Roiling football blather
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WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
could be far more worse
Leo
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IdleRich
IdleRich
Amazing. You couldn't ask for a better demonstration of the malaise at the heart of the way football is run than the ESL The idea of a league which you can't qualify for or be relegated from is total anathema to the idea of competition. And sport without competition isn't a sport. Basically the main advocates of this idea are Agnelli at Juventus and Perez at Madrid, both of who have explicitly said that part of the problem with the current system is that sometimes big teams lose to little ones. Already, if you get Real or Juventus vs a team from (say) Austria or Ukraine, then, in one game over 90 minutes, the other team has very little chance. In a two legged tie over 180 minutes such as you have in the knockout stages of the Champions League then that small chance dwindles to almost nothing. If they manage to nick a one nil win in the home leg Juve will built then 10 - 0 next time. The big clubs have every advantage yet we still watch, cos we hope for the upset.
But that's too risky for Perez et al. They want to remove that barely there uncertainty to mean that it can never happen. And anyone who loves football has to hate this.
Additionally, it seems that they have (correctly) grasped that, of course, when you get Real vs Juventus it's a huge match, a glamour tie, the kind of thing that, when it comes out of the hat, everyone want to see. But what they have failed to grasp, is that the whole thing that makes it so glamorous is the fact that the two teams are there cos they have climbed to the pinnacles (or near enough) of their respective leagues. They've earned that match. And these glamour ties are relatively rare. If the league is gonna be only the same twelve teams for evermore then you will get Real vs Juventus twice a year. Every year. How can they not see that the result will be to make that tie less rare and less glamorous. Do they really think that every year it will feel like Bayern vs Barca in the semi-final would right now? Of course, they don't think, they are just pretending that as an excuse for this league to happen and then they can safeguard their investment.
And though all the fans of the most popular sport in the world hate the idea, it came so close to happening and it may still do.
But that's too risky for Perez et al. They want to remove that barely there uncertainty to mean that it can never happen. And anyone who loves football has to hate this.
Additionally, it seems that they have (correctly) grasped that, of course, when you get Real vs Juventus it's a huge match, a glamour tie, the kind of thing that, when it comes out of the hat, everyone want to see. But what they have failed to grasp, is that the whole thing that makes it so glamorous is the fact that the two teams are there cos they have climbed to the pinnacles (or near enough) of their respective leagues. They've earned that match. And these glamour ties are relatively rare. If the league is gonna be only the same twelve teams for evermore then you will get Real vs Juventus twice a year. Every year. How can they not see that the result will be to make that tie less rare and less glamorous. Do they really think that every year it will feel like Bayern vs Barca in the semi-final would right now? Of course, they don't think, they are just pretending that as an excuse for this league to happen and then they can safeguard their investment.
And though all the fans of the most popular sport in the world hate the idea, it came so close to happening and it may still do.
IdleRich
IdleRich
So the proposed Superleague would obviously be a bad competition in that it would devalue the big ties, and that it's very existence is totally against the idea of football itself. But are there any other reasons that make it necessary?
Perez and Agnelli both seem to think that otherwise football is in trouble. They claim that these changes are necessary cos otherwise football will dwindle in popularity and, they also claim that there just isn't enough money in the game.
Which, on the face of it, sounds like some of the dumbest things that have ever been said.....
Perez and Agnelli both seem to think that otherwise football is in trouble. They claim that these changes are necessary cos otherwise football will dwindle in popularity and, they also claim that there just isn't enough money in the game.
Which, on the face of it, sounds like some of the dumbest things that have ever been said.....
IdleRich
IdleRich
For me, football really is the beautiful game, the most popular sport in the world. It even seems to be making inroads into the US which now has a half-decent league and is starting to produce some real quality players who play at the highest levels in Europe. And right now the quality of football is incredibly high. In terms of what you actually see on the pitch (and only on the pitch there are countless problems off it) it's definitely a golden age for the game. When you look at players such as Suarez (to name just one), he is surely one of the best out and strikers to have ever played the game... if the timing had been different, if there wasn't such an embarrassment of riches right now then I don't think it's a stretch to imagine that there could have been a period known as the Suarez Era, yet five years ago he was only the third best striker in his team (Barcelona).
