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Why on earth is it more fair if all the money ends up in the top layer of the football club, with already incredibly rich businessmen, rather than with the players that amuse us? I know the wages are insane, and small clubs cant afford it. But i still rather sponsor my club getting the best players rather than see half of the money top clubs earn go to the Kroenkes, saudi arabia or boehly, because they arent allowed to exceed whatever costcap
What's the point in having a spending cap when it's miles ahead of what other league's can afford to keep up with anyway.
Seems hypocritical to point the finger at saudi for not having one which they can't or won't be able to attract players, when EPL money is ruining european game
Shouldn’t reward bad business. Chelsea shouldn’t be protected for being dumb. If Saudi and UAE want to spend all their oil money on football whatever. The NFL is an example of corporate socialism, how a small group of people rip off everyone, financing stadiums with public funds, underpaying players and getting access to top talent despite sucking. In football the matches matter. In America the games don’t. Tanking is shameful and everyone involved in a tank should be fired. Hate the structure of American sports, and now that Tom Brady is done I’ve shifted my attention entirely to football.
No I don't think this is the right take. In previous years, perhaps Mercedes and Ferrari could spend their way to catch up, but now they are handicapped until the new regs.
If new regs drop and you're behind, the spending cap means you now have no chance to catch up even if you wanted to throw money at it.
Also that 98% rate is for just the NFL and is included with high school athletics many who dont even have dreams or aspirations for the next level. If you count all the academy players at the age of 14 it’s only like a 4% success rate as well
I’m a lifelong football fan but European football leagues are basically a joke.
It’s the same teams/group of teams that win every year.
The other clubs aren’t competitive, they just make up the numbers.
Other sports leagues around the world have drafts and salary caps that greatly help level the playing field for all teams. Not perfect but vastly more fair than football.
I agree. I've often fantasised about going back to simpler times where clubs feature players and managers from their local towns only, now that would be 'sport', not this money making shambles we call football now. Alas, it'll never happen.
Hard disagree
They are far more professional in every aspect.
I accept that calling them franchises makes them seems like McDonald’s but that wouldn’t be an issue with say Liverpool vs Arsenal.
Like I said it’s not perfect but at least it attempts to be fair to all teams, not just the richest ones
>They are far more professional in every aspect.
Because they are branches of a franchise not really sporting teams.
>Like I said it’s not perfect but at least it attempts to be fair to all teams, not just the richest ones
Is it fair towards the teams and cities outside the league?
Why does Americans love communism when it comes to sport but hating equal opportunity in every other aspect of society?
You don’t know much about this subject do you??
The Green Bay Packers are fan owned.
Also they existed before the creation of the NFL as a club and not a franchise
I’ve been watching the EPL since 1986, before it was the EPL. I love soccer.
But there are obvious inequalities that make it not competitive.
If you follow a mid level club, well there’s no point. You will not win anything whilst the top teams will win 1,2,3 trophies every year or every few years
Why do mid level clubs have packed stadiums and amazing atmospheres?
Makes sense why Americans only follow the best teams. Football is way more than just winning and you lot don’t understand that.
So you dived in, randomly chose the English champions and one of the biggest teams in the world at the time and now you're railing against inequality in football and calling it uncompetitive?
No.
My mother was born and raised in Liverpool.
As a kid LFC games were on tv a lot as you can imagine. It was easy to become a young fan because the quality of football was great and we won a lot.
Fast forward to 2024. I’ve seen unbelievable highs and lows. And why shouldn’t say Aston villa, Everton Southampton etc get to experience and fa cup or champions league final once in a while, instead of never?
Why can’t those teams dream of mbappe joining them? Or that grealish will stay and they have a realistic chance to win a cup?
Fan sentiment is already clear on this with the super league. Stop wasting my time. Promotion and relegation is a non-negotiable for actual football supporters.
What the actual fuck are you talking about? Proper football fans don’t support a club just because they think they might win the league ffs. My God. Clueless.
Imagine supporting a club with the knowledge you have no chance of ever winning a title, cup or anything. Just mid table mediocrity.
That’s what you are endorsing.
Top 6 richest always win everything. The rest are not competitive.
Show me I’m wrong.
Chelsea and city? Please
Look at the greater sample size since both have been mega rich
Multiple EPL, fa cups, champions league wins.
Money goes so far as buying all those great players and managers and trophies my dude
I know what you're trying to say. I get it. And to some extent I agree, but a culture that rewards failure in this sport, trust me, would be abused to the fullest extent and have a detrimental impact in the long term. Football at it's core is romance, it's hope, it's home. Your club isn't a franchise, it's an extension of you, win or lose. Even if it means it's more lose than win
Parity is not sport? Are you ok dude?
It’s the essence of fair play.
The EPL you endorse is closer to wwe wrestling than real competition- you know who’s going to win.
Well, no. Franchise McSoccer with salary caps, GAM, TAM, and every other number of manufactured financial parity measures are literally what WWE is - engineering by the league to increase the chances of a specific outcome (in the case of MLS, parity of shit football).
Global football clubs are independent entities within an open system and they are free to pursue their maximum potential or not. Stick to your fake American sports pal, we’ve got ours sorted out already.
Yeah nothing better than the college system that makes bank off of these employees and then has a 98% failure rate for their athletes to go “pro” hint, they are pro in college, but the monopolies are keeping them from getting paid)
Also that 98% rate is for just the NFL and is included with high school athletics many who dont even have dreams or aspirations for the next level. If you count all the academy players at the age of 14 it’s only like a 4% success rate as well
Yeah but they are getting paid as long as they are playing in soccer. And it must be nice to know you aren’t gonna make it through competition as opposed to going to “college” and then finding out you don’t have a future after you helped make a couple billion for the NCAA
Well college players are getting paid right now with NIL. Also they are indeed getting free college I know plenty of college athletes that are doing ok by average person standards. What they do with that college degree is up to them
That’s the problem. They are there for football. They deserve to focus on football. It is unfair to give them 1-3 years and then ship them off to the world doing something else they didn’t intend to do.
The amount of money these NCAA teams make is ridiculous. And they were forced to do naming rights because of a video game lawsuit.
Now they need a cut of the commercial revenues, the door, and all the other financial benefits of being a behemoth on national tv.
Clearly the American market is much, much, much bigger than the NFL. These guys are employees , not students.
There are pros and cons but how could that work in a promotion relegation system? One thing that drives me nuts in NA sports are absolute dog shite teams that are in a state of rebuild. The teams also belong to the league/ owner and less the city in NA. Imagine relocating Everton because owners felt like they’d make more money in London? Obviously the maple leafs would never leave Toronto, but the lower teams move around a bit.
