If Boris is serious about fighting this, I predict we will see a poll touch 50% for the Tories as a result.
Simple fact Robert, is that the followers of football do not see the clubs as free enterprise businesses in the traditional sense but as pillars of our civil society. And they expect the owners to act as custodians. Think of the clubs as Grade 1 listed buildings rather than development plots for investment and you will begin to understand.
I must admit that - although I'm no supporter of the idea - I'm not that keen on the government deciding that it doesn't want private businesses choosing which league they wish to play in.
If the current owners cut their losses who on earth would buy these clubs? why buy and invest in an asset you cannot develop?
It should be fans voting with their wallets that decide the success - or failure - of this project. The government has no business in getting involved.
Total rubbish. The government has every right to get involved. This is a cultural and societal issue just as much as it is an economic one.
I think that's the point, this is cultural importance to the nation. It's like someone buying the LTA and then shifting Wimbledon to Asia because it would probably make more TV money in that time zone.
But Wimbledon never put itself up for sale Max. It never took anybody's money for development or to trump other competitions
England's football clubs sold themselves to the great applause of fans. Now they want to sell themselves and own themselves at the same time.
The buyers have been completely defrauded.
Defrauded? The Glazers bought Man Utd with its own money piling the price of buying it in debt on the club which for a time made Man Utd less competitive in the transfer market. Their interest in Man Utd is currently worth $2bn. It is one of the deals of the century and I take my metaphorical hat off to them but to suggest that they have been "defrauded" because their interest went up another $200m this morning on the back of the ESL announcement is nonsense.
Like every business Football works in a regulatory environment. If that regulatory environment says you can't do certain things those are the rules of the game.
Wow.
So you think that the UK government should force UK football clubs to enrich overseas organisations that make the EU look like a model of probity.
No, I didn't say that. What I am saying is that the government has a legitimate interest in this. UK plc has a serious trade deficit problem and football, specifically the EPL, is one of our more successful exports. They should be concerned if such a successful industry that generates billions of pounds of exports each year risks being undermined.
UEFA and FIFA are vile, corrupt organisations for which no one not getting a cut have very little time. This is about adequately protecting our domestic league as well as something that probably gives the UK a bigger profile around the world than anything else.
All the government is doing is, by bringing in all sorts of punitive retrospective regulations, making one of our successful exports a much less successful export.
A "fan led review" isn't "robust". It's a gesture.
I'm not criticising the Government on this, but the proposals will sink or swim as a commercial matter, influenced by UEFA and FIFA measures. The approach of national governments isn't really that relevant - they can launch as many "reviews" as they like.
I am fairly sure it'll sink, and in any event that this is all a negotiating ploy by the big boys for other changes to the Champions League format, and financial allocations.
Dowden and HMG will stop this and remarkably even the SNP endorse the statement
This has united the whole of the HOC
That's just MPs jumping on a bandwagon. Everyone knows 99% of football fans hate this, so no sane politician will say "hang on, let's hear them out..."
As I say, it doesn't matter how many MPs speak out and how many "fan led reviews" are launched. What stops this is a commercial deal within UEFA, who have a lot of leverage. If this made sense commercially, it'd happen. But it doesn't, and won't.
Sorry have you seen the amounts the clubs involved are being offered to sign up to this deal? By JP Morgan, a bank not known for wild outlandish and silly investments?
But anyway, re the politics of this 'superleague' thing, and cui bono, it got me musing about whether there is such a thing as Remainy football as distinct from Leavey football. At first I thought no, don’t be silly, but as I kept on determinedly considering the matter I had a change of heart and concluded that yes, yes there most certainly is, and it’s about the style of play.
When picturing the Remainy version of the game one sees something built around a coterie of diminutive, highly mobile ball players, deft of touch, slow to anger but prone to going down a bit too easily. Leavey football could not be more different. Here, the foundation is a brutish bunch of hard men at the back, good honest pros, and in front of them yet more good honest pros ready and willing to chase that long ball punted through.
