PeterParker wrote:sheblue wrote:Who is surprised.
The league is a joke, very easy to lose interest in this shite.
How can anyone take this pantomime seriously as said above it's like American wrestling. Fucking acting, that's what it is.
Football is dying a slow death, the long goodbye, cant imagine what it will be like in 20 years time.
What I can't understand is the fans of the other teams. How can they stand this shit? The clubs I understand, we saw it with the terrible eight or how the fuck they called them, but how can other fans support this shit? Being robbed week in and week out?
It's beyond me.
They’re not being robbed, mate, they’re being given the results that they crave; that’s if you’re a Dipper or Rag, of course.
Other fans do see what’s going on but, like us when we weren’t really competing for the honours, they will only see it now and then when they play the favoured few so most of the time they’re not really arsed.
What is notable about the PL is that they actually receive more money from overseas viewers than they do locally. A couple of years ago it was something like 3.5 Bn locally and 5 Bn for the worldwide package. That’s now gone up again and I think it’s nearer to 10 Bn overall with a bigger percentage of income still coming from overseas.
What does that mean? Well, it means that those clubs with greater support want to see their clubs more and want to see them competing. We know, through varying polls, that United, Liverpool, and formerly Arsenal were the biggest pulls worldwide and the likes of City, Spurs and Chelsea are in the 2nd tier. All others are just there to make up the numbers and although they have strong fan bases locally, the worldwide base just see them as fodder for the top 6.
It also means that the PL have to balance the books in order to keep their members happy, especially the tier 1 & 2 clubs who are constantly investing for the product. The way to balance it is by somehow keeping the top teams competing and if they can’t, maybe give them a helping hand. And how can they do this? Well, start by setting up a separate officiating company that you basically own and is not accountable to the normal chains such as the FA. A closed shop that is so secretive that the head of worldwide officiating stated that it was basically not fit for purpose as an unbiased organisation. The same organisation that pays its members a gratuity on leaving/retirement for non-disclosure of any info.
Then, to finish, you just need the broadcaster who will not highlight any real issues within the game as it’s them who will lose out. The same broadcasters who pay the PL and have influence on how the game should be managed. The print media then follow suit as they are nothing without the game and need to keep their pages front and centre. Without the clicks, no funding.
In short, and it nauseates me to say this, the PL need certain teams challenging in order to keep the funding coming in. Scudamore basically told us this and we need to accept, for this to happen, that at certain times, certain teams may have to be artificially elevated to positions where the majority subscribers need them to be to keep tuning in.
It’s all about the money.