On top of that, the amount of money sloshing around football is totally crazy. Basketball, American Football etc have always been high paying sports but when I google the highest earners in those sports (Mahomes on $48m per year and Stephen Curry on $43m apparently) then I realise that if you add their salaries together then you get about half of what Barcelona pay Messi. At first you might think that that is possible cos they sold Neymar to PSG for 220m euros (and, as an aside, his 70 million dollar a year salary means that PSG laid out more than half a billion for that transaction) although of course that was really a drop in the ocean of Barca's spending cos it instantly went on Dembele (105m), Coutinho (160m) and Griezmann (120m). Madrid, Spain's other super club are apparently are short of money despite selling Ronaldo for around 100m a few seasons back.
The reason I single out Barcelona and Real Madrid here is because the Spanish clubs (especially Madrid with Perez) seem to be some of the most enthusiastic advocates of a super league. As I alluded to above, there are loads of problems with football and the way it is run. Money is too important, the top teams have too much of it, and it's too hard for those outside to break in. The problem with the Superleague as a solution is that it seems to deliberately focus on these exact problems, and then change the rules to give the top teams even more money and to change it from being really difficult to break into the elite, to instead actually make it against the rules. I dunno if that somehow relates to our thread on accelerationism, perhaps Agnelli is trying to destroy football in order to save it. Maybe he wants to bring down the whole edifice and return us all to the beautiful joyous purity of jumpers for goalposts, watch Messi take on Pogba down the park filled with sheer exuberance and love of the game. But on balance I think probably not. Most likely he's just a cunt who wants to leave the whole edifice teetering but just about standing with the rules changed so that only Juventus can win.
But obviously no-one else would agree to "only Juventus can win" so he cunningly reasoned that if he got maybe ten or eleven other teams in and change the rules so only those teams can win, then those teams would be happy, and possibly those teams were so rich and important that all the other teams would go along with it.
And worst of all he might end up being right.
On top of that, the amount of money sloshing around football is totally crazy. Basketball, American Football etc have always been high paying sports but when I google the highest earners in those sports (Mahomes on $48m per year and Stephen Curry on $43m apparently) then I realise that if you add their salaries together then you get about half of what Barcelona pay Messi. At first you might think that that is possible cos they sold Neymar to PSG for 220m euros (and, as an aside, his 70 million dollar a year salary means that PSG laid out more than half a billion for that transaction) although of course that was really a drop in the ocean of Barca's spending cos it instantly went on Dembele (105m), Coutinho (160m) and Griezmann (120m). Madrid, Spain's other super club are apparently are short of money despite selling Ronaldo for around 100m a few seasons back.
The reason I single out Barcelona and Real Madrid here is because the Spanish clubs (especially Madrid with Perez) seem to be some of the most enthusiastic advocates of a super league. As I alluded to above, there are loads of problems with football and the way it is run. Money is too important, the top teams have too much of it, and it's too hard for those outside to break in. The problem with the Superleague as a solution is that it seems to deliberately focus on these exact problems, and then change the rules to give the top teams even more money and to change it from being really difficult to break into the elite, to instead actually make it against the rules. I dunno if that somehow relates to our thread on accelerationism, perhaps Agnelli is trying to destroy football in order to save it. Maybe he wants to bring down the whole edifice and return us all to the beautiful joyous purity of jumpers for goalposts, watch Messi take on Pogba down the park filled with sheer exuberance and love of the game. But on balance I think probably not. Most likely he's just a cunt who wants to leave the whole edifice teetering but just about standing with the rules changed so that only Juventus can win.
But obviously no-one else would agree to "only Juventus can win" so he cunningly reasoned that if he got maybe ten or eleven other teams in and change the rules so only those teams can win, then those teams would be happy, and possibly those teams were so rich and important that all the other teams would go along with it.
