Shane McFaul was signed by some Finnish team, was that not after he went over there to play?
(all the scandinavian countries are the same)
Shane McFaul was signed by some Finnish team, was that not after he went over there to play?
(all the scandinavian countries are the same)
http://www.thescore.ie/10-reasons-wh...21680-Mar2013/
Whetting the appetite a bit of real ball.
Some brain dead posts in the comments though
AIRTRICITY PRIZE MONEY TO REMAIN UNCHANGED
Prize money for the 2014 Airtricity League champions will remain at 100,000, the FAI have revealed. The sum is the equivalent of six affiliation fees of 17,000, which clubs pay yearly to play in the Premier Division.
The static level of prize money will be greeted with disappointment by cash-strapped clubs. As recently as 2010, Shamrock received 200,000 as champions, while Bohs pocketed 250,000 in 2008. Under grey skies in Abbotstown, Airtricity League director Fran Gavin yesterday defended the sum. "Before we (FAI) took over the league, it was 16,000. In that context it has increased," he said.
Gavin also rejected as a "myth" that clubs who finished outside the top four places in the Premier Division paid more in affiliation fees than they received in prize money.
"There is no club playing in the league that doesn't receive more than their affiliate," stated Gavin.
Elaborating, Gavin stressed that clubs receive prize money, UEFA solidarity grants and travel grants".
Soldiarity grants are allocated by UEFA to be given directly to clubs. Despite the modest prize fund, clubs reported a profit of 400,000 for 2013 which saw a total spend of around 12m, according to Gavin.
And with the current Airtricity deal entering its final year, he also predicted the FAI "will be" in talks with the renewable energy firm over extending a title sponsorship which began in 2010.
The Airtricity League launch date is Friday, February 28, a week before the season kicks off.
anyone else see what happened with the Racing game? madness but right to not play
Liam Buckleys red and White Army
I had the Forest game on. Was it to do with unpaid wages?
http://www.marca.com/2014/01/30/futb...391112428.html
Theirs the whole thing in the video.
Dreamed a dream.
Watched FC Bayern vs Frankfurt today. Bayern were unreal, won 5-0 and could have been more, they were missing Schweinsteiger, Martinez, Badstuder and Mόller. Set a new Bundesliga record aswell of pass accuracy - 93%. They're walking that league
Christy Fagan - He scores big goals
Its a bit different with the Bundesliga though compared to the English game. Bayern have just done everything right and are 100% the architects of their own success. This is not he case for the likes of Chelsea and Man city.
Cyril The Judas
100% agree - its definitly time for a wage cap, with the commercial deals, foreign owner investment and Champions league money, a wage cap in european fiitball is long overdue.
If European Player and Coach salaries and endorsements were capped at 1 million per player year and teams could only have 25 senior players on their books (+a limited amount fo loan signings) then you would see a much fairer and probably more interesting league.
Look at the Superbowl, because of the draft system it allowed a new team win the superbowl, and its rare for teams to go long spells without being competitive.
Also - the TV deals are now in such a way that a sports fan wanting to follow the top level football in the UK must now subscribe to Sky, BT and if they want a season ticket the price for the top clubs are horrific.
Elite football has got too expensive and this race to outspend each other that most normal clubs caan contend with, added to the financial doping and govt aid its getting rediculous.
Last week Arsenal announced the largest shirt deal in the UK with Puma worth £30million per year, the following day PSG announced a kit deal with the Qatar Transport Authority (who have a strategic interest in Paris????) worth £150 million per year.
Likewise Etihad paid over £400million to "sponsors" Man Citys sports campus and just this year they sold IP rights for over £50 million - or look at Bayern who got handed a £300 million stadium for practically free from teh local govt.
I'm an arsenal fan and Arsenal have built their own stadium and to finance it charge horrific season ticket prices and food prices- BUT they need to do that to compete with Man City, Bayern, Chelsea etc.
Clubs should have reasonable aspirations to be competitive based uping a relatively level playing field, the only way to remove the unhealthy huge sums of money from the game is to cap wages which will force down ticket prices as fans will not tolerate massive prices from their club or Sky/BT when they know its not that expensive a product anymore.
