They're at it again | Page 33 | Vital Football

They're at it again

Perez will not give this up lightly, this is basically Real's ( and Barca's) pay cheque to carry on with their financial incontinence despite the hit they've taken during the pandemic.

Reading more in today's paper looking back at the past week, the Dirty Half Dozen's handling of this suggests either (1) incompetence in failing to prepare the ground properly or (2) ignorance, in not understanding how the proposals would be received. Given the business expertise in, and available to the DHD, its hard to see either of those as credible, which suggests to me this is a smokescreen for something else, which may include sabotaging to Spanish clubs' ambitions on this.

The DHD have lost influence and credibility in the past week, it's up to the rest of the game to drive home the advantage. This may be best served by looking at dull stuff like the games finances and income distribution not by retaliatory fines, point deductions, relegations, as tempting as that may be and, in relation to the likes of, say, Macclesfield, Bury, Rangers and in rugby, Saracens, appropriate. Use that advantage to be nice, rebalance the game, emasculate the DHD's influence but make them fully aware that next time, they're out.
 
Chesterimp said:
Perez will not give this up lightly, this is basically Real's ( and Barca's) pay cheque to carry on with their financial incontinence despite the hit they've taken during the pandemic.

Reading more in today's paper looking back at the past week, the Dirty Half Dozen's handling of this suggests either (1) incompetence in failing to prepare the ground properly or (2) ignorance, in not understanding how the proposals would be received. Given the business expertise in, and available to the DHD, its hard to see either of those as credible, which suggests to me this is a smokescreen for something else, which may include sabotaging to Spanish clubs' ambitions on this.

The DHD have lost influence and credibility in the past week, it's up to the rest of the game to drive home the advantage. This may be best served by looking at dull stuff like the games finances and income distribution not by retaliatory fines, point deductions, relegations, as tempting as that may be and, in relation to the likes of, say, Macclesfield, Bury, Rangers and in rugby, Saracens, appropriate. Use that advantage to be nice, rebalance the game, emasculate the DHD's influence but make them fully aware that next time, they're out.
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I don't think it is incompetence or ignorance. It is quite clearly a lack of understanding by "investors" that sell their vision by talking about "tradition, culture and history" yet show they do not understand the "tradition, culture and history." To them these were just buzzwords that don't really mean anything.

On the subject of losing influence and credibility I think the latter definitely but the great thing about the former is that now the rest of the league, The FA, UEFA should realise that these clubs do not have the power they thought they had and that the power is football as a whole, not just the clubs with the money.

These "big" clubs have been using their "power" as leverage for a long time now and this week that leverage has been shown to be non existent with the rest of football now holding the leverage.

This is why there is such a PR & spin effort going on by "outraged" people linked to these clubs that are trying to push the "shouldn't punish the fans, players or manager" angle. They suddenly fear those outside of that "big 6."

It should be noticed that the Champions League new rules and this ESL was all about clubs and not teams. Teams win things, Clubs don't win anything without the right team. Both the new rules and the ESL attempted to eliminate the team aspect.
 
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GreenNeedle said:
There will be plenty of clubs that were deducted points, relegated closed down "through no fault of the players, manager or fans" that will not let this die!!!

If the big club apologists (including those pretending to be outraged) keep bringing up this "the fans, players manager should not be punished" then there could be a lot of court battles ahead for those that did get punished.

The rule is there in plain English. Just as other rules were there that were punished.

They can't now trot out the "not punishing the fans" argument when they had no bother doing so for other (not big) clubs when they broke rules.

As for me. Yes I will keep dragging it up, but then I am not sure if you know the concept of equality. Already we see you instinctively thinking in monetary terms in this thread and I have no knowledge of your past so I will not go down the route Knotty did.

Just as in all walks of life it should be one rule for all, not 1 for the rich and 1 for the rest.

If a group hatched a plan to steal the crown jewels, were about to do it but got caught at that stage they would all end up in jail. This was further along than just thinking about, or planning. They had all signed the deal. they had all committed to a 23 year long contract and are already (so they say) now many millions down because of clauses contained in those contracts!!! That is just to do with the ESL side of things.

We will see how much the PL and UEFA rules are worth now. If there is no punishment then their rules mean nothing and will be impossible to enforce any of the rules on any other team after that precedent is set.
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All six here should definitely receive a big punishment.
Me, I'd relegate them all with this season's title (and next year's European places) going to the best of the other 14.
 