The aesthetics of the first is probably superior, think that’s fair, but when it comes to what really matters, results, it’s if anything the other way around. I suspect most people realize this now.
Perhaps. On Remainy football vs Leavey football, this argument strikes me as another hash of somewheres vs anywheres. Those proposing the EPL are right up the anywheriest end of the spectrum, so much so as to alienate almost all of the people in their half of the spectrum.
Which brings up the old chestnut of what the Remainiest and Leaviest sports are.
Taking a selection of sports, I would propose the following from Remainiest to Leaviest:
Winter Sports Tennis Rugby Union Cricket Football Rugby League Darts
Ah but I sense you've just done a straight class thing there - and it does work for that. But remember that the Leave base is the WWC plus the shires of Middle England. It's dog track AND golf club - hence why it's dominant. And speaking of golf, that's a good example. It's very UN working class, but it's Leavey.
Yes, I have, but I had intended to bring in other parameters too, as you're rightly doing. I think I had once considerd golf's place and placed it just above rugby league, for exactly that reason. Because of the age thing. Also bowls: crown green above darts, flat green above football.
Crown green bowling's a funny one. I guess it has to be very very Leavey just for the simple reason that participants are elderly and the sport is concentrated in coastal towns.
It's basically a northern sport. It might be the leaviest, actually.
I wouldn't demur. I'm thinking coastal - and especially the south coast - because that is where many retire to. Also I've noticed it being played a lot in those places.
But I notice your previous post distinguished between "crown" green and "flat" green (which I'm not clued up on at all). So perhaps the one that's big down in the likes of Bournemouth and Hastings is flat green bowling. The less challenging version, by the sounds of it.
I must admit that - although I'm no supporter of the idea - I'm not that keen on the government deciding that it doesn't want private businesses choosing which league they wish to play in.
If the current owners cut their losses who on earth would buy these clubs? why buy and invest in an asset you cannot develop?
It should be fans voting with their wallets that decide the success - or failure - of this project. The government has no business in getting involved.
Total rubbish. The government has every right to get involved. This is a cultural and societal issue just as much as it is an economic one.
I think that's the point, this is cultural importance to the nation. It's like someone buying the LTA and then shifting Wimbledon to Asia because it would probably make more TV money in that time zone.
But Wimbledon never put itself up for sale Max. It never took anybody's money for development or to trump other competitions
England's football clubs sold themselves to the great applause of fans. Now they want to sell themselves and own themselves at the same time.
The buyers have been completely defrauded.
Defrauded? The Glazers bought Man Utd with its own money piling the price of buying it in debt on the club which for a time made Man Utd less competitive in the transfer market. Their interest in Man Utd is currently worth $2bn. It is one of the deals of the century and I take my metaphorical hat off to them but to suggest that they have been "defrauded" because their interest went up another $200m this morning on the back of the ESL announcement is nonsense.
Like every business Football works in a regulatory environment. If that regulatory environment says you can't do certain things those are the rules of the game.
I don't like the Glazers any more than you but I'm sure it comes as a shock to them to discover they are, as Dowden put it 'the temporary custodians' of their clubs.
I'm sure it didn't say temporary custodian on the contract they signed.
Yes there is a lot going on there much of which I do not agree with. Those fans who are dedicated to a football club are emotionally invested in it but frankly could not afford 1 week of Rashford's wages and will never contribute that much to the club's coffers in their entire lives. I get that these clubs are businesses and that they have the right to run them as such.
But they also have a dominant market position which they are looking to entrench by moving to a structure which doesn't permit them to be relegated to the considerable detriment of their competitors who will be priced out of the market for the best players. I think that could be regarded as an abuse of their position and that gives the government a right to intervene and at the very least ask them to explain themselves and possibly to say no.
Breaking news: Starmer was caught on an open mic talking to his entourage after the encounter with the landlord saying, "He was just some bigoted man who said he used to be Labour. You shouldn't have taken me to that pub. I think it was Sue's idea."
OMG - it's Gordon Starmergate!