That sounds more like a whiny Arsenal fan, than any great concern for the good of European football IMO
"We've seen you come, we'll see you go"
Hmmm- not 100% true )but relatively so)- they were given a £300-400 stadium for pennies- if I recall after the world cup they and 1860 munich were given the venue for something like 6,000,000 - then Bayern paid 1860 something like 10,000,000 to buy out their 50% of the stadium.
in contrast (and I can only speak of Arsenal) Arsenal have suffered a decade of not being able to compete financiall because they had to fund their own stadium - even look at Liverpool and Spurs who are struggling to keep up with Man Utd and Arsenal.
It would also be worth looking into more detail Bayerns Commercial revenues- however they could legitimately claim because of their dominance of the German game they benefit from the massive commercial a partners (BMW, Adidas, Allianz etc) - however the positioning of the executive many of these "sponsors" of the board at bayern could lead many to think they were getting preferential deals above and beyond those avaioable to their competitors - but thats just me being cynical.
Oh- and Bayern are a world away from the likes of PSG, Chelsea and Man City or even the unfair TV arrangements in Spain where Real and Barca take a massive majority of TV revenues.
Like it or not- the UK is probably the most equitable
Definitly I ahve a vested interest (as a very whiney Arsenal Fan)
but arguably its in my interest for there to be a gap between elite/non elite - lvevling the playing field and capping wages will mean Arsenal/Manu U/ Chelsea will no longer hoover up talent for financial reasons- look at Arsenal losing Henry, Viera, Toure, Adebayor, Anelka, Song, Fabregas and RVP - mainly for financial reasons- I dont believe most of these would have left if € wasnt an issue.
Likewise us signing players from the Southamptons/Swanseas (or indeed foreign mid rank clubs) of this world will be less about €€€ and more about competitiveness.
I also believe if the €€€ is taken out, alot more players will stay local and build careers with local clubs.
- oh, and another reason for my whinge is that now Sky have 50% of the football and BT have the other 50% (getting Champs league next year)
as someone who is a sports nut, where does that leave me, paying for 2 subscriptions or missing out/watching dodgy streams?
There'll never be a flat salary cap in football, nor should there. There might be a LOI style % of turnover but that just means the rich clubs will always have more to spend. If Barca, for example, were forced to limit Messi's salaray to €5m a year, they'd just sign an image rights contract for the rest (or whatever). Completely unenforcable
The only way to effect any sort of change is if people stop paying for TV subscriptions and stop buying tickets/merchandise. So yeah, if don't think 2 subscriptions is giving you value for money, don't pay for them.
Personally I love that clubs like PSG and Man City have blitzed the top level of European football.
"We've seen you come, we'll see you go"
I think Sky and BT are in serious danger of killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Neither subscription is value for money now. I've had sky sports pretty much since it kicked off but I'm really hacked off with them now as they only have half the games. I've knocked it on the head and I won't get BT sports either because it's the same deal. I'd take the two packages if both channels reflected the fact that they are providing half the service and charged half the price. I don't think they are going to do that though so unless one or the other gets exclusive rights you're going to be left with a real problem. I'm sure I'm not the only one annoyed with the way this is gone. Being honest it won't really matter in a few weeks when I can get back to real football. There might be an opportunity for Pats/the League to use this to their advantage by promoting Live Football against dodgy streams with pop up ads.
I'm not sure about the overall level of games since the start but I'm assuming most supporters take out a subscription so they can watch the team they support and also be able to watch the big games. As a Liverpool supporter when they have been playing top games prior to this year Sky have generally aired them. I've never minded missing the games against Hull if they weren't on but if they were playing someone decent you'd be able to watch it on Sky. Both Merseyside derbies and game against City (1st v 2nd at the time) have been on BT Sports and not Sky so you kind of get hacked off when you're being charged the same price. No amount of Leeds vs Huddersfield or West Brom v Fulham is going to compensate people for losing half of the games they want to see.
So has the cost pretty much.
I appreciate it that Dodge enjoys the fact that Man City, PSG have changed the footballing landscape- I dont, I think the difference between poor and rich is too vast in sport. poorer clubs will never compete and the local club is all but dead. I'd love to see a more volatile top where different clubs can achieve top honours at some stage of their followers lives.
The money coming in has killed local football in so many towns because and the best footballers are now all playing for the same clubs- also the wage inflation for football players, agents and the rest is obscene (and i'm a true capitalist)
However- one thing we do agree on is that its practically unenforcable (and probably illegal under EU law). the only way around it is a MLS model where the league owns all the rights and monitors clubs alot closer.