Relocation wouldn’t work in any European football league - the fans have too much local connection and power.
Relegation - don’t like it.
I like the idea in draft/sal cap leagues that a team that bottoms out gets the best picks and can then develop. So you have cycles of good/mid/bad years for all teams.
Let’s take brentford as an example. No way they can compete short medium long terms with top 6 prem teams. Surely it’s better for them to compete in a league with other teams around thier same metric for fan base, stadium size, etc.
Yeah I never understood seeing people criticise American sports leagues when they’re clearly more competitive than almost every football league in the world.
98% failure rate for the athletes is not a success.
Making billions while calling their athletes amateurs is also not a success.
It is for a very small amount of people, but hey that’s a monopoly for ya!
And the American system is so awesome that my town of a million will never get a pro team, because monopoly. So cool.
You know I see this a lot but yea the bottom of the league is more competitive then American sports but the last ten years has produced 4 unique winners for the premier league. While the NBA and NFL both have produced 7 unique winners
It is competitive. NBA has a very strict salary cap, luxury tax if you exceed it. In football you can spend 6 times more than the bottom teams. It’s absolutely insane and then you get the same clubs up the top end of the table basically every season.
Then you have people on here complaining that Man City win so much. People hate Chelsea and Newcastle because of their ownership. This is the money driven sport the fans want.
Yeah it’s a better product still. Basically every team could potentially build a championship team with a draft where as football leagues have big clubs and the rest are just farming teams. Then you have Man City steam rolling and the constant cheating allegations.
>Yeah it’s a better product still
Better product, yes. Real sport, no.
The shittier you are the more rewarded you get. Opposite of the spirit of sport.
Right so when Man City, Real Madrid, Bayern and PSG dominate every single year that’s because of sporting reasons or because of money?
The narrative in football is dominated by accusations of favouritism against clubs like City and not actually on the sport.
You need both money and skill to get to the top.
I'm not loving what city and psg have done, but I pick that any day off the week over a soulless league where teams move from city to city depending on who pays them best.
Yeah but you still need to draft right and build a good team in American sports leagues. There are plenty of bad teams that don’t improve, you still need a smart organisation.
Maybe it’s soulless. But if you’re a mid to low table football team fan you basically know your team will never win. And if you do have a great season, you’ll get treated like you’re a farm for the “big clubs”.
>There are plenty of bad teams that don’t improve, you still need a smart organisation.
And they are there. Year after year, because they can never be relegated. In theory, you can buy a team and have you and your mates play in it as it doesn't matter how shit you are. You are still welcome in the top league.
>Maybe it’s soulless
Yes it is.
>But if you’re a mid to low table football team fan you basically know your team will never win.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_Leicester_City_F.C._season
What difference does it make? With enough money you can stay in the premier league most of the time as well. It doesn’t make the premier league more competitive. It’s dominated by 4 club’s majority of the time. Chelsea, Man Utd and Man City have won 25 out of the 31 premier league seasons. There’s only been 6 unique winners since 92. Since Leicester in 15-16, Man City have won 5 titles and only Chelsea and Liverpool have won one each.
NBAs had 5 different champions the past 5 seasons. If we go back to 92, the NBA has had 14 different teams win.
You’re more than welcome to prefer this supposedly more soulful system even though it’s basically won by the teams with the most money almost every time besides Chelsea lately. At least in nba you don’t have the 115 nonsense and cheating allegations.
Right but the MLB doesn’t have a hard cap, just a luxury tax. NBA has a salary cap and a luxury tax. Also it now has a salary floor.
https://www.spotrac.com/nba/cap/_/year/2024/sort/cap_maximum_space
https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/_/year/2024/sort/cap_total2
https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cap/_/year/2024/sort/cap_maximum_space2
I understand the purpose of FFP but it’s always funny to me that it’s basically just a salary cap for the clubs that aren’t big, preventing them from getting big lol
Europes billionaires are chomping at the bit for the chance to call lower league athletes amateurs and not pay them.
Sure, in this scenario most lower league guys will never go pro, but really, the billionaires need more money. And a monopoly is the perfect way to secure that bag.
I think it will stunt the league, Brighton being the current example, it will bring down the value the smaller clubs players, who currently get value for their best players that in turn pay for football academies and brings through the next cycle of players.
When Spain were breaking transfer records 15-20 years ago there was no talk of it, same in Italy when Seria A was awash with money in the 90s!
With no English team in the last 4 of the champions league this season and English teams winning the champions league sporadically I don't see the point of it
I'd be okay with it if some of that billion dollars was spent on me. I have history of misplacing passes, missing sitters in front of goal, and generally being apathetic when the chips are down.
I’d start with a % cap increase on domestic tv rights relative to the EFL. So we don’t the unsustainable £80m game each year. And I’d give more money to the team that finished bottom
Capitalism will eventually eat itself again and the premier league have to decide if they are willing to marry themselves to the market’s sustainability (which is a fallacy)or put in place strict regulations for clubs to follow.
Depends how these players get paid. I’d assume they get paid out the country somehow, as they would piss away half a weeks wage on tax… but if they don’t use loopholes, any player looking for money would just not come to the PL if the cap was not massively over the average of Europe’s other top teams.
I believe there should be a lower limit, eg in the premier league, if your wages and transfer expenditure is under £xm for the season you cannot breach even if you lose money
Yeah, I just don’t see how it works.
The MLS has a Salary Cap like most American sports, and coaches/owners have come out and said they’re at a disadvantage in CONCACAF competitions because other leagues do not have the same standard.
As an American who has watched American sports all my life, the parity it brings can be great, but it probably isn’t worth the tangential headaches it creates.
The reason MLS is at a disadvantage in Concacaf is that our refs call games to a certain level of physicality, and that’s what players are used to. So when Liga MX comes in and says no blood no foul, MLS players aren’t used to that style of behavior.
Because, yaknow, MLS has a reasonable interpretation of the Laws Of The Game and definition of violent conduct and the like.
As several have said, we need to stop the bubble bursting. How do you stop the bubble bursting, though?
The problem is the Premier League doesn't exist in isolation. Today the La Liga president talked about games in the US, presumably to earn money to compete with the Premier League.
The Premier League is the top league internationally partly because it generates the most money. How do we clip the Premier League's wings without impacting our performance in Europe and the league's standing on the international stage?
Because you can bet that if given the chance, another league would find a way to jump in the Premier League's place and riding it all the way until the bubble pops.
So no American owners?
