This could have been us

[Reading_Pie]

There needs to be a combination of better regulation of owners, agents etc., possible salary caps and better distribution of wealth. There needs to be some way a well run club can still realistically aim high without destroying themselves.

[Bernard_Bresslaw]

Sadly there is so much of a chasm between the finances on offer at the top and the rest of us because hundreds of millions of people want to watch the top sides and they don't want to watch us.

Football clubs are already afforded far more protection than the vast majority of businesses even in heavily regulated industries. A lot of owners seem to have a safety net of sorts in the form of the emotional attachment to clubs - if Bury do go then this will be the first time in 27 years since which point there will have been hundreds of instances of clubs being saved after god knows how many stays of execution. How many times has it happened to us alone?

Virtually no other business would be given so many extensions to court deadlines on what must often be the flimsiest of evidence. Clubs are never simply wound up by the shareholders like other businesses.

Sadly I think there will have to be a casualty to make football realise that it will happen eventually, not just that it might. Without it we'll just keep seeing the 'last time this can be allowed to happen', often at the same clubs time after time.

[jackal2]

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?

Nothing wrong with any of the qualities as long as you're capable of distinguishing the facts from the editorial opinion sufficiently to form your own opinion and not just parrot theirs (be that the Telegraph, Grauniad or Times).

Regarding Bury, what a sad state of affairs. Sooner or later, a club wasn't going to make its way through the storm and come out the other side, and it looks as though Bury could be fall guys. We were so close ourselves.

The only positive is that the football League are finally talking about introducing a pay cap. I'm usually all for market forces and free enterprise but even I'll admit football is not like any other industry. It has proven itself incapable of rational management and has become a honey pot for some very iffy characters. It needs a degree of regulation otherwise clubs will be dying all over the place.

[Frigiliana Pie 1]

It looks like there is a slight improvement in Bury’s situation with a few purchasers interested. The EFL are considering a couple of days extension to their deadline, but it will have been a close run thing if they do survive. When the Danes took over, we were 5 days away from the court hearing that could have led to extinction . If Bury survive, the time they had left will be measured in hours rather than days. And Bolton are still not out of danger either. Football cannot continue like this.

The one promising thing which is happening is the interest now being taken by certain politicians - e.g. Lilian Greenwood, Ken Clarke, Andy Burnham and the Bury North MP whose name escapes me at the moment. If they can maintain some pressure on the EFL and Premier League (and not forgetting the National League) it’s just possible that some semblance of sanity may emerge.