Filed under: football, Premier League, soccer | Tags: football, premier league, soccer
The Premier League is heading for disaster, todays Guardian carries a story about the debts run up by the leagues clubs, it will come as no surprise that the top 4 in the league are also the top 4 in debt.
Chelsea and Manchester United are both £700 million in debt, Arsenal are £416m in debt and Liverpool are £280m in debt. Fulham are a surprising 5th at almost £200m, all these teams are either bankrolled by a millionaire owner or they’ve mortgaged the stadium and other assets and they’re owned by the banks (does that mean we actually own them?)
With this amount of debt, the only way the owners can ever hope to make their money back is to sell them to someone richer, but that can’t go on forever. Hoe many people in the world could afford to buy any of those top 4 clubs, and if they’ve had the business nouce to make that much money, would they think buying a football club in that position was good business?
For the big 4 clubs, the pressure to win is enorous, winning keeps their cash flow positive, the extra cash that the Champions League brings is a must, you only have to look at Leeds and the position they found themselves in not too long ago. What would happen if Arsenal, Chelsea, manchester United or Liverpool failed to finish in the top 4? Well I don’t think it would mean a collapse on the Leeds scale, but 2 seasons in a row? 3?
Whenever teams are under such vast pressure to win, there comes the temptation to cheat.
If you think I’m being over dramatic, you can look to Italy in 2006 when Lazio, Juventus, Milan and Fiorentina were all found guilty of match fixing and either relegated or banned from European competition. It’s not too hard a leap to make to see that kind of thing happening in the Premier League, or even the Championship with the riches up for grabs. It wouldn’t surprise me if we see such allegations in this country in the next 4 or 5 years, and when they do, the Premiership is doomed.
Filed under: Blackburn Rovers, football, Premier League | Tags: Blackburn Rovers, football, Manchester City, Mark Hughes, soccer
Mark Hughes has signed a 3 year deal to follow Sven as Manchester City’s new manager, and all the best of luck to him, one of the best managers we’ve had in a long time.
Who’s going to follow him? The managers that spring to mind are:
1) Big Sam
2) Steve McClaren
3) Alan Shearer
I really hope it’s not McClarren, he was a great #2 at Manchester United, a good #2 to Sven in the England camp, but dire when he was at Middlesborough, and who can forget his tenure as England manager? Not many of us with some kind of therapy unfortunatly.
I wouldn’t be too sorry to see Sam Aladice as the next manager at Ewood, he doesn’t have a reputation for attractive football, but he was almost as succesful at Bolton as Hughes has been at Ewood.
Alan Shearer on the other hand, the fuss that went on when he was linked with Newcastle shows he’s keen to get into management, but either didn’t want to spoil his reputation with Newcastle fans, or didn’t want to be #2.
At Ewood he’ll have neither of those problems, a stable board to back and help him develop both himself and his squad.
Just as long as it’s not McClarren.
Origionally posted at FootyTechs – Where techs talk about football. Leave a comment below if you want an invite.
Filed under: Arsenal, Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea, football, leeds, Manchester United, sheffield, soccer | Tags: Arsenal, Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea, football, Manchester United, premier league, soccer
I’ve been listening to the radio a lot this week, especially to 5 Live where they’ve had various pundits on discussing Ashley Cole’s disgraceful show of petulance and disrespect for referees.
They’ve tried to convince us that the respect that rugby referees get from players wouldn’t work in football because rugby players get involved in punch ups, and that’s an even bigger lack of respect for referees.
I’m sorry but that’s just such a ridiculous argument, when was the last time you saw a rugby player argue over a referees decision? and when they do they get sin-binned for 10 minutes, or the ball gets moved 10 yards closer to their own try line (when was the last time you saw a free kick moved forward 10 yards for dissent?)
These ex-players also insist that dissent isn’t as widespread as people like to make out, but I went to watch Blackburn Vs Wigan yesterday and almost every free kick brought a reaction from them player concerned, not on the level of Ashley Cole’s petulance, but to say that it’s not widespread is rubbish.
Come on someone, have the guts to speak out about this, your making fools of yourselves and no-one believes you.
This post was originally made by me to FootyTechs, a community for geeks interested in Footy