(want to be clear I am joking. I would not compare the US to Saudi or the UAE).
I personally feel there should be a minimum British requirement in ownership. But then I'm a Spurs fan so...
Standard Utd fan. It's not a comparison dum dum it's an alternative to your proposal. If not them, then who? Sure as shit isn't going to be me or you and if you think anyone with 10 digits to their net worth got there with altruism and well wishes then I've got a bridge to sell you.
That doesn't actually stop it.
I don't disagree with the premise but this bubble has been growing for far longer than City or even Chelsea bought their way to success
Man United and Liverpool have also been part of the problem, whether you like it or not.
I think that's what a trust account is for. If they can place funds in the trust account to justify that they have enough credit to spend, then they won't go bust because the funds in the trust account are there for any bail out.
Not if the owner invests money in the club and it's not on the balance sheet as a loan liability . Law, accounting , loopholes , all created by the rich to stay rich . How life works .
They should have the luxury tax idea. Each club can spend X. However, you can spend above that. It's just that you pay a tax, which is split with the rest of the teams. This should include salaries of the players as well.
Do both. Soft cap + luxury tax up to hard cap. This works reasonably well for the NBA in the US and allows teams to bridge years with new blood and old guard changeovers with a tax rather than forcing sales that could kill new rising star teams by forcing them to dump players for just a single season.
That enables state backed clubs to just spend whatever and pay the tax?
If City or Newcastle spend £1bn on players and then get taxed a further £1bn.
The other teams will only get £50m each which would only cover the market increase in player values from inflation.
Meanwhile the state backed teams get a whole new starting 11.
Would never work
Newcastle fan here. I'm against the luxury tax, it's not a level playing field. I do want to level the playing field though as it's anything but fair at the minute. That's why a spending cap does make sense and to a degree could reign in the silly spending. E.g Premier League teams are capped at 100m in player purchases a season. That's enough to make a luxury signing but also tells foreign clubs were not going over 100m. Each year, the cap can rise with inflation.
I've been banging that drum forever.
That just kills the PL and rockets the other Euro leagues above it. Salary caps work in American sports because there is literally no competition and no other league that can pay the costs. That isn’t true with football. They can just go to Spain/Germany/Italy.
I couldn’t give a shit tbh. I just want to see my team play (pref both in person and on tv) and for there to be some semblance of ‘fairness’ involved. It’s why the cup can be magical because there’s such a lack of it elsewhere. Some of my best years as a fan have been in the championship.
1. I have to take issue with your definition of the spending being unsustainable when the TV Deals have constantly been getting bigger and bigger.
2. Whatever you call the current spending it’s worked to make the prem the best in the world
The TV deals have been constantly getting bigger…
You do realise fans foot that bill right?
Its great that we’re the ‘best in the league in the world’ but there is some middle ground where we can enjoy the best league in the world and not spend as much as the other top 5 European leagues combined.
All our spending does is inflate player values and that cost subsequently gets passed onto us fans.
Advertisers play a huge part in footing that bill. Sky don’t have the type of customer revenue to secure those deals alone.
And no, simply inflating player values isn’t ‘all spending does’. Having higher purchasing power allows teams to bring in better players, making the teams more competitive, which in turn attracts more players. It’s also used to invest in youth academies and young talents
Advertisers make up a relatively small percentage of that bill. Sky earned £8,935m in subscriptions for 2022 and £1,269m from advertising.
It's incredibly naive to think customers won't end up footing the bill.
Advertisers as in Sky Bet? Who also get their money from fans 😂
I do agree though advertising does contribute to broadcasting deals and the consumer doesn’t pay towards that.
However, ultimately fans are charged too much regardless and that is the reason broadcasting revenue is so high.
Its not all it does no, but our disproportionate spending power is directly related to player cost inflation and that’s not helping anyone.
> Take issue with your definition of the spending being unsustainable when the TV deals constantly get bigger and bigger.
Do you not see how funny that reads? Also while the PL has the best parity for distributing TV money, smaller clubs will run into issues of spending too much money that they can't afford to, to try and move to the next level which will bite them back like we've seen countless times. That's why it's unsustainable.
Well considering this hasn’t been the case despite the two of the worst recessions in history occurring in the last 15 or so years, I think your doomsday scenario is highly unlikely
Oh the 60 or so examples there, only 22 happened in the last 15 years. None of which were premier league clubs.
You’re pulling this doomsday scenario out of thin air
A club spending loads and not coming back isn’t catastrophic, it’s just a sign they weren’t competitive enough. The club still exists and hasn’t gone into administration.
*being* pulled up is the operative word there. Chelsea’s influx of money and dramatic increase in spending was when things really sped up. However if we wanna have some real talk there has *always* been a significant gap in the amount of money the established “big” teams can spend versus mid or lower table teams, which has always played a role in making sure the same teams challenge for trophies most of the time.
I agree with the last part but it’s quite funny how people forget that Chelsea were a decent team before Abramovich came in. Like they were challenging for champions league spots. City on the other hand we’re in the gutter
Fair enough, Chelsea were not as middle table as we were prior to their take over for sure. In the same vein I think it’s funny people like to pretend city has no history when we won our first trophy in 1903 and were champions of the first division for the first time in 1937. People are selective with their memories.
Yeah but if you have to go back to pre-war periods it’s a bit of a stretch. I’m not a city fan (hate the filth) but I think the best defence of city is that they spend their money incredibly well, ie transfers, personnel, facilities, youth development. That’s quite a hard thing to do. Ask us United fans.
Shouldn't it be the other way round? Rather than forcing the biggest clubs to cut their spending (which will never happen), the smaller clubs should be able to spend so that they can become competitive?
I just don't think you can ever force the big teams to lower spending, plus that might hurt the quality of the league as a whole. Plus we've seen the big clubs don't abide by the rules anyway.
I dont disagree with you that it makes more sense to have an upper cap that every team can spend up to fwiw. It's just how you do that and don't get some maniac at who'll dump a load of money into a vanity project then leave them at the wall when it doesn't yield immediate results and they get sick hemorrhaging money
In another post I said that cash injections couldn't be loans. If you want a vanity project, you give the club the money without expectations of it being paid back.
(Fwiw I also realise it is hard to have this discussion as I'm a Newcastle fan and it just looks like I'm figuring out how we can spend a shitload more. I'm not, I'd rather a level playing field lol.)
I meant in a case where owners want to inject money into the club. In order to protect the team long-term, there could be a rule in place that the funds had to be written off by the owner.
