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A heartfelt piece on what it's like to be on the verge of losing your football club, by a Bury supporter:
https://www.theguardian.com/football...te-a-community
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I wonder whether they would accept Smurfwaite as an alternative. We almost had the same dilemma, methinks.
Interesting, Cher, that you quote from an excellent piece in the Grauniad. That brilliant newspaper is regularly reviled on this site but I would venture to say that it is the most commonly quoted. Something of a mismatch, eh?
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Now Sid, let's not turn this into anything other than a thread about losing your football club 😉
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Well reprimanded cher1.Originally Posted by cher1
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Smurthwaite had a poor reputation amongst Port Vale fans but I would have thought having him as an owner would be preferable to extinction.
The present owner of Bury seems to be in denial - surely if they go out of the League, he’s going to end up with nothing. Except the tag of being the man who killed a football club.
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Also from the Grauniad (apologies if it has previously been posted), and with which I wholeheartedly concur :
Premier League clubs have a responsibility to use their financial clout to help bail out stricken Football League teams such as Bolton and Bury, according to Nigel Clough, the manager of fellow League One side Burton Albion.
Bury and Bolton will begin the season with a 12-point deduction and the former’s opening match against MK Dons on Saturday has been suspended.
Clough said the plight of Bolton and Bury “saddens everyone in football” and has called on elite clubs to step in and help. Bolton are in administration but the consortium Football Ventures is nearing completion of a takeover. The EFL has said Bury’s owner, Steve Dale, has not provided proof of funds, as required by its rules, although Dale denies that.
Clough said: “It’s very difficult but I think there’s enough money in football at the moment to look after everybody. I would look up for it. When there’s billion-pound TV deals and everything, I think the Football League should have just a little bit more. I think it’s been the lifeblood for many years in providing players for the Premier League and even the international team – you’ve got the likes of Kyle Walker and Harry Maguire. I think there’s an overall responsibility to try and look after those clubs.
“There were quite a few [clubs] that went out of business many years ago and dropped down the leagues and restarted. I hope it doesn’t come to that. That’s why I think there’s enough money in football for it not to happen and I hope somebody steps in and saves them. I don’t think there are too many sane people looking to buy football clubs. What do they say? The quickest way to go from being a billionaire to a millionaire is buy a football club.”
The Premier League distributes a financial payment to each EFL club every season, via two mechanisms, either parachute payments or solidarity payments, which are linked to the value of the former’s broadcasting rights. The Premier League was approached for comment.
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He's not wrong about the amount of dosh swilling around at the top level either...
"[The Premier League will] ...make £4.2bn from the sale of international television rights for the next three seasons to 2022, compared with £3.2bn for the three preceding years. " [Financial Times May 30th 2019]
That's a staggering FOUR THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED MILLION POUNDS. Good grief, that equates to over £36 million for every club from the top of the Premier League to the bottom of the National League, should they wish to share it equally across the professional game for three seasons!
The problem, in my opinion, boils down to how we apportion blame for the situation at the troubled clubs. Notts makes a fine example for the case of overspending being the root cause. I would counter with the fact that it's the entire professional game which gives English footie it's magic and that the PL should indeed allow more to trickle down. The FL should also apportion it more equally over the four divisions below (I'm including parachute payments for clubs falling into the NL, like Notts, here).
In all honesty I believe a combination of divisional wage and budget caps and fairer distribution of the crumbs from the top table is the answer if we're to maintain the long and world-renowned tradition that's given the PL the platform it now enjoys, i.e. 5 professional divisions at the top of the English game.
Last edited by SwalePie; 22-08-2019 at 12:53 PM.
Trialist
But for the Haydn Green Estate, it probably would have been us
Reserve
Simple explanation:
Their sport journalism is among the best.
Their political overtone is among the worst.
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Whilst I agree with everything you say I'm not sure giving clubs more money from the top would stop the problem. Everything would inflate in price such as player wages, agents (parasites) fees, and the likes. Unless like you say wage structures for leagues are put in place so then any money that clubs would get could help feather the nest so to speak and secure non-playing staff wages for example for the coming season, or go towards the yearly tax bill for example. Local community projects and youth development could all benefit as well.
The problem for me is the fundamental concept that some football clubs are spending more than what is coming in regardless of whether they are in the premier league, or national league. Whether it's £20m coming in and £30m going out, or £1m coming in and £1.5m going out it's this culture that needs to end if English Football as we know it with all it's unique clubs with their unique history, kits, nicknames, grounds is to survive.
Assuming that a solidarity payment or whatever it could be named was paid to every league and national league club of £1,000,000 a season if clubs don't manage their finances properly and waste the money or gamble on promotion with it and squander it then it's not going to be of any use.
Football is a game, but some owners appear to be playing games with the actual future of the clubs by going for broke and then leaving clubs with mountains of debts. It's this that needs to be irradiated. How is the big question, and what part the FA and EFL have in stopping this is what should be up for debate/discussion.
Last edited by MAD_MAGPIE; 22-08-2019 at 04:52 PM.
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