sticking your head in the sand now mypost. the trouble is real and the threat of it getting worse is very real.Originally Posted by mypost
" I wish to God that someone would be able to block out the voices in my head for five minutes, the voices that scream, over and over again: "Why do they come to me to die?"
had just typed a reply to D12s points idea when feckin machine crashed as I tried to post. So in one sentence -why not just make the goals a wee bit bigger?
varying points for higher scores is a bit american for my liking. Rarity of goals by and large good thing. Shay Given not short.
" I wish to God that someone would be able to block out the voices in my head for five minutes, the voices that scream, over and over again: "Why do they come to me to die?"
from www.football365.com
Premier League to discuss crowd falls
Tuesday September 20 2005
Premier League chiefs are to study whether rising ticket prices and television
coverage have contributed to an apparent slump in top-flight attendances at
a special meeting next month.
The league's attendance working group, which is headed by chief executive
Richard Scudamore, will deal with the concerns of several club chairmen who
are seeing a dwindling number of fans coming through the turnstiles.
Blackburn chairman John Williams, a member of the working group, saw just
20,725 fans turn up for Sunday's home match with Newcastle, 9,000 fewer
than last season.
Williams told PA Sport: "We in the Premier League have had 10 great years, a
fantastic success story, but we are certainly going through the doldrums
now.
"We have to do something now because by the time you see the bandwagon
it's too late.
"Richard Scudamore is going to reconstitute the working group and it's time to
sit down and go through a whole plethora of things that might be done.
"The wheels have not come off but the product does need a good service -
it needs tweaking rather than major surgery.''
Williams believes a combination of factors including saturation television
coverage, tickets prices, negative tactics and predictable results are behind
the fall in attendances.
Sports minister Richard Caborn said he too was concerned by the fall in
numbers.
Caborn told PA Sport: "I'm pleased the Premier League have taken this
initiative, and the working party are going to have to look at whether clubs
are pricing fans out of going matches.
"One also has to question how much football there is on television and
whether it's undermining attendances. I believe there is clear evidence that is
the case.''
Caborn added that football now had greater competition for fans from other
sports, particularly in the first two months of the season from cricket and
both rugby codes.
The working party will report any proposals to the next meeting of Premier
League chairmen in November.
The Premier League remain bullish about their product however and point out
that there were worries about attendances at this point last season but that
overall the clubs operated at a 94.2% occupancy rate compared to 93.7% in
the 2002-03 season, and considerably higher than in Spain and Germany
despite prices in those countries being significantly lower.
A spokesman said: "It's very early in the season to take any sort of
meaningful analysis from these statistics.''
Larry Be Wyse
www.acsportsimages.com
Oh come on!! I think they are ignoring the obvious problem here. I saw it on Sky News the other day. It's £26.40 (roughly €45) to get an adult and child into a Real Madrid match, it's £21.40 (€30-€35) to get an adult and child into AS Roma and £12.40 (€20) to get an adult and child into Bayern. Yet it's £90 (€130-€140) to get the same deal at Chelsea.
Extratime.ie
Yo te quiero, mi querida. Sin tus besos, yo soy nada.
Abri o portão de ouro, da maquina do tempo.
Mi mamá me hizo guapo, listo y antimadridista.
As a side, I think the last two years have being the best the EL has produced in a long time and alot of that is due to summer soccer and the declining attraction of the EPL as well as the success of Shels and Cork in europe. Such success makes people who would not bother about Irish soccer stand up and take notice.
As for the premiership, i think the bubble has burst which was inevitable, it happened in italy a few years ago, look at the state of some of their 'top' clubs eg lazio, parma. The wages the players are being paid are unsustainable and it would be no harm if these dropped down to a more realisitic level. Also the emergence of Abrahamovic has meant that chelsea are now in a league of their own and can afford to play in front of smaller crowds each week, while a large portion of the league are out there to survive in the league, knowing otherwise financial ruin awaits. IMO this is the singlest biggest factor for the negative football throughout the league. WBA went to Chelsea a few wks back and fielded a weakened team to prepare for their BIG game against Birmingham at the wkd, says alot really!
Football needs to be given back to the fans over there, doubt it will happen.
I also think the saturation of european games is diminishing the entertainment of the CL and the Uefa cup as well, the knockout stages of the CL are well worth watching but the group games Im not so sure.
the group games are still a spectacular mass tv appeal - cross continent - the bookies are taking record amounts on CL trading which has bypassed individual leagues - interest is massive and the CL format at present is ideal for all concerned
[QUOTE=elroy]
Also the emergence of Abrahamovic has meant that chelsea are now in a league of their own and can afford to play in front of smaller crowds each week, while a large portion of the league are out there to survive in the league, knowing otherwise financial ruin awaits. IMO this is the singlest biggest factor for the negative football throughout the league. WBA went to Chelsea a few wks back and fielded a weakened team to prepare for their BIG game against Birmingham at the wkd, says alot really!
