Rage Online

I guess that it is a world away from where we are at the moment but what on earth is happening in the Premiership?

Liverpool think it fair that each club should be able to negotiate their own TV deal abroad.

Then it is sugegsted than many owners, want relegation/ promotion scrapped between the Premiership and the Championship.

I tend to think that in what 15-20 years time there will be a European League (the 'big 4/5' will have a big enough squad to play in the English League as well), but all of this talk at the moment is not good for the game in my view.

Impagine no relegation and promotion with 20 teams in it and what 4-6 that have a chance to win the League. This sure would in my view be a great way to reduce crowds.

Fuck 'em.

Don't care what they get up to. Do I want to pay £50 to see my team play away at Chelsea? No.

They can keep their footballing equivalent of Avatar. I'm happy with the Mike Leigh film that is lower league football.

&quotrecordmeister&quot wrote:Fuck 'em.

Don't care what they get up to. Do I want to pay £50 to see my team play away at Chelsea? No.

They can keep their footballing equivalent of Avatar. I'm happy with the Mike Leigh film that is lower league football.

It's £47 quid in the lower tier of the away end at Stamford Bridge for low category games, actually, though the view is terrible.

And what about if we did make it there? What do Peterborough fans think I wonder?

As for no relegation, then remember that in our division we only have two down, and that's a lot better than it used to be!

&quotrecordmeister&quot wrote:Fuck 'em.

Don't care what they get up to. Do I want to pay £50 to see my team play away at Chelsea? No.

They can keep their footballing equivalent of Avatar. I'm happy with the Mike Leigh film that is lower league football.

Fully agree.

Supposedly the &quotno relegation&quot discussion was only brought about by the League Managers' Association anyway.

I also read about the Premier League parachute payments - the initial argument being that the enhanced payments to relegated clubs make it even more difficult for other Championship clubs to compete financially and win promotion. The counter was that most of those parachute payments are covering relegated players Premiership level wages, and so it isn't quite the advantage it would seem. See Birmingham and Blackpool, currently 16th and 8th in the Championship.

With only three up/down each season, it must get boring if you are say an Villa fan, never really getting out of mid-table, and seeing basically the same 15 clubs season after season. Also Snake's point on the trapdoor to the Conference - there now seem to be more Big Ex League Teams in the BSP than ex non-league teams in L2, particularly when you look at crowds at Macclesfield, Barnet, Accrington - compared to Luton, Wrexham, York, even Mansfield.

Foreign (wealthy) owners protecting their investments that's all. Greed pure and simple.

&quotslappy&quot wrote:The counter was that most of those parachute payments are covering relegated players Premiership level wages, and so it isn't quite the advantage it would seem. See Birmingham and Blackpool, currently 16th and 8th in the Championship.

However, since most teams now have relegation clauses in their player contracts, it's just free money.

Lots of arguments to say that it would be better to level the playing field in the Premiership by giving the payments to teams that come up.

Not favourable for us at the moment, but I would be in favour of 3 up 3 down in all leagues from the Premiership to the Conference. I really can't see a reason now why there should be the differences betwen League 2/1 and the Conference and Leage 2.

Agree. I particularly like the system of four up and only two down from League II at the moment.

Disappointed that no one has responded to my question about what they would think of the Prem if we made it there. Is that because people think we never will make it? Hey, look at where Peterborough are in the Championship right now and remember Barnsley, Bradford, Hull and a whole host of other teams who thought it would never happen.

I predict that we'll be back there in 5 to 6 years. By then the bubble would have bursted, and wages for players would get to a more sensible level. It can't go on can it?

&quotTabbernackle&quot wrote:I predict that we'll be back there in 5 to 6 years. By then the bubble would have bursted, and wages for players would get to a more sensible level. It can't go on can it?

I take it you mean back in the Conference, because if we make the Prem 6 years after being non-league, I'd be amazed!

If we make the Premier League I'll be dead!

It should surprise no-one on this forum if owners, foreign or not, engage in commercial self-interest. A foreign owner might indeed look at a struggling premier league club and come to the obvious conclusion that relegation was the biggest risk to profitability, and one that therefore should be eliminated if possible. However, in this instance, I suspect a bit of scare-mongering from LMA as - for the moment at least - the idea of no relegation is too radical, and threatens too many clubs, to have any chance of success.

More of a concern to me is the mantra that the Premier League is 'the best league in the world'. It is, I presume, the most financially successful, but most of that money comes from faraway places, or armchair fans. The players in PL clubs benefit enormously. However, the PL is semi-permanently stratified into 'Top 5/6, some chance of winning, likely to get Champions' League' - 'Mid-table, don't really have to worry about relegation' and 'Relegation contenders'. The only way to break into the top group is through the boardroom, not on the pitch. And for the yo-yo clubs, the instability of income leads to enormous player turnover, so I cannot believe that for a true Villa fan, or a true West Brom fan, the PL offers anything better than the old Division 1, in fact very much the reverse.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulfletcher ... tml#299200

Is there any point in keeping a youth development scheme now? I think this is disgusting - the one thing Premier league clubs are not short of is money so why not pay a competitive price for someone from a lower league club - this will just mean less youngsters get spotted as clubs give up on bringing them through.

My little one is nowhere near good enough for a professional club to be interested in him, but the other great damage is that done to the youngsters themselves, when they are picked up and then released after six months, a year.

One of my son's friends plays for Bristol City, who - his dad says - are a good and responsible youth outfit. This means getting to and from Bristol (60 miles) six times a week, and greater travelling if the weekend match is away. To do this for a year only to be told 'sorry son, you're not going to be tall enough', or 'we have just picked up - cheaply - a better player from some small fry club' would be absolutely heartbreaking. And the impact on clubs lower down the food chain is devastating as well. In our local league, there is a team almost entirely comprising Cheltenham Town 'rejects' who would have been better off staying with their own clubs in the first place.