever IMO.

 

It's a sad state of affairs, mate.  What's scary to me is the ineptitude of the FA.  They bollocks everything and are hopeless for the good of the game. 

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Guest ChickenKiev

I feel the FA are doing a great deal to distribute the wealth in foorball. Bottom place next season gets £30m!! That's a big lump. I also feel that this will may divide the premiership with the championship even further. Teams that will go down will find it much easier to come back up after having a lovely payment the season before.

 

With such amounts of money and a bit of intelligence I believe any club can battle for the premiership title so no I don't think the top 4 are untouchable and are leaving the rest behind.

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I feel the FA are doing a great deal to distribute the wealth in foorball. Bottom place next season gets £30m!! That's a big lump. I also feel that this will may divide the premiership with the championship even further. Teams that will go down will find it much easier to come back up after having a lovely payment the season before.

 

With such amounts of money and a bit of intelligence I believe any club can battle for the premiership title so no I don't think the top 4 are untouchable and are leaving the rest behind.

 

It's a good lump, but the top 4 get more, no?  30 mill doesn't buy a team of CL players or the depth needed to sustain a high place in the league and battle through the CL. 

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Guest ChickenKiev

I feel the FA are doing a great deal to distribute the wealth in foorball. Bottom place next season gets £30m!! That's a big lump. I also feel that this will may divide the premiership with the championship even further. Teams that will go down will find it much easier to come back up after having a lovely payment the season before.

 

With such amounts of money and a bit of intelligence I believe any club can battle for the premiership title so no I don't think the top 4 are untouchable and are leaving the rest behind.

 

It's a good lump, but the top 4 get more, no?  30 mill doesn't buy a team of CL players or the depth needed to sustain a high place in the league and battle through the CL. 

 

No, but it gives a great base to build on if the team have the right people in charge. What I'm saying is that I don't think people can't really say that some teams get everything and others get nothing. The smaller teams are given enough to hae a foundation to build on. Of course, this won't happen over night but with the right attitude it can happen.

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Could a draft system work like in US sports? Basically, the shittest clubs get the first pick of the best young players.

Not sure if that was tongue in cheek but I'll answer anyway.

 

No.  It would require such a complete and total revamp that it wouldn't be worth it really. 

 

The reason that it works for the NFL and NBA is that the talent pool is A) not only constantly being refreshed but B) there is a forced progression from youth league to high school to college to professional.  There is no stagnation at one level -- either you make it or you don't.  As well you essentially have only one professional league with ~ 32 teams in it.  How to handle the hundreds in the UK? 

 

Furthermore the whole business of promotions would add a layer of complexity to what would end up being an already convoluted system.

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What we (all) need is one of the top 4 to have a bit of a mare. Man U and Arsenal look to be in good shape for the foreseeable future so it comes down to Chelsea and Liverpool. Both could have managerial headaches coming up, Liverpool with Real Madrid being in the need of a manager this coming season and the Roman/Jose will they/won't they kiss and make up. Losing an influencial manager could cause hiccups in the league. Also, I get the feeling that the worst thing that could happen to Chelsea is for them to win the champions league this year, I get an impression that Roman's not as in-love with football (at least at Chelsea anyway) as he used to be.

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100% true and its a real bugbear of mine (I'll happily go on and on about every time someone mentions the champions league - example).

 

The champions league has killed football as a competition for all but 4. Niether City nor Newcastle nor anyone else from 5th downwards will ever win the league ever again. EVER. Nobody has the money to build a side good enough to challenge the sides who get their budgets subsidised - and if you threaten they'll sign your best player and spike your lasagne.

 

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.

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Could a draft system work like in US sports? Basically, the shittest clubs get the first pick of the best young players.

 

We'd all have to do away with our academies if that happened.

 

It's not just the draft in US sports though, it's the lack of big money transfers.  Players are more commonly traded for draft picks.  Would never work in football though.

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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.

 

Would that be allowed under EU rules?

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At the end of the day, there's only 11 players on the pitch at any one time. The kind of income that a club that qualifies for Europe regularly could generate, if it is well managed and has a good long-term plan, is enough to build a first team and eventually a squad, capable of challenging for Champions' League qualification. There'll come a time when players will stop signing for Chelsea, because they'll have seen what it did for the likes of Scott Parker and Wright-Phillips and the desire to play will increase to a level where it eclipses the desire to grab as much money as they can.

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At the end of the day, there's only 11 players on the pitch at any one time. The kind of income that a club that qualifies for Europe regularly could generate, if it is well managed and has a good long-term plan, is enough to build a first team and eventually a squad, capable of challenging for Champions' League qualification. There'll come a time when players will stop signing for Chelsea, because they'll have seen what it did for the likes of Scott Parker and Wright-Phillips and the desire to play will increase to a level where it eclipses the desire to grab as much money as they can.

 

Sorry Indi but that's fantasy land stuff.

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At the end of the day, there's only 11 players on the pitch at any one time. The kind of income that a club that qualifies for Europe regularly could generate, if it is well managed and has a good long-term plan, is enough to build a first team and eventually a squad, capable of challenging for Champions' League qualification. There'll come a time when players will stop signing for Chelsea, because they'll have seen what it did for the likes of Scott Parker and Wright-Phillips and the desire to play will increase to a level where it eclipses the desire to grab as much money as they can.

 

Sorry Indi but that's fantasy land stuff.

 

We'll see, we'll see.

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Guest BlueWhiteMonkey

Can't blame anyone else for it but ourselves. We have a bigger stadium than most and have just bought absolute shite. We fucked our own chances when we qualified.

 

Everton qualified like we did and simply fucked it up as well.

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Can't blame anyone else for it but ourselves. We have a bigger stadium than most and have just bought absolute shite. We fucked our own chances when we qualified.

 

Everton qualified like we did and simply fucked it up as well.

 

 

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?

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Guest Invicta_Toon

at the end of the day, if you're not good enough to get into your own top 4, why should you get any money? It's not a communist league FFS

 

the status quo remians not because of the money paid to CL clubs, it is the pure greed of players who at the merest hint of their own hype either move to a top 4 club or their agent starts demanding unfeasible contreacts of their current club

 

no club has the ability to nurture players and add to that squad over a few years before going bankrupt anymore

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