Football needs to be given back to the fans over there, doubt it will happen.
QUOTE]
this is very true , befroe he came along the money was drying up wages and transfer fee's were on the way down , but chelsea have made it impossible to compete with soo every club will have to have a rich owner to buy the "best " and we'll be left with a bunch of over paid pansy's too affraid to tackle in case they hurt there earning potential !!.
but its still by far the best league there was a players vote recently there were asked to vote for the top 55 players 19 of which play in the prem , thats about 35 % of the worlds best players play in the prem L
Started by Jack Walker and Blackburn, lets not forget, in the UK at least. (There's many examples on the continent - Parma and Monaco the main examples).
If you attack me with stupidity, I'll be forced to defend myself with sarcasm.
what do you mean by Monaco???
they are not bankrolled by anyone - they have massive debts in fact - at the time of their champions league run they did it on a shoestring with loan players cause they couldn't buy anyone
Well at least Jack Walker was from Blackburn and supported his hometown team all his life.This russian has so much money that his really playing football fantasy in real life.Not worried about the game in england,only concerned about Cork City and the Eircom league.
what about the national side ? who allmost all play in the prem league .
im allways amased at people ( not you ) on this forum that delight in the decline of the prem league or english football on a whole , do they honestly think players like keane and duff would be as good if they had stayed in ireland ?
Did Rovers not establish the Jack Walker Trust whereby all money contributed by him to the club would be repaid?
Chelsea are in a situation where they would collapse if it weren't for the deep pockets of the red one. They're a long way off being financially stable.
It's people like you who amaze me for thinking that the English leagues are the only ones open to Irish players. Some may argue that our players have never developed into top class players because they've been restricted by the limitations of British coaching techniques.
Last edited by Peadar; 21/09/2005 at 11:51 AM.
Have Boot Disk, will travel
its not my opinion its fact , look at the national team and look where they play , ive never heard of a youngster picked up by a spanish or italian side so more or less it is the only league open to them bar the few kids in scotland .
so if it was nt for english soccer they would be playing in ireland they would never have developed into the players they are now . imagine if we had to pick a team from the eircom league, jokes of players like crowe would get call ups !!!
How are attendances in the lower leagues in England doing? Will the Premiership ever introduce percentage based total wage bill cap?
We'd have less players going abroad but the better players would be picked up by the bigger and better clubs in Europe. If you believe all that you've written there then I fear for you. I really do.
For all the players who leave Ireland to play football in England, we have no more than 3 at the moment who are International quality. Don't fool yourself into thinking that Roy Keane, Damien Duff and Shay Given wouldn't have made it in Europe. They owe little or nothing to English football.
Have Boot Disk, will travel
Anto1208.
Not knocking english football,just stating a few facts thats all.Total greed has taken over english football and the real supporters are being squeezed out of the game.People in lreland don't see that as they are blinkered by sky sports/media saturation coverage of english premiership.
The real football fans in english have taken action by staying away from games.People wake up and see that rich are getting richer and the ordinary supporters is a past identity of yesterday.Just look at what clubs premiership clubs are charging in admission prices to games.english premiership now only a boring one horse race.
its this constant brit bashing again !!they owe nothing to english football are you serious? they owe everything ,all these players were picked up by english clubs trained and developed . i would agree with you if even one italian spanish german etc club had one irish kid on there books at the moment , fact is they dont see ireland as being able to produce players for them , thats why they dont sign any irish kids .
if forest or an other english club hadnt taken a chance with keane chances are he'd still be in cork
true for some clubs but not all , my season ticket costs 450 so it works out at under £25 per game thats nothing most of ye will think nothing of spending £25 on booze at the weekend if not double that amount .but we are one of the best priced and there for best supported teams ( our attendences are on the up ) i can understand why chelsea fans are staying away with things like full price kids and dissabled tickets .
in keanes case i think you are wrong - he demonstrated the will to move on up to the highest possible level even before he had secured a move to an english team - he was on some old fai excellecnce course when he was a kid - he was the youngest on it and was homesick - i remmeber them goin on about it in a documentary on him once
facts are keane was a talent - if it wasnt forest it would have been someone else - the cream always rises to the top
i take your point it wouldnt have been a continental club that signed him tho - as they have zero links with the irish youth scene - and for historical reasons no need to have any links with it
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