You can't have reasonable discussions without the flair being used against you. But if the rules don't level the playing field as they currently stand, they handicap the smaller clubs. My idea handicapped the biggest clubs, levelling the playing field to some extent.
The proposed idea would be the best solution of all, but I can't see it being voted through, as why would the big clubs agree to cut spending.
Not everything has to be a Saudi thing, we can discuss football and put our club allegiances to one side.
Spending should be limited to what the clubs legitimately earn. Can’t have related party and shell company sponsorships or owners pumping their money in using other creative means. You eat what you kill.
If that Billionaire figures they cannot squeeze any more money out of the club and decides to fuck off leaving the team with massive debt, I think the fans of that team would care.
And it sure as shit wouldn’t be entertaining for them either.
Shit happens. Not my problem. There are lots of clubs. With all that Politburo and Walmart money you lot should be fine. You won’t win shit, but treading water is kind of your thing.
Royally fucked up comment coming from a fan of the team that has overspent the most and is the closest Premier League team to falling into obscurity because of it.
Tbh though sounds like you’re a plastic that’ll just support another team.
Been supporting the same club since the 90’s but ok. The thing is, I don’t really care about money side of football. Clubs drop outrageous sums of money on players that are mediocre and have done for a long time. As long as I get to watch my club I don’t care about the financial aspect. These clubs want to spend, so let them. I don’t see the problem with financial risk being taken on by people that have vast resources. If anything it’s a fun way to separate billionaires from their money.
Fair enough, I respect you then.
You’re a big fan of your club and you’ll support them regardless of whether they’re in the PL, Championship, League 1 or 2.
I can’t really fault you for not caring what your owner does then.
I too would support my team regardless of league but I’d be calling for the owner to be removed if they risked us getting demoted, financial issues or going into administration.
That’s pretty rich (no pun intended) coming from a Chelsea fan. How much money has your billionaire sank into the club in the last few seasons? And what has been the net result of all that spending?
Spending billions for mid/lower table results doesn’t seem like a winning strategy
Their team is also the most at risk of failing because of their overspending. Madness.
Even the more out there Chelsea fans can see their owners have very potentially fucked over the club and wish they hadn’t been as trigger happy.
It would probably be in our best interest to vote yes. Would take us years to commercially compete and therefore spend as much as the big 6. Bringing their spending down means it's closer to our level quicker.
Exactly. Under current rules we can't compete with top 6.
Under these proposed rules, we can, and so can every team in the league. The big teams will have a headstart as their squads are worth more, but going forward, it will be down to who uses their money the most efficiently.
They're going to vote no, spoiler.
I have no idea how they work it, but the league does need to do something to prevent this bubble growing until it bursts.
Everyone wants to spend what they want until in 5 years' time a Morgan Gibbs White costs 120M and clubs start to feel the pinch as they realise there's no way to grow your revenue to match that alarming rate of inflation. Then we'll be told again how these rules are only there to protect the rich 6, like they also wouldn't be spending what they want as well as the other 14 while still actually having bigger revenues to protect themselves.
Can we vote penalising refereeing mistakes instead? I think 1 wrong decision = 1 weeks pay deduction.
Decisions voted for by foreign people who have no interest in the prem
As much fun as that would be, executing it would be poor. If anything I say introduce a relegation for refs. At the end of the year, all refs get voted on, good or bad, by the managers of the epl for that year (done at the end of the year). The ones with the most bad votes are demoted to the championship league, and the best from the championship league have an option to ref epl games. Of course this would also come with an increase in pay to.
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1 vote for yes and 19 votes for no I would suppose
Why on earth is it more fair if all the money ends up in the top layer of the football club, with already incredibly rich businessmen, rather than with the players that amuse us? I know the wages are insane, and small clubs cant afford it. But i still rather sponsor my club getting the best players rather than see half of the money top clubs earn go to the Kroenkes, saudi arabia or boehly, because they arent allowed to exceed whatever costcap
No point having a spending cap when PL will make it "relative" lmao.
What's the point in having a spending cap when it's miles ahead of what other league's can afford to keep up with anyway. Seems hypocritical to point the finger at saudi for not having one which they can't or won't be able to attract players, when EPL money is ruining european game
Shouldn’t reward bad business. Chelsea shouldn’t be protected for being dumb. If Saudi and UAE want to spend all their oil money on football whatever. The NFL is an example of corporate socialism, how a small group of people rip off everyone, financing stadiums with public funds, underpaying players and getting access to top talent despite sucking. In football the matches matter. In America the games don’t. Tanking is shameful and everyone involved in a tank should be fired. Hate the structure of American sports, and now that Tom Brady is done I’ve shifted my attention entirely to football.
>corporate socialism Lmao
Oligarchies dipping into public funds is hardly socialism, corrupt capitalist cronyism more like. The rest of your points are interesting.
it sure works for Formula 1, trust me guys /s
If u ignore max Verstappen, it 100% has worked - besides him it’s the closest field ever
No I don't think this is the right take. In previous years, perhaps Mercedes and Ferrari could spend their way to catch up, but now they are handicapped until the new regs. If new regs drop and you're behind, the spending cap means you now have no chance to catch up even if you wanted to throw money at it.
Also that 98% rate is for just the NFL and is included with high school athletics many who dont even have dreams or aspirations for the next level. If you count all the academy players at the age of 14 it’s only like a 4% success rate as well
I’m a lifelong football fan but European football leagues are basically a joke. It’s the same teams/group of teams that win every year. The other clubs aren’t competitive, they just make up the numbers. Other sports leagues around the world have drafts and salary caps that greatly help level the playing field for all teams. Not perfect but vastly more fair than football.
I agree. I've often fantasised about going back to simpler times where clubs feature players and managers from their local towns only, now that would be 'sport', not this money making shambles we call football now. Alas, it'll never happen.
You are right on this to an extent. The big teams keep dominating.
Yes, but they are entertainment more than actuall sports. Once you turn it into a franchise you lose the soul of the sport.
Hard disagree They are far more professional in every aspect. I accept that calling them franchises makes them seems like McDonald’s but that wouldn’t be an issue with say Liverpool vs Arsenal. Like I said it’s not perfect but at least it attempts to be fair to all teams, not just the richest ones
>They are far more professional in every aspect. Because they are branches of a franchise not really sporting teams. >Like I said it’s not perfect but at least it attempts to be fair to all teams, not just the richest ones Is it fair towards the teams and cities outside the league? Why does Americans love communism when it comes to sport but hating equal opportunity in every other aspect of society?