I was actually driving David Jones on his 2010 re-election campaign when we heard it live on our car radio
We stopped and looked at each other and said, did Brown really say that woman is bigoted
If Boris is serious about fighting this, I predict we will see a poll touch 50% for the Tories as a result.
Simple fact Robert, is that the followers of football do not see the clubs as free enterprise businesses in the traditional sense but as pillars of our civil society. And they expect the owners to act as custodians. Think of the clubs as Grade 1 listed buildings rather than development plots for investment and you will begin to understand.
Funny how the custodians argument was never mentioned that when they were selling themselves lock stock and barrel to the highest bidder. The fans were happy because the money was being spent on players so they could lord it over rivals.
The world the fans live in, where benevolent owners queue up to throw ever more billions at their club for nothing in return, is a fantasy world where, to be honest, most football fans live.
A "fan led review" isn't "robust". It's a gesture.
I'm not criticising the Government on this, but the proposals will sink or swim as a commercial matter, influenced by UEFA and FIFA measures. The approach of national governments isn't really that relevant - they can launch as many "reviews" as they like.
I am fairly sure it'll sink, and in any event that this is all a negotiating ploy by the big boys for other changes to the Champions League format, and financial allocations.
Dowden and HMG will stop this and remarkably even the SNP endorse the statement
This has united the whole of the HOC
That's just MPs jumping on a bandwagon. Everyone knows 99% of football fans hate this, so no sane politician will say "hang on, let's hear them out..."
As I say, it doesn't matter how many MPs speak out and how many "fan led reviews" are launched. What stops this is a commercial deal within UEFA, who have a lot of leverage. If this made sense commercially, it'd happen. But it doesn't, and won't.
Listening to the debate MPs are going to stop this if UEFA do not
I wouldn't be surprised. It's swiftly become apparent that this is a profoundly unpopular idea, and we have a populist Government which presumably has the tools to stop it (and a Commons united on the issue that would be willing to legislate if necessary, in any event.)
Another way the government might fight back. Legal?
"Government will come under pressure not to award work permits to Premier League’s breakaway six for new foreign signings if the ESL comes to fruition. Would effectively prevent them from recruiting overseas players."
If HMG finds a way to do this, that collapses the Superleague
The criteria for a work permit, is (I believe) to represent their national team.
It's a bit difficult to do so if you are banned from playing for that team...
Also the government can just pass a law to change the criteria, and make one criterion "this person is deemed a benefit to British sport" and given that the Superleague is going to harm British sport, for sure, then they can't come in
All the Big Six prevented from making any foreign signings. That WOULD be hilarious. All that money and nothing to spend it on, apart from a 36 year old defender from Oldham
Not so funny when the owners cut their losses and leave the prem taking the world's best players with them. Wait for the howls from Merseyside and Manchester then.
Not so funny when Joe Biden starts to ask why Britain is penalising US investors in our country.
Not so funny when international investors think Britain? maybe not, actually. A few scousers get angry, and the government shafts our business.
They shafted hospitality, they shafted football, we could be next.
The Government has literally just today got involved in the acquisition of ARM by Nvidia, an American company.
Jesus. Are we STILL talking about bloody football?
As opposed to which bigger story? Starmer and the pub landlord?
I'm just catching up with the pub story after a day of discussing football. Very amusing of Boris to get a pub photoshoot in this afternoon without any mishaps with the landlord!
I must admit that - although I'm no supporter of the idea - I'm not that keen on the government deciding that it doesn't want private businesses choosing which league they wish to play in.
If the current owners cut their losses who on earth would buy these clubs? why buy and invest in an asset you cannot develop?
It should be fans voting with their wallets that decide the success - or failure - of this project. The government has no business in getting involved.
You're living in the past, true free market capitalism is a very pre 2008 concept.
Another way the government might fight back. Legal?
"Government will come under pressure not to award work permits to Premier League’s breakaway six for new foreign signings if the ESL comes to fruition. Would effectively prevent them from recruiting overseas players."
If HMG finds a way to do this, that collapses the Superleague
Or they just up sticks & move to Riyadh, or Dubai, or wherever.
