Football (Soccer) Thread

[Sheilbh]

I'm curious, do you know what the ownership profile of these clubs was when the evil foreigners bought them out?  The members?  Local big men?

In England normally the big local businessman. You know the classic old school English club owner was sort of the local sausage magnate who employed half the town.

It seems only natural that there was going to be a divergence of interests between the ownership and the local fan base.

I think this is it. The clubs have genuine community associations and history in all of these countries - unlike, I think, an American sports franchise (maybe like college teams?). But they are run by oligarchs of varying types - literal Russian oligarchs, US sports businesses, hedge funds and nation states wanting to launder their reputation through sport.

This sort of rips off the mask.

Rugby league is nowhere near popular in France as it is England (™Norf™?), except the Catalonian part (for celedhring).

League = Northern and working class (and more exciting). Union = Southern and middle class (and more boring). In England at least and neither is anywhere near as popular as football. Rugby league is the bigger sport in a few towns in the North-West: Wigan, St Helens, Warrington.

[Tamas]

So what, you can relegate from the Six Nations competition? You can get promoted into it?

It used to be the Five Nations Tournament. Italy got promoted, following lots of test matches vs the Big 5. 

So are there actual written rules on how nations can promote and relegate into the tournament? Never mind then!

[Sheilbh]

As an aside, when I did my MBA we had an interesting corporate finance case study (which we had to do in 24 hours, because time pressure and sleep deprivation makes everything better) for a Premiership club analysing their finances. The question on the table was whether to invest in a top tier striker, in building a new stadium, neither, or both - based on the finances of the club. After we analyzed and made the recommendation (my group said yes to both), we learned that it was based on the Spurs.

Was fascinating.

One of the best tasks I ever had as a trainee lawyer was for a corporate partner who's worked on lots of football club takeovers/sales/attempted takeovers and was just updating his spreadsheet of clubs and their current situation based on their company books etc. It was very interesting

[Josquius]

Yeah, I don't think the 6 nations is a good example.
I do believe there is a set system in place for ranking nations into tiers with the tier 1 European nations being in the 6 nations?
I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure there are written criteria for what makes a nation part of each of the tiers.

League = Northern and working class (and more exciting). Union = Southern and middle class (and more boring). In England at least and neither is anywhere near as popular as football. Rugby league is the bigger sport in a few towns in the North-West: Wigan, St Helens, Warrington.

South-north. Not north-north.

[Jacob]

So it's not against the spirit of sport to restrict who can participate if its done to nations?

Whatever they do in Rugby is not against the spirit of Association Football, no.

And yeah, ad hoc or semi-organized national tournaments are not against the spirt of football.

[Sheilbh]

So are there actual written rules on how nations can promote and relegate into the tournament? Never mind then!

But there's nothing necessarily wrong with a closed system/franchise model - it works in America, it works for Rugby League, it works in cricket for the Indian Premier League. But that's not the system that football has had for the past 100+ years and, possibly, that's part of the reason it's been so successful?

[Duque de Bragança]

So what, you can relegate from the Six Nations competition? You can get promoted into it?

It used to be the Five Nations Tournament. Italy got promoted, following lots of test matches vs the Big 5. 

So are there actual written rules on how nations can promote and relegate into the tournament? Never mind then!

Remember, you are a new subject of a queen in a country which does not even have a written constitution. 
They should have asked for the differences and origins and rugby union and league on one hand and association football in your citizenship test. 

This just in, France was not always in the Five Nations tournament as well, though I strongly doubt someone in this forum was old enough to remember it.
Rules where modified, unshockingly.

But then, as Jacob and others keep repeating, association football and rugby union are different sports.

Not to mention that rugby union only became an officially professional sport in the '90s in the northern hemisphere. I still remember rugby fans criticizing the professional aspect of football as a kid.

Mind you, in France, Rugby union is second only to Association Football in popular, if well far behind, and having a stronger base in the south, with Paris the one exception north of the Loire.

Tyr is right, there is some kind of tier system in Rugby Union and access to the World Cup was restricted. So no longer Portuguese (bourgeois) amateurs in the World Cup getting thrashed by the All Blacks.

[Tamas]

So are there actual written rules on how nations can promote and relegate into the tournament? Never mind then!

But there's nothing necessarily wrong with a closed system/franchise model - it works in America, it works for Rugby League, it works in cricket for the Indian Premier League. But that's not the system that football has had for the past 100+ years and, possibly, that's part of the reason it's been so successful?

So what you are saying there's nothing wrong with this except that it is unusual?

[Sheilbh]

With Rugby Union I think there is talk of changing up the international competition but it's more on the basis of timezones than anything else - so South Africa would join the Six Nations (making it seven - I think Georgia should be invited too) and Japan will replace them in the Championship so that'll be Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina.

[Sheilbh]

So what you are saying there's nothing wrong with this except that it is unusual?

Yes - and new. If we were setting up football now and building a European league then this might be what we'd do. I have no issue with having closed franchise based systems, but I've got a lot of a problem moving to that from an open, competitive system. So I have as much of a problem with this as I would if, say, Liverpool decided to re-locate to Boston.

And I'd add that the reason a lot of these clubs are included - Arsenal, Milan, United, argualy Inter (though as with Milan this might change) - is based on their historic performance and legacy from those competitions and now they want to pull up the drawbridge.

Edit: And the other point is that I think the closed/franchise models normally have some system to promote competition and keep things interesting - so the draft, a wage cap etc in the US. This just combines the least competitive bit of American sports (mostly closed system/no relegation) with the least competitive bits of football (the richest can just buy the best players plus transfer limits tied to revenue so an Abramovich now couldn't break in the way Chelsea did).

[Josquius]

With Rugby Union I think there is talk of changing up the international competition but it's more on the basis of timezones than anything else - so South Africa would join the Six Nations (making it seven - I think Georgia should be invited too) and Japan will replace them in the Championship so that'll be Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina.

Cant imagine that is going down well. Wrecking the old 3 nations like so.

[FunkMonk]

I for one cannot wait for the Los Angeles Royals play the Boston Reds to a stale 0-0 draw in the Budweiser-Huawei Super League brought to you by Netflix.

The derby between the Beijing Blues and Barcelona will be a final to remember, I can tell you all that much.

[Grey Fox]

Having X numbers of teams employing the X best players in the world competing against each other is hopefully something that comes out of this.

[Tamas]

A reason why I remembered the Six Nations was that one criticism levelled against this ESL that it is going to be dull with always the same teams automatically taking part, and that was just the thing I was thinking about the Six Nations. Seemingly every couple of months TV goes all "NATION 1 AGAINST NATION 2 IN THE SIX NATIONS OMG!". yeah, once in a quarter event, awesome!

[Sheilbh]

It's an annual tournament for six weekends - so I suppose what I'm getting from this is you're not a rugby fan