Association Football in The British Isles

[Good Intentions]

I think Platini spoke about bringing in a ruling that only allows clubs to spend money that they generate, but how viable this is I don't know. The top clubs probably hold too much power for it to ever pass.

It has already passed - this is the first season it's in effect. There's a three year phasing-in, wherein the maximum losses over a three year limit are capped, and slowly dropped, and from the fourth season from now clubs are supposed to break even (though things which counts as financial losses, like youth team development, don't count as losses for this measure). Failure to comply means having the UEFA license stripped, which means no competition in the UEFA leagues, which is where the real money lies. Details here. We'll see how it goes, but it's a very encouraging start.

[Chet]

I think Platini spoke about bringing in a ruling that only allows clubs to spend money that they generate, but how viable this is I don't know. The top clubs probably hold too much power for it to ever pass.

It has already passed - this is the first season it's in effect. There's a three year phasing-in, wherein the maximum losses over a three year limit are capped, and slowly dropped, and from the fourth season from now clubs are supposed to break even (though things which counts as financial losses, like youth team development, don't count as losses for this measure). Failure to comply means having the UEFA license stripped, which means no competition in the UEFA leagues, which is where the real money lies. Details here. We'll see how it goes, but it's a very encouraging start.

I am sure this will just lead to the biggest clubs fighting it out and spending ridiculous amounts of money on the best young talent.

I guess this is a positive though, I didn't realise it had be brought in.

[Good Intentions]

Developing youth talent isn't buying new players, it's investment in facilities. Buying players is buying players, and exactly what the rules are aimed against.

However, there are already rumblings about some crooked accounting being on the horizon. Another of the exceptions is from buildings depreciating, which I'm sure somebody will find a smart way to exploit. There are also rumblings about the owners instead investing money by having companies they control pay inflated rates for commercial sponsorships - a few people have noted wryly that a great deal of Man City's sponsors are either Abu Dhabi companies outright, or largely owned by Abu Dabhi interests, just like Man City. UEFA has foreseen this and written into the rules that commercial contracts like sponsorships go at market rates, and they have it under their discretion to step in. It is a lot harder to enforce such rules, of course - what is the market rate for a sponsorship at City? - but I think UEFA see the inevitable bits that slip through the cracks to be an improvement on the mess that we have now, and as something that will drop away over time as the growing pains are worked through. I think they're right. They've taken the first, decisive step, now they just need to stay the course.

[Chet]

Sweet. This might even lead to Celtic being able to compete in Europe again.

[Thermofusion]

Otherwise what chance does humble Blubbersbury & Mouthamshire FC have against your Man Us?

West Ham have never won the league. It's now unthinkable that they ever will. When I was 11, they won the FA Cup. More than 30 years on, that's a feat they haven't managed to repeat, even though it's a competition now so devalued in the eyes of those 'big clubs' that they don't even field their strongest teams for it. So, I'm absolutely loving being down in Division 2. At the moment, we're 4th with 13 points out of 18. It's been a good start with a new bunch of players and we've scored 14 goals in our last 3 games. There's been more excitement, more success, and really just more of a story to it all in the last few weeks than in the previous 3 seasons. We might even win the title if some of the new signings can gel, which is an exciting prospect, Probably come straight back down again, mind! (and there are plenty of clubs whose fans if they're honest would genuinely prefer not to go up too high - just ask the Derby fans who endured their record-breakingly poor EPL season a few years ago)

So, you know, the Premier League isn't everything - football's appeal isn't about being first out of 92, it's about being in the mix, renewing rivalries and acquaintances, about unpredictability and the joy of the game. As the 1966 England and West Ham captain Sir Bobby Moore once said, "Win, draw or lose, always on the booze!"

I can definitely see the appeal of Division 2, sounds like you can be competitive without having to be super-rich, and I imagine there's less of the stupid inevitable off-the-field drama in which overpaid stars find themelves. Even in American professional sports I've always found the smaller, less wealthy teams to be a lot more interesting and simply more likable than the cash-flush superstar teams. Really I root against cash-rich powerhouses (like the Lakers, Yankees, etc) merely out of principle.