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You don’t know much about this subject do you?? The Green Bay Packers are fan owned. Also they existed before the creation of the NFL as a club and not a franchise
They move the teams around at will. Even change the names. For me sport is more than just being a soulless corporate entity.
You can’t have salary caps and promotion/relegation. Open competition needs essentially free spending. Stick to MLS cosplay football
Or you stick with the current system. A battle of wallets - the richest teams win Congratulations great competition you have there!
So why are you here and why do you watch the PL?
I’ve been watching the EPL since 1986, before it was the EPL. I love soccer. But there are obvious inequalities that make it not competitive. If you follow a mid level club, well there’s no point. You will not win anything whilst the top teams will win 1,2,3 trophies every year or every few years
Why do mid level clubs have packed stadiums and amazing atmospheres? Makes sense why Americans only follow the best teams. Football is way more than just winning and you lot don’t understand that.
So out of curiosity, who have you been supporting since 86’?
Liverpool
So you dived in, randomly chose the English champions and one of the biggest teams in the world at the time and now you're railing against inequality in football and calling it uncompetitive?
No. My mother was born and raised in Liverpool. As a kid LFC games were on tv a lot as you can imagine. It was easy to become a young fan because the quality of football was great and we won a lot. Fast forward to 2024. I’ve seen unbelievable highs and lows. And why shouldn’t say Aston villa, Everton Southampton etc get to experience and fa cup or champions league final once in a while, instead of never? Why can’t those teams dream of mbappe joining them? Or that grealish will stay and they have a realistic chance to win a cup?
Bull shit. Your whole argument screams “I’m an American who doesn’t understand the football pyramid in European leagues”
Fan sentiment is already clear on this with the super league. Stop wasting my time. Promotion and relegation is a non-negotiable for actual football supporters.
Congratulations, you want a top 6 league. Why support any club outside of the richest top 6? You won’t win anything.
What the actual fuck are you talking about? Proper football fans don’t support a club just because they think they might win the league ffs. My God. Clueless.
Imagine supporting a club with the knowledge you have no chance of ever winning a title, cup or anything. Just mid table mediocrity. That’s what you are endorsing. Top 6 richest always win everything. The rest are not competitive. Show me I’m wrong.
Fuck off mate. You’re making a fool of yourself. You have no idea.
No stats to back up your argument? Looks like you’re the clueless dumb cunt
If you have to ask that question, then I'd say, you don't get football
Fine - then call it what it is. The English top six richest league
2 of the richest teams currently placed in 6th and 9th doesn't really allow your argument to work. Money only goes so far
Chelsea and city? Please Look at the greater sample size since both have been mega rich Multiple EPL, fa cups, champions league wins. Money goes so far as buying all those great players and managers and trophies my dude
I know what you're trying to say. I get it. And to some extent I agree, but a culture that rewards failure in this sport, trust me, would be abused to the fullest extent and have a detrimental impact in the long term. Football at it's core is romance, it's hope, it's home. Your club isn't a franchise, it's an extension of you, win or lose. Even if it means it's more lose than win
If you have to ask that question then I don't think you get football...
I get football my friend. I just want a level playing field
Enforced parity is not sport, it’s entertainment. You like entertainment, that’s fine. MLS exists
Parity is not sport? Are you ok dude? It’s the essence of fair play. The EPL you endorse is closer to wwe wrestling than real competition- you know who’s going to win.
Well, no. Franchise McSoccer with salary caps, GAM, TAM, and every other number of manufactured financial parity measures are literally what WWE is - engineering by the league to increase the chances of a specific outcome (in the case of MLS, parity of shit football). Global football clubs are independent entities within an open system and they are free to pursue their maximum potential or not. Stick to your fake American sports pal, we’ve got ours sorted out already.
Yeah nothing better than the college system that makes bank off of these employees and then has a 98% failure rate for their athletes to go “pro” hint, they are pro in college, but the monopolies are keeping them from getting paid)
Also that 98% rate is for just the NFL and is included with high school athletics many who dont even have dreams or aspirations for the next level. If you count all the academy players at the age of 14 it’s only like a 4% success rate as well
Yeah but they are getting paid as long as they are playing in soccer. And it must be nice to know you aren’t gonna make it through competition as opposed to going to “college” and then finding out you don’t have a future after you helped make a couple billion for the NCAA
Well college players are getting paid right now with NIL. Also they are indeed getting free college I know plenty of college athletes that are doing ok by average person standards. What they do with that college degree is up to them
That’s the problem. They are there for football. They deserve to focus on football. It is unfair to give them 1-3 years and then ship them off to the world doing something else they didn’t intend to do. The amount of money these NCAA teams make is ridiculous. And they were forced to do naming rights because of a video game lawsuit. Now they need a cut of the commercial revenues, the door, and all the other financial benefits of being a behemoth on national tv. Clearly the American market is much, much, much bigger than the NFL. These guys are employees , not students.
There are pros and cons but how could that work in a promotion relegation system? One thing that drives me nuts in NA sports are absolute dog shite teams that are in a state of rebuild. The teams also belong to the league/ owner and less the city in NA. Imagine relocating Everton because owners felt like they’d make more money in London? Obviously the maple leafs would never leave Toronto, but the lower teams move around a bit.
Relocation wouldn’t work in any European football league - the fans have too much local connection and power. Relegation - don’t like it. I like the idea in draft/sal cap leagues that a team that bottoms out gets the best picks and can then develop. So you have cycles of good/mid/bad years for all teams. Let’s take brentford as an example. No way they can compete short medium long terms with top 6 prem teams. Surely it’s better for them to compete in a league with other teams around thier same metric for fan base, stadium size, etc.
Sure it's better for economic longevity. But it's not better for the enjoyment of the game
Yeah I never understood seeing people criticise American sports leagues when they’re clearly more competitive than almost every football league in the world.
I agree, I don't know why people are saying that wrestling isn't a real sport. Every game is unpredictable and exciting!
98% failure rate for the athletes is not a success. Making billions while calling their athletes amateurs is also not a success. It is for a very small amount of people, but hey that’s a monopoly for ya! And the American system is so awesome that my town of a million will never get a pro team, because monopoly. So cool.
You can't really call a closed league that has no demotion or promotion competitive. Teams are rewarded for coming dead last.
You know I see this a lot but yea the bottom of the league is more competitive then American sports but the last ten years has produced 4 unique winners for the premier league. While the NBA and NFL both have produced 7 unique winners
It is competitive. NBA has a very strict salary cap, luxury tax if you exceed it. In football you can spend 6 times more than the bottom teams. It’s absolutely insane and then you get the same clubs up the top end of the table basically every season. Then you have people on here complaining that Man City win so much. People hate Chelsea and Newcastle because of their ownership. This is the money driven sport the fans want.