I read that one of the founders of Spotify has expressed some kind of interest in buying Arsenal. But even though he’s a billionaire he apparently wouldn’t be able to afford it on his own.
If these kind of eye-watering sums are being talked about then seems almost impossible that some kind of fan ownership is feasible and presumably limits potential ownership to a very small band of people.
 
Red Wimp said:
I read that one of the founders of Spotify has expressed some kind of interest in buying Arsenal. But even though he’s a billionaire he apparently wouldn’t be able to afford it on his own.
If these kind of eye-watering sums are being talked about then seems almost impossible that some kind of fan ownership is feasible and presumably limits potential ownership to a very small band of people.
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The ownership model of big clubs needs to change dramatically before any semblance of fan ownership of English clubs comes into play
 
Sincilbanks said:
The ownership model of big clubs needs to change dramatically before any semblance of fan ownership of English clubs comes into play
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Quite unfeasible. Fans should be able to raise £100k collectively, once in a while maybe up to £1 million (and that would be very difficult). For a fan owned club to come up with major multi million investment or covering such losses if needed is just impossible.
So, only realistic way to control wayward owners is to ensure leagues have strong enforceable rules to prevent events like we've just seen (and prevent circumstances such as the Bury saga or the Bolton one etc).
 
I think I’d transfer embargo, heavy fine (couple of hundred £mil going to grass roots football) and ban from Europe for a couple of seasons.

Not sure if there’s any grounds to do all of that. Just the punishment I’d like to see.
 
HoofGrantBrown said:
Quite unfeasible. Fans should be able to raise £100k collectively, once in a while maybe up to £1 million (and that would be very difficult). For a fan owned club to come up with major multi million investment or covering such losses if needed is just impossible.
So, only realistic way to control wayward owners is to ensure leagues have strong enforceable rules to prevent events like we've just seen (and prevent circumstances such as the Bury saga or the Bolton one etc).
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That was my point, the ownership model needs to change so it doesn't require multi-million pound investments. I suspect you aren't thinking big enough...
 
Sincilbanks said:
That was my point, the ownership model needs to change so it doesn't require multi-million pound investments. I suspect you aren't thinking big enough...
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Oh I can think very random (if not big!).
You could for example put all football clubs into public ownership and have each one funded by local authorities in a set way (on salaries & all outgoings etc) with more funds going to those clubs with more support and according to the level of football they're at.
Private owners vanish at a stroke.
Fans take full control of all spending decisions.
 
I think the big thing that happened was that all the clubs involved thought they could have their new league (or a variation of it) and keep their existing involvement in football. Then the English clubs suddenly found that probably wasn't going to happen and that everyone else was quite content to kick them out of football entirely and leave them to play with themselves. I am not sure that would have happened in Spain too, but it probably would have in Italy if there was a precedent from England. With the Germans and the French refusing to take part and the English suddenly aware that the business case didn't stack up without continued participation in a domestic league or the FA Cup (let alone the prospect of their players being excluded from representative football) they pulled out and the business case in Italy and Spain doesn't add up without the English.

I see it as a miscalculation of opinion and stupidity combined. As for punishment, I think a root and branch reform of the rules to make them watertight and make all the legal juggling irrelevant would be enough. Then it is up to Barca and Real whether they want to sign up or not. Juventus don't have the balls not to.
 
HoofGrantBrown said:
Oh I can think very random (if not big!).
You could for example put all football clubs into public ownership and have each one funded by local authorities in a set way (on salaries & all outgoings etc) with more funds going to those clubs with more support and according to the level of football they're at.
Private owners vanish at a stroke.
Fans take full control of all spending decisions.
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So it is feasible without spending millions of pounds of fans money? If the ownership model changes...
 
Perez is a Spanish Trump. He also reminds me of Sepp Blatter.

In all three cases it is a constant charge of "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" when faced with a reality they don't agree with.
 
Hello. New here. Well sort of.

Nationalisation is a no-go. I understand the 'community' argument but how perverse would it seem for a country to pay for a national football service when it can't properly fund a national health service, or even operate a national rail service?

Instant transfer of ownership to fans is unfeasible due to immediate expense. Just not going to happen. Instead, we need to play a long game, with a defined goal, and it would come in two parts.

