Football will eat itself. | Page 2 | Vital Football

Football will eat itself.

Well I’m a ‘lifer‘ at Latics and I also have Sky subscription including the sports, and I’m not about to give it up.
I hear the criticism and whilst some of it is valid and the Premiership as a concept is fully deserving its share of stick ...It’s not all one way.

The money generated by the Sky contract has allowed many clubs to build stadiums worthy of the name. These places do lack the atmosphere and sense of history that their old grounds had, but you are far less likely to get killed or injured in the new ones. The various tragedies we saw in the 70s and 80s would likely have been repeated over and over as the old grounds continued to deteriorate.

Yes too much money has found its way into players pockets and agents especially but for myself anyway who never sat in the stands and resented having to at the JJB....well I couldn’t go back to standing now.

Strangely I rarely do more than dip in and out of live matches on Sky, unless I have a specific interest... but I do like Sky Sports News ....and most of all I just couldn’t do without the cricket!!
Now....If anyone wants to get it back on the BBC ....resurrecting Jim Laker and Richie Benaud ...and Peter West interviewing a clearly pissed Ted Dexter during the tea interval ....(God bless em all) .....then I’d drop Sky like a hot turd tomorrow 😂

Yep with you all the way on this. Couldn’t do without sky sports for both and cricket, plus occasional other sports dependent upon event. Don’t bother with BT, rarely in on a Saturday to catch their game and have no real interest in them fawning over United and the dippers in Europe.

I must say the season just passed I found myself watching less of it due to that var nonsense. That really is sucking the enjoyment out of the game and ruining it as a spectacle. I actually think the footballing landscape will look differently in ten years time.
 
As I said if you are happy to line their pockets then that's your prerogative, personally I will never pay their subscription for the Sports Channels.

I see it as my stand against the evil that is spoiling the game. :bull:
 
In the next 20 years I'll be dead and gone and glad I'll not see the demise of the game I once loved. Football and Latics have been a huge part of my life but honestly I'm beginning to despise everything football stands for.

Tell us a joke Zak.
 
The clocks ticking for Sky. They are far too reliant on the Premier League for their subscribers. It’s only a matter of time before Amazon or Netflix blow them out of the water for live game rights. Plus when the government eventually bins off the Saturday 3pm blanket for live games, the Premier League will set up their own subscription streaming service for games. What we’ve been seeing post lockdown with games almost every day will become the norm and Sky will crash and burn without their bulk of Premier League games.
 
Nobody would complain about the money in football Zeb if it were distributed more evenly and didn’t predominantly end up in the pockets of overpaid players and agents. When a generally uneducated oik earns as much in a week for playing football, however good he is, whilst the PM who runs the country earns that in a year there must be something wrong with a society that allows it. Are we really saying that a professional footballer wouldn’t be just as encouraged to play as well for 1 million a year as they do for the obscene amounts they do now? I don’t blame the players, who wouldn’t keep demanding more if they can get it but when the EFL is talking about capping L1 and L2 clubs to less than one average PL player earns there’s clearly something badly wrong.

I totally understand what you say about keeping your Sky subscription but surely it’s time someone in authority got control of finances before our game generally is destroyed. Sharing the spoils more evenly would also allow those crumbling lower league stadiums you mention to be updated, which sadly clubs can’t afford to do with the way things are. The only salvation for our league would be if the top 6 Mega clubs cleared off and joined a European Super League. They’d still have their derbies ManU v City, Arsenal v Chelsea/Spurs plus the important Liverpool v ManU game so they wouldn’t lose out that way but at least the rest of us could get back to creating a competitive, financially stable system again.
 
Well said Warren. How any club is surviving at the moment is unbelievable. A lot of owners must have very deep pockets or clubs must have really understanding creditors or bank managers.
 
When a generally uneducated oik earns as much in a week for playing football, however good he is, whilst the PM who runs the country earns that in a year there must be something wrong with a society that allows it.
A telling quote Warren and not one that does you great credit.
No footballer is paid according to his academic prowess or pretends that he should earn in direct proportion to his ability to translate Ancient Greek or Latin ....what has his education (or lack of it) got to do with anything?

You or I may have a higher intellect than the average professional footaller but so what? ...is anyone going to pay fortunes to watch us add up columns of figures, manage work projects or maybe match or beat some of the contestants On ‘University Challenge’? (I had a blinder a fortnight back 😎)....but no one gives a flyer!!

Our salaries broadly reflect whatever our employers hold us to be worth.
Footballers are paid essentially because their ability to play professionally ...to the point where people and television companies are prepared to pay money to watch them ...is bestowed on one in how many tens of thousands ? ....it’s rarity value

Per a post I put on here a couple of weeks ago ....how ‘educated‘ is Lewis Hamilton or Tom Hanks or Liam Gallagher (now there’s an oik) it doesn’t matter! ....they earn what they earn because a significant proportion of the populace are happy to pay for the privilege of listening to or watching them.
As for the Prime Minister ....let’s not go there ! :rolleyes:
 
I wouldn’t have valued him at that, about a quarter maybe a third of that at best. Not entirely sure what Man City are thinking of with this one, far better centre halves out there for that price. Money these days is obscene and it’s why it’s so heartbreaking to see our players being priced way below their market value.
 
An excellent, if depressing, piece.

For me, the bleakest sentence, as a stark reminder that the Premier League has a lot to answer for, is this, .....

Until the end of 1992 — the year the Premier League was formed — English football had recorded ten instances of a club entering administration. Since then there has been fifty-four, with five fully dissolved since 2010.

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/08/engl...ter-premier-league-fc?utm_source=Jacobin&s=09
 
I think the big issue is football is run like a business, which makes perfect sense in so many ways - but you can't run a sport as a business without it eventually impacting the long term competitiveness and entertainment value.

The football authorities running the game are happy as long as the money is pouring in but if the league becomes increasingly predictable and 3 quarters of the league are lagging so far behind they are irrelevent it's a matter of time before viewers start to watch less and less.

In the past the likes of Man U, Arsenal, Chelsea were the big guns but the majority of the games were still mostly competitive with the smaller clubs and the chances of an upset were always decent. There was a gap between them and the rest of the league but compared that to the growing chasm that we have now with Liverpool and Man City taking their dominance to another level in recent years and it's feeling like it's becoming overkill.
 
Every country is the same now Bayern PSG Barca/ Madrid juv Man City / Liverpool celtic etc but I do love watching German football too stuff that is .