Football (Soccer) Thread

[Sheilbh]

There has never been a strong culture of football fan media in Spain - at least in Catalonia. One of the reasons, imho, is how partisan and tribal our sports media are, so they kinda substitute it up to a point. So Barcelona has a couple of sports newspapers that are pro-Barça, Madrid have their two which are pro-Madrid. These clubs' boards always try to cultivate a relationship with them, so they tend to be complacent, in particular if the board is in a strong position. Access is a very strong weapon when these newspapers are absolutely dependent on reporting about one single club.

Interesting and that makes sense. In England historically there was obviously a huge football zine culture but there's now hundreds of podcasts and Youtube channels for the top clubs - and the clubs actually engage with some of them to get their message out, unfiltered by biased/objective reporting.

Maybe that's because England doesn't have sports papers like Marca, L'Equipe etc. I've heard that that's part of the reason that the English media's only really started covering tactics and things like that in the last 20 years is because they only have a few pages in a general newspaper so there was less space for that sort of thing, but maybe also not enough coverage for a lot of fans.

I also think the fact that - at least for Barça - unpopular boards have a limited shelf life prevents the kind of culture around persistent, organized opposition to ownership from developing. The few organized opposition groups we have had, have never made it past an election cycle.

Yeah I think that's probably key. I think it's striking that most clubs in the Premier League have probably had some form of organised fan opposition at some point: the green and gold protests about the Glazer, the Spirit of Shankly v Hicks and Gillette, all Newcastle fans, Keep Everton In Our City against an old stadium plan.

Interesting thing is that the social side of football fandom - so things like Fans Supporting Foodbanks and also trying to move against racism/sexism/homophobia - have often grown out of those campaigns. I know FSF started in Liverpool from a collaboration of Blue Union and Spirit of Shankly.

[celedhring]

Football support - again I'm talking of my first hand experience as a Barça fan living in Catalonia - has never had the social dimension that it has in the UK. Now, we have many fan associations, some of them very old, but their activities are usually limited to gathering to watch games and organizing the occasional away travel. So football is nearly everywhere, but it's always football. Just football.

[Jacob]

Yeah they certainly had that feeling once all the people deeply interested in maintaining the status quo have told them so but was it really in danger? UEFA's Champions League was certainly in mortal danger, but any risk to the domestic competitions came from UEFA and the FA's threats of retribution if UEFA's financial interests are not considered.

I don't think that's true. The danger to the domestic competition came from making it impossible to challenge the status of "the big six" as they were guaranteed a position of financial supremacy - and thus sporting supremacy. In the current system, it is still theoretically possible for other clubs to play their way into the top and receive the big cash windfalls that allows for competing in the top tier.

[Duque de Bragança]

If your action leads to UEFA and FIFA being seen as the good guys, you should reevaluate your action.

And QSG!

Fixed! QSI works as well, more precise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_Sports_Investments


Man Blue is owned by Abu Dhabi United Group, so it's hardly a unique case.

[Sheilbh]

I don't think that's true. The danger to the domestic competition came from making it impossible to challenge the status of "the big six" as they were guaranteed a position of financial supremacy - and thus sporting supremacy. In the current system, it is still theoretically possible for other clubs to play their way into the top and receive the big cash windfalls that allows for competing in the top tier.

Yeah - and the reason this happened is obviously money but also these clubs can't get a big enough cut of football's riches on merits alone. Arsenal haven't qualified for the Champions League in the last 4-5 years. The six English clubs by definition can't all get into the Champions League (which is why they've changed the rules to get in) and a number of these clubs have been knocked out at early stages in recent years - Inter, Juve, Atletico, Spurs.

So in addition to the financial supremacy - what's are Everton, Leicester, West Ham etc playing for? Most clubs aren't playing to win the League any more, but a lot are hoping and aspiring to qualify for Europe. If that's gone as well what's the point of the League? It would just for teams to avoid relegation and for the "big 6" to play for the championship but it would be utterly meaningless for the teams in say 7th - 15th.

I find Italy the msot annoying of the countries with clubs signing up for the SL because England (absurdly) got 6 clubs in - but the idea that you'd have a European league without Roma, Lazio, Napoli who are big iconic clubs - far less Atalanta who are more successful lately - is just crazy. Especially in a league that includes Spurs

[Tamas]

Fair enough.

I guess I was just hoping for something to steer up the stale waters of football and move us toward a pan-European league. The round-robin CL will have to do now for that, I guess.