1/ One piece of legislation passed to insist by law that all member clubs of the Premier League, Football League and National Leagues provide fans with an executive 'super veto' on matters of significance to the future of the club (I confess I've not thought about how these would be defined - but 'break away from English football and **** you buddy' would definitely be one of them).

2/ This super veto is backed by a one-person-one-vote fans forum, membership of which is open to any adult fan who pays a fee of say £10-£25 a season, and automatic for season ticket holders (with price increase included in ticket and ring-fenced for the next step). That fans forum votes on the use of the super veto should an issue arise.

Every year, the proceeds from forum membership are placed in an investment trust with the view to eventually buying a stake in the club, while the super veto keeps dodgy owners in line.

As an example, if 4,000 Lincoln City fans join the forum at £25 a season, the trust would contain £1 million (minus costs) in less than a decade. Not that we need to buy our club or save it - it's in the most competent hands I've seen in 40 years as a supporter.
 
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John Bigbooté said:
Hello. New here. Well sort of.

Nationalisation is a no-go. I understand the 'community' argument but how perverse would it seem for a country to pay for a national football service when it can't properly fund a national health service, or even operate a national rail service?

Instant transfer of ownership to fans is unfeasible due to immediate expense. Just not going to happen. Instead, we need to play a long game, with a defined goal, and it would come in two parts.

1/ One piece of legislation passed to insist by law that all member clubs of the Premier League, Football League and National Leagues provide fans with an executive 'super veto' on matters of significance to the future of the club (I confess I've not thought about how these would be defined - but 'break away from English football and **** you buddy' would definitely be one of them).

2/ This super veto is backed by a one-person-one-vote fans forum, membership of which is open to any adult fan who pays a fee of say £10-£25 a season, and automatic for season ticket holders (with price increase included in ticket and ring-fenced for the next step). That fans forum votes on the use of the super veto should an issue arise.

Every year, the proceeds from forum membership are placed in an investment trust with the view to eventually buying a stake in the club, while the super veto keeps dodgy owners in line.

As an example, if 4,000 Lincoln City fans join the forum at £25 a season, the trust would contain £1 million (minus costs) in less than a decade. Not that we need to buy our club or save it - it's in the most competent hands I've seen in 40 years as a supporter.
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I don't think "nationalisation" is a solution either, but there are many models out there that don't require "the fans" to buy out owners at the owners projected cost of "many millions"
 
Sincilbanks said:
I don't think "nationalisation" is a solution either, but there are many models out there that don't require "the fans" to buy out owners at the owners projected cost of "many millions"
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Yep I agree, but a lot seem to think it important - I just put a strategy down for how that might happen, eventually, with no immediate massive cost.

To be honest, all we need is the super veto, and sensible parameters for its use, but the knock-on of that is that you would need some sort of fans' organisation to wield it effectively. That I imagine would involved membership, which often involves money, which then raises the question, 'what do you do with it'?

Buying out the owner or gaining a fans' share of the club would seem to be the obvious answer.
 
John Bigbooté said:
Hello. New here. Well sort of.

Nationalisation is a no-go. I understand the 'community' argument but how perverse would it seem for a country to pay for a national football service when it can't properly fund a national health service, or even operate a national rail service?

Instant transfer of ownership to fans is unfeasible due to immediate expense. Just not going to happen. Instead, we need to play a long game, with a defined goal, and it would come in two parts.

1/ One piece of legislation passed to insist by law that all member clubs of the Premier League, Football League and National Leagues provide fans with an executive 'super veto' on matters of significance to the future of the club (I confess I've not thought about how these would be defined - but 'break away from English football and **** you buddy' would definitely be one of them).

2/ This super veto is backed by a one-person-one-vote fans forum, membership of which is open to any adult fan who pays a fee of say £10-£25 a season, and automatic for season ticket holders (with price increase included in ticket and ring-fenced for the next step). That fans forum votes on the use of the super veto should an issue arise.

Every year, the proceeds from forum membership are placed in an investment trust with the view to eventually buying a stake in the club, while the super veto keeps dodgy owners in line.

As an example, if 4,000 Lincoln City fans join the forum at £25 a season, the trust would contain £1 million (minus costs) in less than a decade. Not that we need to buy our club or save it - it's in the most competent hands I've seen in 40 years as a supporter.
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Intriguing "sort of" in what sense?
 
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