On the other hand, the hopelessness of knowing that your team might never contend for a championship would be too much for me to handle. There's kind of a noble quality in rooting for a team like that, but it sounds so painful. My favorite baseball team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, have endured 18 straight losing seasons (which is the worst run in North American professional sports history) and are on pace for a 19th straight losing season, but their situation isn't entirely hopeless; in our leagues sports the worst teams are always rewarded with the highest draft picks, which means they have a lot of promising young talent in their minor league system who may one day in the next few years help elevate the Pirates out of mediocrity.

With the Premiere League, though, it sounds like you're increasingly seeing a paradigm where the financial gap (and talent gap, I'd imagine?) between the richest and poorest teams is growing larger and larger, and at some point I'd imagine something is going to have to be done before the whole thing becomes farcical. Or maybe it's already to that point. But that's why I was sort of throwing out the luxury tax/salaray cap/draft pool ideas. But regardless, the second division sounds more "pure" -- less glitzy, more about the sport than money, etc. A lot more desirable in a way, as you said. So maybe if West Ham wins promotion, they should just take a vote and opt to not go up.   

Also, I see the Tangerines are hanging around in the top third of the Division 2 standings! Maybe they'll end up in the playoffs again.

[Good Intentions]

For most people, especially outside of the top league, support for their team isn't prompted by their success, but because they're your local team. Because league victory is such a distant possibility, it's also not an immediate motivator. These clubs are exactly that - clubs, centred around communities. The fact that some have them have ballooned into multinational entities is an aberration - the overwhelming majority of them serve a very specific constituency, being the community the club was founded by.

[Ignatius]

That's how it was here, too, until cable tv made out-of-market games available and owners realized that they could conceivably make more money if they moved to another, teamless city with a bigger population. It's a little different than when you've got 92 teams on one island with the chance, if unlikely, to be in competition with any other club among the 92.

Also the fact that they're 'teams' or even 'franchises' over here and 'clubs' over there reflects a major difference in how we think about sports. The league, a corporation, is by far the most important entity in sports in America, except in racing, I guess. The NBA might have partners and sponsors, but it is not 'sponsored by x,' y'know?

[Thermofusion]

That's how it was here, too, until cable tv made out-of-market games available and owners realized that they could conceivably make more money if they moved to another, teamless city with a bigger population.

I like how the "move to teamless city with a bigger population" thing is true in every American sport except the NBA (at least in recent years). Seattle ---> Oklahoma City, Vancouver ---> Memphis, Charlotte --> New Orleans. Kinda hoping the Kings end up in, like, Fargo or something.

[Ignatius]

Well, I'm pretty sure the OKC move is destined for failure once the current crop of talent expires. And the move to NO is already a failure. David Stern and his owner buddies had a fantasy of a constant, unlimited revenue growth for the NBA, and they'd rather shut down the league than pay for their idiocy.

[Nick Ink]

Yes, Marinus has hit the N on the H.

Would it be correct to say that in American sports, most people support a team in the top league? Is there even promotion and relegation into and out of those leagues, or a pyramid system supporting them? Because in England there are a further 72 professional and countless semi-professional and amateur teams with matchday support of 1,000 - 30,000 people lurking under that Premier League.



And as for moving a football club, the one occasion on which that has happened was with a small-to-medium sized club and caused enough anger and resentment amongst its fans and football supporters in general that people still talk about it now, 7 years on. The team was Wimbledon, who had grown from a grassroots non-league outfit to rather unexpected and, in truth, unwelcome visitors to the First Division in the 80s. They famously did the unthinkable and beat the dominant force of the decade, Liverpool, in the '88 Cup Final, and were famed for their direct and aggressive play. You Americans might be familiar with their talisman, pictured 'marking' Paul Gascoigne below, who later went on to Hollywood - Vinny Jones.