[Duque de Bragança]

On top of that in Spanish football fans there's an ingrained sense of resignation about big clubs always getting things their way and inequality being inherent to the game. I mean, R. Madrid and Barcelona had to be arm-twisted by law into a fairer split of TV revenues, for Hod's sake.

It's comparable to what happens in Portugal with the big three: Porto, Benfica and Sporting.

Still no centralisation and mutualisation of TV rights, till 2027 (!) with 90% of the meagre rights going to those three, with Benfica insisting on showing its game on their TV. Commentary during games vs Porto or Sporting is hilariously one-sided.

But then, the three sports diaries are more or less aligned or focused on each of the three:
- O Jogo for Porto
- Record for Sporting
- A Bola for Benfica

Mind you, L'Équipe monopoly in France is not exactly great. They also have a free-to-air TV channel where you can see EC and WC qualifier, plus the odd Cup game from Spain or Portugal for instance.

[Duque de Bragança]

I find Italy the msot annoying of the countries with clubs signing up for the SL because England (absurdly) got 6 clubs in - but the idea that you'd have a European league without Roma, Lazio, Napoli who are big iconic clubs - far less Atalanta who are more successful lately - is just crazy. Especially in a league that includes Spurs

Replace Spurs by Nottingham Forest? 

2 European Champion Clubs' Cup, so more titles in Europe than in England, that has to count for something.

[Sheilbh]

I think Pique made my point better on what it would mean for domestic leagues if this had gone ahead:

From a player's point of view, I would say it's not a positive decision for football in the long-term. Do we want this for football? That Sevilla, Valencia, Everton, Leicester, Napoli etc disappear? Because those clubs are, moving forward, going to be worth nothing.

[Grey Fox]

Why do they need to disappear? They can be in a 2nd tier development league.

[Jacob]

Why do they need to disappear? They can be in a 2nd tier development league.

No thank you.

[The Larch]

I'm still kinda surprised about how little fallout has been regarding some of the stuff he said during the interview. He admitted that Real Madrid has lost hundreds of millions during the last couple of years when Real Madrid was still presenting a profit in their official accounts until last december and is always boasting about their flawless economic management that allows them to have record earnings year after year. You can't have both things, either he was lying in the interview or he has been lying for years about their creative book-keeping, and nobody bats an eyelid.

I can't remember who it ws who pointed it out - but it's not exactly surprising that this really half-arsed plan was in part a big project of two men whose previous big business plans have been spending €200 million between them on a 33 year old Ronaldo and 29 year old Hazard

It took me a while, but I managed to find amongst these days' maelstrom of Twitter activity the following thread about a FT journo's perspective on the business abilities of football's top dogs.

We say in Soccernomics: "Anyone who spends any time inside football soon discovers that just as oil is part of the oil business, stupidity is part of the football business."

Related to this: a fellow football writer once told me he'd tried and failed to do business with a legendary English football institution. He said, "I can work with crooks, and I can work with stupid people. But I can't work with stupid people who think they are crooks." It's that uniquely football mixture of stupidity plus greed that we saw in action this week.

Related: football is an industry where practically everyone in a boardroom is a white man, so the talent pool they are drawing from is not large. There's also a fast track for ex-players, sons of senior officials, people's mates etc where intelligence is not a criterion.

More on the football/stupidity thread: one club president told me that ex-players who get executive jobs don't understand office work, e.g. even the basic concept of working 8-hour days. My response would be: 'So don't hire ex-players.' But fans and media love it when you do.

That's the basic weirdness of the football industry. On the field, it's pure meritocracy. There are no bad professional footballers. (I hear your jokes, but really, there aren't.) But off the field: zero quality control, many mediocrities in top jobs (including some coaches)

[The Larch]

More possible unintended consequences:

European Super League: Uefa under pressure to ditch Champions League coefficient safety net

Uefa is set to be hit with a concerted campaign to drop its plan for two Champions League places awarded on the basis of historical performances in Europe.

The collapse of the Super League has led to a power shift away from Europe's elite clubs and now the European Leagues and figures in the European Club Association — which is now without any representatives from the 12 clubs who joined the Super League — are poised to launch an effort to change the access system planned for 2024.

[Jacob]

That is both hilarious and exciting, the Larch

[Grey Fox]

Why do they need to disappear? They can be in a 2nd tier development league.

No thank you.