A salary cap and a playing budget per division (eg, max salary of 1 million, annual playing budget of 12 million) would be really interesting and put the cat amongst the pigeons,
It would also drastically reduce the influence of agents who are 90% of the time a leech upon the game. an agent representing a St Pats player making sure he gets his entitlements and his welfare, the agents handling Neymar, Demba Ba etc are leechs (regularly family members)
I appreciate Dodge saying, if I dont want BT & Sky,then simply dont get them, but thats my point, I think the near 1,000 I pay Sky already should suffice- now they propose I pay sky tha same money and sign up for another 500pa (or somthing like that) with BT - its the football lovers paying the wages of these stars, and at the end of the day, I'm getting the same product, but paying drastically more because Man U need more to increase Rooneys salary from 250kpw to 350k pw to stop him going to Abramovichs potro-fueled chelsea.
but like he says- I can either stump up the dough, or switch off.....thats the choice....
Premier League winners
13 - Man Utd (always one of the top 5 in wealthiest clubs)
3 - Arsenal (always one of the top 10 wealthiest clubs in the world)
3 - Chelsea (rich owner)
1 - Man City (rich owner)
1 - Blackburn (rich owner)
The poor not being able to compete isn't a new thing.
And the point about not paying subscriptions wasn't flippant. If you're not happy with how English football is, the only way you make your point is financially. If people stop watching, they'll soon change
"We've seen you come, we'll see you go"
But in the 20 years prior to the Premiership you had:
Liverpool (11)
Arsenal (2)
Everton (2)
Leeds (2)
Forest (1)
Derby (1)
Villa (1)
Okay, so you had one team dominating but other teams could win it too without spending the earth, which meant loads of other teams could reasonably aspire to winning it. In that time the likes of Watford, Ipswich and QPR came genuinely close to winning the league (the latter two were still in it going into the last day). The Premiership has meant it's delusional for even the likes of Everton or Villa fans to think of winning the league ever again unless they too get a megabucks owner. You're right, the poor not being able to compete isn't a new thing - it's exactly as old as the PPV TV model Sky introduced.
We are at war with Eurasia. We've always been at war with Eurasia.
This is one of the attractive things about our league. Shels, Bohs, Rovers, Pats, Drogheda, Sligo, Cork, Derry, Dundalk have all won leagues in the last 20 years. While the boom bust aspect to this isn't desirable the thoughts of Rovers and Bohs getting a wedge of cash and us never competing with them again is far worse.
For what it's worth I think the boom bust aspect to our league was made a lot worse by what was going on in the country at the time. Most of it was based on property deals. The lack of cash now has forced clubs to live within their means which is more sustainable and leads to a more level playing field.
With BT having exclusive champions league rights soon SKY will have to reduce there subscription because nobody will buy it! Pubs will be full on Sundays
With Bucka to lead us sure no one could beat us!
I know you werent being flippant- but thats kinda my point- the Oil money coming into the game and driven huge inflation (if it wasnt the oil money it probably would ahve been something else) of playing costs for players wages and transfer fees.
I love watching football- and I dont want to switch off, and truth is, me swithcing off wont change a thing unless a few hundred million people did the same thing- my argument is that (modern) football is forcing your average football fan (if thats what I am) to switch off or stump up.
If players wages were rationalised then this crazy revenue drive wouldnt exist. -I follow the commercial side of footbal quite keenly and the global marketing drives of these teams is quite phenominal - whats wrong with supporting a relatively local team?
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
That's only two more teams winning the league than in the PL-era. And in that time Norwich, Leeds, Newcastle, and Villa have challenged for the title.
It's self-evident that 1) there's too much money in football, and 2) the way that money is distributed damages the game, but Dodge is right: the wealthiest club's always dominated. That's not new. The game was codified and professionalised in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution. Money has always ruled the roost.
I'm the same. Being charged the same amount for Sky for virtually half the amount of "attractive" fixtures is a complete rip off. In fact I think UPC are putting the price up again soon. I half thought about upgrading to get BT as well, but dismissed the idea in half a second. Seriously thinking about knocking the Sky sub on the head. As Joey above said I can see a lot of people ditching Sky Sports.
For what it's worth I ditched it at the end of last season (the English season). Couldn't justify it.
Sky will point out you're not just paying for football so they won't ever drop their price.
"We've seen you come, we'll see you go"
when you look at the price of other forms of entertainment I think it is reasonably priced, especially if like me you watch a lot of different sports. A night in the cinema, pub, take away etc would all cost more than a month of sky. I basically don't watch anything bar the sports channels so its well worth it.