And worst of all he might end up being right.
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IdleRich
IdleRich
The fucking arrogance of these guys who have touting this for ages, going on and on about how changes are needed. As though they are the only people who understand football and they should have the right to change it and spoil it for everyone else. I really fucking hate these arseholes.
They want to upturn the idea of competition, remove the heart of football and create a stupid, limited and boring competition that ALL PROPER FANS COMPLETELY FUCKING HATE because they (pretend to) feel that without it football won't produce good players and those teams won't have enough money!
Yet you don't exactly have to be a genius to wonder that, if Real don't have enough money, then part of the reason might be due to the way they pay Bale 600k a week to play golf (or, when that got too intense and stressful, to go on loan to Spurs) or whatever obscene sum they pay Hazard to be injured half of the time. And you could make the same argument with Barcelona - you can't pay someone who is 34 - and who now simply lacks the physicality to be four players at once - four times the salary of the highest basketball earner AND give insane money to Coutinho (who has been on loan ) and Dembele (always injured and not that special when he's not) and Griezmann (often misused cos, let's face it, if you're paying someone 3 million a week, then you have to make sure they play every single game and they play wherever they want regardless of how it might unbalance the team or affect the performance of one of his cheaper teammates).
In short; football is more popular than ever, it has more good players than ever before, it has more money in it than ever before.... and yet a few billionaire owners (many of them not even from footballing cultures) want to change the structure of the highest competition so that it is limited to only a handful of teams (selected on the basis of how wealthy they are rather than how successful or good).
Also, they keep saying "it's for the good of football" and they've been banging on about it for years in interviews about how it's needed to save football. But I've never ever heard anyone say "You know what, Agnelli is right, there needs to be more money in football and there don't seem to be any good players coming through these days, I think we should change the rules so that only Juventus (oh and maybe a few other rich teams, obviously Chelsea and Spurs need to be included)".
If they really believed that it was such a good idea why did they never try and get any fans to agree and try it from a grass roots (when, I say grass roots here I mean elite grass roots or something obviously)? What they actually did was get all the teams who would benefit involved and then announce it a a fait accompli. Tough luck you dumb proles we've saved football for you.
I'm really glad that they were so completely surprised by the vehemence and anger of the fans. They still feel fucking hard done by though. They basically think that football would be better without all those stupid fans caring about the games and who wins. Don't we realise that the entire point of it is to make a few billionaires even richer? It reminds me of that Billy the Fish cartoon in Viz when one time football became totally about the plcs and they stopped playing games, just basing the league position on the share price.
They want to upturn the idea of competition, remove the heart of football and create a stupid, limited and boring competition that ALL PROPER FANS COMPLETELY FUCKING HATE because they (pretend to) feel that without it football won't produce good players and those teams won't have enough money!
Yet you don't exactly have to be a genius to wonder that, if Real don't have enough money, then part of the reason might be due to the way they pay Bale 600k a week to play golf (or, when that got too intense and stressful, to go on loan to Spurs) or whatever obscene sum they pay Hazard to be injured half of the time. And you could make the same argument with Barcelona - you can't pay someone who is 34 - and who now simply lacks the physicality to be four players at once - four times the salary of the highest basketball earner AND give insane money to Coutinho (who has been on loan ) and Dembele (always injured and not that special when he's not) and Griezmann (often misused cos, let's face it, if you're paying someone 3 million a week, then you have to make sure they play every single game and they play wherever they want regardless of how it might unbalance the team or affect the performance of one of his cheaper teammates).
In short; football is more popular than ever, it has more good players than ever before, it has more money in it than ever before.... and yet a few billionaire owners (many of them not even from footballing cultures) want to change the structure of the highest competition so that it is limited to only a handful of teams (selected on the basis of how wealthy they are rather than how successful or good).
