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I've thought this for years and as a fellow spurs fan like Sugar, I'm scared.
So you should be. Spuds' brief flirtation with Yerpean footie is over; the mighty 'Pool shall rise to the top once again, and the pretenders shall be banished back to Mid Table Medioctity, where they belong...
I see the Arse have collapsed as predicted. Typical. No bottle when it really counts.
It's customary for me, as an Albion fan, to wade into these threads. Today, I think I'll just sit back and keep my mouth shut.
Elf, I'm talking about the business model. Despite having 'arry in charge from the dug out, Sugar, and more laterly Daniel Levy, run Spurs in a sound financial way.....for a football club. The same cannot be said of Liverpool. I fear for Man U, Man city, Liverpool, chelsea and plenty other clubs. What happens if their banks call in or their super rich owners get bored and walk away? That is the point that the programme made.
Wage cap needed. That was where the programme was headed all the way. And no surprise that's where it ended.
If Liverpool had any sense they'ed be talking to the Toffes about biulding and sharing a new ground in Stanley park, seatng 70 000. With those gatee receipts, shared costs and extra revenue from concerts that a stadium like that might attract you'd have a chance in the long run.
Spurs are trying to do the same (despite Haringey council's lack of support) but face a £450 million bill to biuld the (approved) new 50 000 seater stadium at WHL
And yes, I agree a wage cap is needed. It seems to me the players and agents have too much power and are destroying football/in danger of destroying football in England. Yes the players are a big part of the draw for the fans, but the clubs are bigger....when Ronaldo left Man Utd for Real how many fans did he take with him?
....when Ronaldo left Man Utd for Real how many fans did he take with him?
12.
(and his extended family)
If Liverpool had any sense...
They haven't though, have they?
You could try and keep it untribal higgo. Do you think you could be frown up enough this evening to manage that?
Do you think you could be frown up enough this evening to manage that?
No. I don't think I'll frown all week.
Damn auto correct!
Anyway, as we were, do try and grow up.
Why would Hig's want to be all grown up, he has 3 kids to consider 😉
So what is stopping the clubs/league bringing in a wage cap? They all want one. I don't really buy the 'they can't agree, small clubs want a flat cap' arguement. Surely they are clever enough to see that they have as much to gain from a percentage of turnover style cap as the big clubs?
I know it's sacriledge but I agree that we have too mnay clubs in England too. Just look at London. Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham, West ham (going down) - premiership, plus crystal palace, QPR (prem next year), leyton orient, redbridge and dagenham, milwall, charlton...errr....probably more I've forgotten. Okay london may have 10 million people so a large local fan base to draw on but 5 premiershiup clubs and 6 or more lower league clubs seems too many. I've said so to people recently when discussing the Olympic stadium and Orients complaints about encrouchment from another club. Orient was the first football I saw live, my dad is an O's fan....but I see no reason to protect them and actually feel London football would be stronger if a few of the clubs failed.
London football would be stronger if a few of the clubs failed.
Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and Brentford. I'd add West Ham there too but they're doing it already.
wage cap will never happen
the agents have their claws in too deep
the fa are a useless sack of twunts theyre well aware that kickbacks from agents permeate every level of footy and they dont care, probably because theyre doing nicely out of it themselves
look what happened to luton, manager speaks out about bungs to the bbc, FA launch an thorough investigation of every club in the country.................
everyone is found innocent apart from luton who are handed a record points deduction, fined, go into administration and deducted more points,
The same cannot be said of Liverpool.
Liverpool aren't in massive debt. That's all bin sorted out. New owners and that.
If Liverpool had any sense they'ed be talking to the Toffes about biulding and sharing a new ground in Stanley park, seatng 70 000. With those gatee receipts, shared costs and extra revenue from concerts that a stadium like that might attract you'd have a chance in the long run.
Wash your mouth out. Never gonna happen. Everton have asked many, many times, and always bin told to go and do one. Pfft. Would Citeh and Man U ever share a ground?? Why don't Spuds ask to ground share with Arse then, eh?
Liverpool will have a new stadium eventually. And it will be a biggun. Poxy Everton aren't fit to share any stadium with one of football's greatest ever teams...
Spurs are trying to do the same (despite Haringey council's lack of support)
Why the hell should one of the most cash-strapped councils in the country help fund a commercial venture? If Spuds are so brilliantly run, then why can't they fund their own flippin' stadium? Olympic Stadium my arse; all that money spent then they wanted to knock it down and start again? What a needless waste. Spuds are just jealous of their far more successful rivals just a few miles away. You want all the trappings of success, go and win a few trophies first. Don't start thinking you're a big club just cos you've had one season in the CL. Probbly looking at no Yerpean footie next season, yet you think you 'need' a local authority to help finance a massive new stadium? Go and win the thing first, then you might have earned it...
Typical Spuds fan. Delusions of granduer cos they've won a couple of FA Cups.... 🙄
I think a limit on squad sizes and an F1 style budget cap on yearly transfer spending could be a good idea. Say £50m a season for Premiership, £30m for Championship, and so-on. Would stop the ridiculous sums being spent on players, and clubs buying up players then sending them out on loan just so's their rivals can't have them. And quotas on homegrown players in the squad; Chelsea have John Terry and that's it. And Arsenal under Wenger haven't had many youngsters come up through the ranks.