I wouldn’t put it past them.
We've been through this, it just won't happen. Liverpool are never leaving Liverpool, and never going to Dubai or Shanghai. The clue is in the name
I'm not sure any of the Terrible Twelve could move, they are all so firmly attached to their home cities, and famous grounds, the San Siro, the Bernabeu, White Hart Lane - one of the joys of football, of course
What you could do is create an entirely new ESL team from scratch - Dubai Dildos? - and all the players from Arsenal or Spurs move there, but that's pretty bloody difficult, practically and logistically
No. You are wrong. People have tried starting new teams from scratch and it's too hard, as we've seen from MLS and the recent Chinese attempts.
But you can take someone else's football club and move it, as with MK Dons. Chelsea could be moved to a gleaming new stadium pretty much anywhere, and, as they'd take all their players, their membership of the Super League, and the vast majority of their recently acquired global support with them it could be pretty successful.
That's where this will end up. Some of the teams will stay put, but others will move.
How many NFL supporters continue to support a team when it leaves for a new city?
But anyway, re the politics of this 'superleague' thing, and cui bono, it got me musing about whether there is such a thing as Remainy football as distinct from Leavey football. At first I thought no, don’t be silly, but as I kept on determinedly considering the matter I had a change of heart and concluded that yes, yes there most certainly is, and it’s about the style of play.
When picturing the Remainy version of the game one sees something built around a coterie of diminutive, highly mobile ball players, deft of touch, slow to anger but prone to going down a bit too easily. Leavey football could not be more different. Here, the foundation is a brutish bunch of hard men at the back, good honest pros, and in front of them yet more good honest pros ready and willing to chase that long ball punted through.
The aesthetics of the first is probably superior, think that’s fair, but when it comes to what really matters, results, it’s if anything the other way around. I suspect most people realize this now.
Perhaps. On Remainy football vs Leavey football, this argument strikes me as another hash of somewheres vs anywheres. Those proposing the EPL are right up the anywheriest end of the spectrum, so much so as to alienate almost all of the people in their half of the spectrum.
Which brings up the old chestnut of what the Remainiest and Leaviest sports are.
Taking a selection of sports, I would propose the following from Remainiest to Leaviest:
Winter Sports Tennis Rugby Union Cricket Football Rugby League Darts
Ah but I sense you've just done a straight class thing there - and it does work for that. But remember that the Leave base is the WWC plus the shires of Middle England. It's dog track AND golf club - hence why it's dominant. And speaking of golf, that's a good example. It's very UN working class, but it's Leavey.
Plenty of C2s play golf.
Its not an urban working class game and I don't think its a working class game in the posh areas but in those 60%+ Leave areas in the Midlands and North its a game for the working class home owner.
Comments
Simple fact Robert, is that the followers of football do not see the clubs as free enterprise businesses in the traditional sense but as pillars of our civil society. And they expect the owners to act as custodians. Think of the clubs as Grade 1 listed buildings rather than development plots for investment and you will begin to understand.
But I notice your previous post distinguished between "crown" green and "flat" green (which I'm not clued up on at all). So perhaps the one that's big down in the likes of Bournemouth and Hastings is flat green bowling. The less challenging version, by the sounds of it.
But they also have a dominant market position which they are looking to entrench by moving to a structure which doesn't permit them to be relegated to the considerable detriment of their competitors who will be priced out of the market for the best players. I think that could be regarded as an abuse of their position and that gives the government a right to intervene and at the very least ask them to explain themselves and possibly to say no.
Starmer has made a foolish error
The world the fans live in, where benevolent owners queue up to throw ever more billions at their club for nothing in return, is a fantasy world where, to be honest, most football fans live.
Quite why Starmer was trying to go into the pub when it is closed is a mystery. He should simply have walked away from the landlord.
Not many Titans fans in Houston now I expect.
Its not an urban working class game and I don't think its a working class game in the posh areas but in those 60%+ Leave areas in the Midlands and North its a game for the working class home owner.