Also, they keep saying "it's for the good of football" and they've been banging on about it for years in interviews about how it's needed to save football. But I've never ever heard anyone say "You know what, Agnelli is right, there needs to be more money in football and there don't seem to be any good players coming through these days, I think we should change the rules so that only Juventus (oh and maybe a few other rich teams, obviously Chelsea and Spurs need to be included)".
If they really believed that it was such a good idea why did they never try and get any fans to agree and try it from a grass roots (when, I say grass roots here I mean elite grass roots or something obviously)? What they actually did was get all the teams who would benefit involved and then announce it a a fait accompli. Tough luck you dumb proles we've saved football for you.
I'm really glad that they were so completely surprised by the vehemence and anger of the fans. They still feel fucking hard done by though. They basically think that football would be better without all those stupid fans caring about the games and who wins. Don't we realise that the entire point of it is to make a few billionaires even richer? It reminds me of that Billy the Fish cartoon in Viz when one time football became totally about the plcs and they stopped playing games, just basing the league position on the share price.
IdleRich
IdleRich
But it really make me so angry that these cunts can come along and try and take the popular game in the world, and change it against all these fans' wishes. And they almost did it. And they will no doubt try again in a year or two. And chances are they will succeed eventually.
IdleRich
IdleRich
OK, enough. I've calmed down.
Different topic. But something I said above got me thinking.
When I mentioned football in the US; there have been loads of false dawns where it looked as though it would take off for real in the US. But could it actually happen this time?
With MLS looking half decent, I wouldn't be surprised if it grows further. To me it does seem as though that league has been done kinda properly. Sure it does have a load of ex-stars taking a last pay cheque which straight off doesn't sound that great. But from seeing match reports and stuff it feels that there is quite a lot more to it. Those players are something like the icing on the cake, but, unlike when you had Pele playing in NY in the seventies, it seems as though at least there IS some cake.
How much do demographics affect it? I guess that in South and Central America football is the game so immigration from below the border - no doubt aided by senile Biden's totally open border policy - works in favour of the beautiful game too...
But more than that - and something that could become more of an issue IF football does establish a toehold to build from - it seems to me that if you take a person who has no particular ingrained reason to prefer one or the other out of American Football and Football and make them watch a match of each kind, then the latter is just easier to get into just cos the game is so much more continuous. Sure the AF highlights look good when some guy in his lovely shiny kit dives to catch an 80m pass but when you watch it live you realise what a tiny part of the whole thing that is. In fact, even a shitty play where they advance three metres lasts nothing compared to the break before and after that happens. AF has all those cheerleaders and adverts and stuff cos they are needed to fill in all the gaps when play is stopped - when they take the kick off and the ball is alive for ten seconds.... and then it stops and they swap the whole team.
I'm not making a parochial claim that football is a better game (obviously It is, but that's not what I'm arguing), I'm just saying that it's easier for someone who knows nothing about it to follow. I understand that AF benefits from studying it properly, that you can get more from it the more you understand it and the more that you can think about the tactics and so on..... but what is the incentive for a newbie to reach that level when there are other games which can give you the same rush without having to study them first?
Plus - correct me if I'm wrong here - but is it not also the case that there is a big thing at the moment with them worrying about the long term damage to the brain that you are likely to sustain if you spend your professional life trying to stop really fast giants wearing body armour by smashing your head into them? And as a result there is a serious possibility that they are gonna change the game to make it safer and less exciting?
And a lot of the same stuff about immediacy applies for baseball vs football too I'd imagine.
I suppose I'm asking people in the US, so I guess I'm asking @Leo really cos you're the one who posted in this thread today.
TLDR - my feeling is that the MLS is working quite well and football might actually establish itself as a proper self-sustaining sport in the US that doesn't need to rely on aging foreign superstars to generate interest - would you agree?
And also, would you agree that compared to the homegrown US sports of American Football and baseball, football is a game that - due to its relatively more continuous game play and simple rules - is easier to watch and enjoy for a total beginner? And easier to play come to think of it cos you don't need so much stuff.