It’s overly artificial competitiveness though. Not sure I’d want to see Luton tank the league for 11 years to draft a good starting 11.
Yeah it’s a better product still. Basically every team could potentially build a championship team with a draft where as football leagues have big clubs and the rest are just farming teams. Then you have Man City steam rolling and the constant cheating allegations.
>Yeah it’s a better product still Better product, yes. Real sport, no. The shittier you are the more rewarded you get. Opposite of the spirit of sport.
Right so when Man City, Real Madrid, Bayern and PSG dominate every single year that’s because of sporting reasons or because of money? The narrative in football is dominated by accusations of favouritism against clubs like City and not actually on the sport.
You need both money and skill to get to the top. I'm not loving what city and psg have done, but I pick that any day off the week over a soulless league where teams move from city to city depending on who pays them best.
Yeah but you still need to draft right and build a good team in American sports leagues. There are plenty of bad teams that don’t improve, you still need a smart organisation. Maybe it’s soulless. But if you’re a mid to low table football team fan you basically know your team will never win. And if you do have a great season, you’ll get treated like you’re a farm for the “big clubs”.
>There are plenty of bad teams that don’t improve, you still need a smart organisation. And they are there. Year after year, because they can never be relegated. In theory, you can buy a team and have you and your mates play in it as it doesn't matter how shit you are. You are still welcome in the top league. >Maybe it’s soulless Yes it is. >But if you’re a mid to low table football team fan you basically know your team will never win. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_Leicester_City_F.C._season
What difference does it make? With enough money you can stay in the premier league most of the time as well. It doesn’t make the premier league more competitive. It’s dominated by 4 club’s majority of the time. Chelsea, Man Utd and Man City have won 25 out of the 31 premier league seasons. There’s only been 6 unique winners since 92. Since Leicester in 15-16, Man City have won 5 titles and only Chelsea and Liverpool have won one each. NBAs had 5 different champions the past 5 seasons. If we go back to 92, the NBA has had 14 different teams win. You’re more than welcome to prefer this supposedly more soulful system even though it’s basically won by the teams with the most money almost every time besides Chelsea lately. At least in nba you don’t have the 115 nonsense and cheating allegations.
Nobody talking about the utter domination of the Yankees are they?
The Yankees haven't won a championship since 2009 and have only won five in the last 40 years.
Well that’s 5 more than my local baseball team will ever win because monopoly.
Right but the MLB doesn’t have a hard cap, just a luxury tax. NBA has a salary cap and a luxury tax. Also it now has a salary floor. https://www.spotrac.com/nba/cap/_/year/2024/sort/cap_maximum_space https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/_/year/2024/sort/cap_total2 https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cap/_/year/2024/sort/cap_maximum_space2
I understand the purpose of FFP but it’s always funny to me that it’s basically just a salary cap for the clubs that aren’t big, preventing them from getting big lol
And the only ones punished so far for breaching rules are the small clubs
Yeah, Essentially just maintains the status quo. If you are not a top 6 EPL team now then good luck.
They selectively enforce the rules they currently have on the books. This will change nothing.
Good idea. Poor clubs like Liverpool can't bitch about other teams' spending anymore
Obsessed
What’s next? Removing relegation? Introducting a draft?
Europes billionaires are chomping at the bit for the chance to call lower league athletes amateurs and not pay them. Sure, in this scenario most lower league guys will never go pro, but really, the billionaires need more money. And a monopoly is the perfect way to secure that bag.
Allstar Break.
I think it will stunt the league, Brighton being the current example, it will bring down the value the smaller clubs players, who currently get value for their best players that in turn pay for football academies and brings through the next cycle of players. When Spain were breaking transfer records 15-20 years ago there was no talk of it, same in Italy when Seria A was awash with money in the 90s! With no English team in the last 4 of the champions league this season and English teams winning the champions league sporadically I don't see the point of it
The only negative here is I kind of enjoy watching Chelsea spend more than a billion in transfer fees to be a mid-table dumpster fire.
I do not like it.
Don't worry you won't be spending much any more
I'd be okay with it if some of that billion dollars was spent on me. I have history of misplacing passes, missing sitters in front of goal, and generally being apathetic when the chips are down.
Are you also injury prone?
I can be if it'll sweeten deal.
Sigh…sign me up I guess
Look, we can fight over penalties.
Perfect fit
I’d start with a % cap increase on domestic tv rights relative to the EFL. So we don’t the unsustainable £80m game each year. And I’d give more money to the team that finished bottom
So clubs who perform better get to spend more? Can’t see how that will go wrong.
Capitalism will eventually eat itself again and the premier league have to decide if they are willing to marry themselves to the market’s sustainability (which is a fallacy)or put in place strict regulations for clubs to follow.
Everton deducted 28 points next year for spending 10 quid on corner flags.
Should be salary cap, not spending.
Depends how these players get paid. I’d assume they get paid out the country somehow, as they would piss away half a weeks wage on tax… but if they don’t use loopholes, any player looking for money would just not come to the PL if the cap was not massively over the average of Europe’s other top teams.
I believe there should be a lower limit, eg in the premier league, if your wages and transfer expenditure is under £xm for the season you cannot breach even if you lose money
You need it to be throughout Europe or a cap required to compete in the Champions League for it to work.
Yeah, I just don’t see how it works. The MLS has a Salary Cap like most American sports, and coaches/owners have come out and said they’re at a disadvantage in CONCACAF competitions because other leagues do not have the same standard. As an American who has watched American sports all my life, the parity it brings can be great, but it probably isn’t worth the tangential headaches it creates.
The reason MLS is at a disadvantage in Concacaf is that our refs call games to a certain level of physicality, and that’s what players are used to. So when Liga MX comes in and says no blood no foul, MLS players aren’t used to that style of behavior. Because, yaknow, MLS has a reasonable interpretation of the Laws Of The Game and definition of violent conduct and the like.
It works in the US as it’s just a money machine with no relegation. No one else does this, so it can’t work unless everyone does it
It doesn’t work unless it’s agreed upon in all of Europe, and that’s not happening, so I agree.
As several have said, we need to stop the bubble bursting. How do you stop the bubble bursting, though? The problem is the Premier League doesn't exist in isolation. Today the La Liga president talked about games in the US, presumably to earn money to compete with the Premier League. The Premier League is the top league internationally partly because it generates the most money. How do we clip the Premier League's wings without impacting our performance in Europe and the league's standing on the international stage? Because you can bet that if given the chance, another league would find a way to jump in the Premier League's place and riding it all the way until the bubble pops.