Anyway, 15 years later and Wimbledon are uprooted, moved 100km north to the 'new town' of Milton Keynes and renamed MK Dons. A lot of their fans (the club's history went back to 1889, by the way) couldn't stomach the rebranding and loss of community identity, and a new club was formed, AFC Wimbledon. This new team had to work its way up the amateur, non-league structure, and after 5 promotions in 9 seasons, and to the great pleasure of every right-thinking football fan, they were promoted to League 2 last year.

At the time of writing AFC Wimbledon are sitting comfortably mid-table in that league after a reasonably promising start, while MK Dons are chasing promotion out of the next division up. Some of their fans are looking a bit nervously over their shoulders, however.

[Chet]

Gearing up for what will undoubtably be another humilation on foreign soil for Celtic tonight. You'd think that Atlético Madrid would be a less daunting prospect without Augero and Forlan, but they've only gone and signed Falcao who scored 41 goals in 51 games for Porto, and Diego.

[Johnp]

Anyway, 15 years later and Wimbledon are uprooted, moved 100km north to the 'new town' of Milton Keynes and renamed MK Dons.

There had been mid-90s chatter about Wimbledon moving to Dublin, Eamon Dunphy was involved, with some guy who used to have money:

http://www.soccer-ireland.com/irish-football-history/dublin-dons.htm

[Chet]

And in typical Celtic fashion, 1-0 down after two and a half minutes.

[Chet]

So, we actually settled into the game pretty well after the first goal and were just coming into it and creating chances of our own when typically we conceded another soft goal. One of our better appearances in Europe away from home. Anyway, the real stuff is on Sunday when we travel to Ibrox and play Rangers for the frist time of the season.

[Thermofusion]

Is there even promotion and relegation into and out of those leagues, or a pyramid system supporting them?

The short answer is "no", the slightly less short answer is "we promote and relegate individual players rather than entire teams" and the long answer (which I'd be more than happy to write, if you're at all curious!) involves a dude named Branch Rickey and the colorful history of minor league sports in America.

[kyle]

Is there even promotion and relegation into and out of those leagues, or a pyramid system supporting them?

The short answer is "no", the slightly less short answer is "we promote and relegate individual players rather than entire teams" and the long answer (which I'd be more than happy to write, if you're at all curious!) involves a dude named Branch Rickey and the colorful history of minor league sports in America.

College sports sort of takes the place of this. Though it's more or less sport slavery to a university.

[Ignatius]

Teams are essentially brands.

[Nick Ink]

Is there even promotion and relegation into and out of those leagues, or a pyramid system supporting them?

The short answer is "no", the slightly less short answer is "we promote and relegate individual players rather than entire teams" and the long answer (which I'd be more than happy to write, if you're at all curious!) involves a dude named Branch Rickey and the colorful history of minor league sports in America.

I would be intrigued to learn more about Branch Rickey! (I've typed that twice as 'Branch Thermo' now)

[Thermofusion]

The horror of religious college soccer in the American Midwest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC5CyxudPqw

[coldforge]

That's some Hand of God shit, for sure.

[Thermofusion]

And the crowd was struck dumb by the display of divine intervention, and began hooting in Owl

[Nick Ink]

'MidAmerica Nazarene receives a gift goal from the Oklahoma Baptist keeper.'

Is that real?

[Thermofusion]

Those are real colleges apparently

[Nick Ink]

Hey, Chet, have you stopped laughing yet?

Looking forward to tomorrow. After last week's much anticipated game with Millwall ended 0-0 (on and off the pitch), it's Peterborough United at the Boleyn next. They were the highest scorers in English football last year with over 100 league goals, and they've already had a 7-1 win this season. However, they're boxing above their weight in this league and have lost their main striker to Brighton. Their away form is also bad. Unfortunately, so is our home form. Nevertheless, I'm sticking my neck out with a prediction of a heavy defeat for the Posh. 5-1 West Ham.

[Chet]

Finding it hard to laugh after the beating they gave us last week