So when you consider that, plus the changing demographics of the country, add in the possibility of a controversial rule change in AF, plus yer average man on the street realising that you can get just as megarich playing footie and you can ply your trade in Europe or anywhere and become a world wide star instead of just in the US, do you think that there is a chance that over the next few years (I mean like twenty I guess) football can grow its audience, to some respect, at the expense of AF and baseball?
Different topic. But something I said above got me thinking.
When I mentioned football in the US; there have been loads of false dawns where it looked as though it would take off for real in the US. But could it actually happen this time?
With MLS looking half decent, I wouldn't be surprised if it grows further. To me it does seem as though that league has been done kinda properly. Sure it does have a load of ex-stars taking a last pay cheque which straight off doesn't sound that great. But from seeing match reports and stuff it feels that there is quite a lot more to it. Those players are something like the icing on the cake, but, unlike when you had Pele playing in NY in the seventies, it seems as though at least there IS some cake.
How much do demographics affect it? I guess that in South and Central America football is the game so immigration from below the border - no doubt aided by senile Biden's totally open border policy - works in favour of the beautiful game too...
But more than that - and something that could become more of an issue IF football does establish a toehold to build from - it seems to me that if you take a person who has no particular ingrained reason to prefer one or the other out of American Football and Football and make them watch a match of each kind, then the latter is just easier to get into just cos the game is so much more continuous. Sure the AF highlights look good when some guy in his lovely shiny kit dives to catch an 80m pass but when you watch it live you realise what a tiny part of the whole thing that is. In fact, even a shitty play where they advance three metres lasts nothing compared to the break before and after that happens. AF has all those cheerleaders and adverts and stuff cos they are needed to fill in all the gaps when play is stopped - when they take the kick off and the ball is alive for ten seconds.... and then it stops and they swap the whole team.
I'm not making a parochial claim that football is a better game (obviously It is, but that's not what I'm arguing), I'm just saying that it's easier for someone who knows nothing about it to follow. I understand that AF benefits from studying it properly, that you can get more from it the more you understand it and the more that you can think about the tactics and so on..... but what is the incentive for a newbie to reach that level when there are other games which can give you the same rush without having to study them first?
Plus - correct me if I'm wrong here - but is it not also the case that there is a big thing at the moment with them worrying about the long term damage to the brain that you are likely to sustain if you spend your professional life trying to stop really fast giants wearing body armour by smashing your head into them? And as a result there is a serious possibility that they are gonna change the game to make it safer and less exciting?
And a lot of the same stuff about immediacy applies for baseball vs football too I'd imagine.
I suppose I'm asking people in the US, so I guess I'm asking @Leo really cos you're the one who posted in this thread today.
TLDR - my feeling is that the MLS is working quite well and football might actually establish itself as a proper self-sustaining sport in the US that doesn't need to rely on aging foreign superstars to generate interest - would you agree?
And also, would you agree that compared to the homegrown US sports of American Football and baseball, football is a game that - due to its relatively more continuous game play and simple rules - is easier to watch and enjoy for a total beginner? And easier to play come to think of it cos you don't need so much stuff.
So when you consider that, plus the changing demographics of the country, add in the possibility of a controversial rule change in AF, plus yer average man on the street realising that you can get just as megarich playing footie and you can ply your trade in Europe or anywhere and become a world wide star instead of just in the US, do you think that there is a chance that over the next few years (I mean like twenty I guess) football can grow its audience, to some respect, at the expense of AF and baseball?
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IdleRich
IdleRich
It may be total nonsense.
I mean no need to respond to the SL stuff, that was me just angrily ranting what I've thought for ages.
The other bit, directed at you, could really be boiled down to - how do you think footie is doing in the US now and how does the future look for it?
I mean no need to respond to the SL stuff, that was me just angrily ranting what I've thought for ages.
The other bit, directed at you, could really be boiled down to - how do you think footie is doing in the US now and how does the future look for it?