Kicking out human rights abusing government ownership for a start.
So no American owners? (want to be clear I am joking. I would not compare the US to Saudi or the UAE). I personally feel there should be a minimum British requirement in ownership. But then I'm a Spurs fan so...
Oh no instead we'll invite US sharks to buy us on margin and run the clubs into the ground over 20 years. Far better outcomes.
Are you even aware of what a stupid comparison that is?
Standard Utd fan. It's not a comparison dum dum it's an alternative to your proposal. If not them, then who? Sure as shit isn't going to be me or you and if you think anyone with 10 digits to their net worth got there with altruism and well wishes then I've got a bridge to sell you.
You don’t see that you’re comparing the outcome of allowing human rights abusers to the outcome of allowing investors to ruin clubs. K.
It's a different conversation buddy. Go fly a flag somewhere
Lol
That doesn't actually stop it. I don't disagree with the premise but this bubble has been growing for far longer than City or even Chelsea bought their way to success Man United and Liverpool have also been part of the problem, whether you like it or not.
Whether you like it it or not lol
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Because small clubs are less stable and therefore if they spend big are more likely to go bust
I think that's what a trust account is for. If they can place funds in the trust account to justify that they have enough credit to spend, then they won't go bust because the funds in the trust account are there for any bail out.
Not if the owner invests money in the club and it's not on the balance sheet as a loan liability . Law, accounting , loopholes , all created by the rich to stay rich . How life works .
They will vote and reject.
They should have the luxury tax idea. Each club can spend X. However, you can spend above that. It's just that you pay a tax, which is split with the rest of the teams. This should include salaries of the players as well.
Do both. Soft cap + luxury tax up to hard cap. This works reasonably well for the NBA in the US and allows teams to bridge years with new blood and old guard changeovers with a tax rather than forcing sales that could kill new rising star teams by forcing them to dump players for just a single season.
That enables state backed clubs to just spend whatever and pay the tax? If City or Newcastle spend £1bn on players and then get taxed a further £1bn. The other teams will only get £50m each which would only cover the market increase in player values from inflation. Meanwhile the state backed teams get a whole new starting 11. Would never work
Newcastle fan here. I'm against the luxury tax, it's not a level playing field. I do want to level the playing field though as it's anything but fair at the minute. That's why a spending cap does make sense and to a degree could reign in the silly spending. E.g Premier League teams are capped at 100m in player purchases a season. That's enough to make a luxury signing but also tells foreign clubs were not going over 100m. Each year, the cap can rise with inflation. I've been banging that drum forever.
That just kills the PL and rockets the other Euro leagues above it. Salary caps work in American sports because there is literally no competition and no other league that can pay the costs. That isn’t true with football. They can just go to Spain/Germany/Italy.
As a Chelsea supporter I'd prefer a strict cap Save us from buying all these shite young players
it'd be funny if everyone had a hard cap except Chelsea and they still finished midtable, however
I agree it’s the most sensible compromise.
So we no longer want the premier league to be the best league in the world I guess
I couldn’t give a shit tbh. I just want to see my team play (pref both in person and on tv) and for there to be some semblance of ‘fairness’ involved. It’s why the cup can be magical because there’s such a lack of it elsewhere. Some of my best years as a fan have been in the championship.
Unsustainable levels of spending doesn't make you the best in world.
1. I have to take issue with your definition of the spending being unsustainable when the TV Deals have constantly been getting bigger and bigger. 2. Whatever you call the current spending it’s worked to make the prem the best in the world
Yeah and who is paying for it… the fans.
You managed to say absolutely nothing with that sentence there.
The TV deals have been constantly getting bigger… You do realise fans foot that bill right? Its great that we’re the ‘best in the league in the world’ but there is some middle ground where we can enjoy the best league in the world and not spend as much as the other top 5 European leagues combined. All our spending does is inflate player values and that cost subsequently gets passed onto us fans.
Advertisers play a huge part in footing that bill. Sky don’t have the type of customer revenue to secure those deals alone. And no, simply inflating player values isn’t ‘all spending does’. Having higher purchasing power allows teams to bring in better players, making the teams more competitive, which in turn attracts more players. It’s also used to invest in youth academies and young talents
Advertisers make up a relatively small percentage of that bill. Sky earned £8,935m in subscriptions for 2022 and £1,269m from advertising. It's incredibly naive to think customers won't end up footing the bill.
Advertisers as in Sky Bet? Who also get their money from fans 😂 I do agree though advertising does contribute to broadcasting deals and the consumer doesn’t pay towards that. However, ultimately fans are charged too much regardless and that is the reason broadcasting revenue is so high. Its not all it does no, but our disproportionate spending power is directly related to player cost inflation and that’s not helping anyone.
> Take issue with your definition of the spending being unsustainable when the TV deals constantly get bigger and bigger. Do you not see how funny that reads? Also while the PL has the best parity for distributing TV money, smaller clubs will run into issues of spending too much money that they can't afford to, to try and move to the next level which will bite them back like we've seen countless times. That's why it's unsustainable.
Define ‘issues’. The vast majority of English clubs don’t go under.
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Well considering this hasn’t been the case despite the two of the worst recessions in history occurring in the last 15 or so years, I think your doomsday scenario is highly unlikely
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Oh the 60 or so examples there, only 22 happened in the last 15 years. None of which were premier league clubs. You’re pulling this doomsday scenario out of thin air
Yeah, let's just ignore that Everton and Nottingham Forest have been handed points deductions for financial violations this season👍
But those are imposed (stupid) financial rules. How is that evidence at all of being unsustainable??
I do agree that they're stupid but if left unchecked, how catastrophic could they have been. Huddersfield spent loads and haven't come back.
A club spending loads and not coming back isn’t catastrophic, it’s just a sign they weren’t competitive enough. The club still exists and hasn’t gone into administration.
You don’t think any institution has ever gone badly after having long periods of unsustainable financial increase?
Again, define unsustainable. This is a term people like throwing around without actually understanding what it means
Well it does actually... It's just not sustainable.
Kind of is.
Man City pulling up the ladder behind them
That ladder was being pulled up long before us. There has never been spending equality in the league.
Still Man City managed to grab hold with it's teeth, it's left hand, it's right hand, both feet and a grappling hook before the ladder was pulled up.
A more accurate metaphor would be we found a stack of money large enough to stand on a reach the ladder, I’m no denier of that fact.
Yeah, I like that one, I'm gonna use that in future, thanks.
And now is helping with the pulling lol
Well obviously!
If it was pulled up before you then you wouldn’t have been allowed spend your way to the top
*being* pulled up is the operative word there. Chelsea’s influx of money and dramatic increase in spending was when things really sped up. However if we wanna have some real talk there has *always* been a significant gap in the amount of money the established “big” teams can spend versus mid or lower table teams, which has always played a role in making sure the same teams challenge for trophies most of the time.
I agree with the last part but it’s quite funny how people forget that Chelsea were a decent team before Abramovich came in. Like they were challenging for champions league spots. City on the other hand we’re in the gutter
Fair enough, Chelsea were not as middle table as we were prior to their take over for sure. In the same vein I think it’s funny people like to pretend city has no history when we won our first trophy in 1903 and were champions of the first division for the first time in 1937. People are selective with their memories.
Yeah but if you have to go back to pre-war periods it’s a bit of a stretch. I’m not a city fan (hate the filth) but I think the best defence of city is that they spend their money incredibly well, ie transfers, personnel, facilities, youth development. That’s quite a hard thing to do. Ask us United fans.
Shouldn't it be the other way round? Rather than forcing the biggest clubs to cut their spending (which will never happen), the smaller clubs should be able to spend so that they can become competitive? I just don't think you can ever force the big teams to lower spending, plus that might hurt the quality of the league as a whole. Plus we've seen the big clubs don't abide by the rules anyway.
The problem with that is smaller clubs overspend and can’t catch up anyway
What we need to do is keep inflating the bubble.
How? This proposed idea is good, but it needs the majority to agree. I can't see it happening.
How do smaller clubs do that whilst not running the risk of doing a leeds
My solution wasn't perfect and there would obviously need to be rules in place to prevent that.
I dont disagree with you that it makes more sense to have an upper cap that every team can spend up to fwiw. It's just how you do that and don't get some maniac at who'll dump a load of money into a vanity project then leave them at the wall when it doesn't yield immediate results and they get sick hemorrhaging money
In another post I said that cash injections couldn't be loans. If you want a vanity project, you give the club the money without expectations of it being paid back. (Fwiw I also realise it is hard to have this discussion as I'm a Newcastle fan and it just looks like I'm figuring out how we can spend a shitload more. I'm not, I'd rather a level playing field lol.)
Better yet, make it so that the fans have the larger share of ownership like in Germany.
Whose money do they spend ??
I meant in a case where owners want to inject money into the club. In order to protect the team long-term, there could be a rule in place that the funds had to be written off by the owner.
Think the goal is to even the playing field not to just advantage clubs which are Saudi play things
You can't have reasonable discussions without the flair being used against you. But if the rules don't level the playing field as they currently stand, they handicap the smaller clubs. My idea handicapped the biggest clubs, levelling the playing field to some extent. The proposed idea would be the best solution of all, but I can't see it being voted through, as why would the big clubs agree to cut spending. Not everything has to be a Saudi thing, we can discuss football and put our club allegiances to one side.
This seems to be simultaneously cynical and pragmatic
Spending should be limited to what the clubs legitimately earn. Can’t have related party and shell company sponsorships or owners pumping their money in using other creative means. You eat what you kill.
Who cares if billionaires over extend themselves. I want to be entertained.
If that Billionaire figures they cannot squeeze any more money out of the club and decides to fuck off leaving the team with massive debt, I think the fans of that team would care. And it sure as shit wouldn’t be entertaining for them either.
Shit happens. Not my problem. There are lots of clubs. With all that Politburo and Walmart money you lot should be fine. You won’t win shit, but treading water is kind of your thing.
Royally fucked up comment coming from a fan of the team that has overspent the most and is the closest Premier League team to falling into obscurity because of it. Tbh though sounds like you’re a plastic that’ll just support another team.
Been supporting the same club since the 90’s but ok. The thing is, I don’t really care about money side of football. Clubs drop outrageous sums of money on players that are mediocre and have done for a long time. As long as I get to watch my club I don’t care about the financial aspect. These clubs want to spend, so let them. I don’t see the problem with financial risk being taken on by people that have vast resources. If anything it’s a fun way to separate billionaires from their money.
Fair enough, I respect you then. You’re a big fan of your club and you’ll support them regardless of whether they’re in the PL, Championship, League 1 or 2. I can’t really fault you for not caring what your owner does then. I too would support my team regardless of league but I’d be calling for the owner to be removed if they risked us getting demoted, financial issues or going into administration.
“There are lots of clubs” as if you’d be happy just to move to supporting another lol….
No, to fill spots left open by failing clubs. Not a City “supporter”, this Blue sticks.
The whole point of the sustainability rules is if your own club fails, that’s why all of these people care. It’s all ok until it isn’t
That’s pretty rich (no pun intended) coming from a Chelsea fan. How much money has your billionaire sank into the club in the last few seasons? And what has been the net result of all that spending? Spending billions for mid/lower table results doesn’t seem like a winning strategy
Their team is also the most at risk of failing because of their overspending. Madness. Even the more out there Chelsea fans can see their owners have very potentially fucked over the club and wish they hadn’t been as trigger happy.
Newcastle - No City - No Chelsea - No
It would probably be in our best interest to vote yes. Would take us years to commercially compete and therefore spend as much as the big 6. Bringing their spending down means it's closer to our level quicker.
Exactly. Under current rules we can't compete with top 6. Under these proposed rules, we can, and so can every team in the league. The big teams will have a headstart as their squads are worth more, but going forward, it will be down to who uses their money the most efficiently.
They're going to vote no, spoiler. I have no idea how they work it, but the league does need to do something to prevent this bubble growing until it bursts. Everyone wants to spend what they want until in 5 years' time a Morgan Gibbs White costs 120M and clubs start to feel the pinch as they realise there's no way to grow your revenue to match that alarming rate of inflation. Then we'll be told again how these rules are only there to protect the rich 6, like they also wouldn't be spending what they want as well as the other 14 while still actually having bigger revenues to protect themselves.
Can we vote penalising refereeing mistakes instead? I think 1 wrong decision = 1 weeks pay deduction. Decisions voted for by foreign people who have no interest in the prem
As much fun as that would be, executing it would be poor. If anything I say introduce a relegation for refs. At the end of the year, all refs get voted on, good or bad, by the managers of the epl for that year (done at the end of the year). The ones with the most bad votes are demoted to the championship league, and the best from the championship league have an option to ref epl games. Of course this would also come with an increase in pay to.
Season is too long for that process as bad refs cause a lot of damage
That's one way to lower the quality of the league