Needs proper UEFA/FIFA backing though, any plan. And the governing bodies are corrupt and self-serving as hell....
Liverpool will not have a new stadium. They are planning to increase capacity at Anfield.
Move or not, Liverpool will have a much larger capacity stadium at some stage. Would be better to upgrade Anfield, like Man U did with Old Trafford, but might not be possible. We'll see.
So what is stopping the clubs/league bringing in a wage cap?
They wouldn't want to just bring one in in this country because then English teams would struggle against non-wage-capped teams in the Champions League etc - and trying to get the whole of Europe to agree to it is presumably a mega-ballache.
I agree that another large stadium in North London is unnecessary and would be happy to ground share with aresenal at the Emirates. If it had been done by the 2 clubs a a joint venture from the start it might have had some chance....one problem is the premiership rules that keeps clubs apart currently, that needs changing.
I hope Liverpool do get a bigger stadium, and soon, but from a cost/profit view ground share seems such a good idea it outweighs views based on a clubs tradition. Isn't a clubs future more important han its past?
Regarding Haringey helping Spurs, the council needs to attract and maintain business in the area to provide good jobs and generate revenue for residents etc. It is currently one of the most deprived areas of london and is being considered, along with a bit of docklands/thames gateway, for special status where the business rates would be lowered and other stuff done to attract and stimulate new business. I understand the clubs main concern though is it wants Haringey to invest in improving the transport links in the area.....it's great having a 50 or 55 000 seater stadium but fighting huge traffic, slow buses and poor tube and trains to get 55000 people there every game is not good. There's not much Spurs can do about that....either Haringey improve the local transport infrastructure or Spurs consider moving. In comparison it would seem that Newham have paid West Ham many millions to keep them in the borough by directly funding their acquisition of the Olympic stadium. Spurs asked for details under an FOI request which was rejected, this is the basis of the Spurs and Leyton Orient legal challenge against Newham.
As for knocking down the olympic stadium, that is tosh. The IOC don't like big white elephants....but they do like to see a legacy kept and it was felt that the IOC wanted to see the stadium retain facilities for athletics. It is agreed that a 80 000 seat athletics stadium would be a white elephant. I went to the biggest UK athletics event in the UK last year - the grand prix event at crystal palace, on the friday eve with events like Mo Farrah running the 10K, and Tyson Gaye winning the mens 100m in one of the fastest times in the world EVER. The stadium holds 13 000, it was far frm full, I'd estimate about 8 000 people were there. The level of interst fo athletics is well known so to avoid Stratfor getting a white Elephant the bid put forward was for a stadium of 80 000 designed such that after the olympics the top tier would be completely removed piece by piece like lego almost, and could be sold in order to biuld a 30 odd K stadium while leaving a 540 or 50 k stadium at stratford. The spurs bid was to do this, use the top tier to biuld a 35 000 seater stadium at crystal palace and maintain a london based athletics legacy at the current national sports arena, allowing spurs to remove the track from stratford and alter it to be a world class football venue. Seemed a novel but grat idea to me.
As for trappings of success? they belong in a trophy room. I see infrastructure such as a stadium as biukding for the future - that was the point the Sugar made about investing in infrastructure - biuld for the future, grow your support and incoe potential in order to grow a successful and stable club.
I like your idea on limiting squad sizes...alhtough the yearly limit on transfers would have to go hand in hand with wage caps too surely. Much of the totla cost of a player over the life of a contract is already wages (eg. rooney rumoured to be on 200k a week = 41 million over 4 years in wages)
And wage caps are easy to get around, my Grandad played in his younger days.
He got his base salary, a job (he didn't need to go to) with the Coal Board, various 'condiments' from certain Retailers and 'match' money paid cash out of the receipts plus bonuses and the like. And a paid-for vehicle.
I'm sure now it would be through off-shore payments and the like.
apprpriate governance is always required to enforce any rule....as pointed out abuve, the premiership attitude to governance and rule enforcement needs to change.
The IOC don't like big white elephants
No you're right; but then, in fairness, not a lot of people like Spurs... 🙂
You present what sounds like a reasonable argument, but ultimately, I feel it's a load of waffle mate. Spuds just wanted to cash in on the Olympic site, with the Westfield shopping centre, improved local transport services etc. because it would've benefitted them financially. Like they ever give a toss about Orient!
Whereas Wet Spam have contributed loads in Newham, done loads of projects with local kids, etc. Having the Hammers move into a ground only a mile from their existing one is the best solution for Newham.
White Hart Lane is fine for Spuds. Develop that. If Spuds' owners are so concerned with the local community, then surely they'd want to stay put where they belong?
would be happy to ground share with aresenal at the Emirates
See, that's the small club mentality; hope to have something a bigger and more successful club has. I doubt any Arsenal fan would ever want Spuds to share their ground.
Spurs also contribute to the local community. Your example of work with kids, a friend of mine works at WHL, in conjunction with Haringey, she does just that.
I don't think Spurs want to move, the Olympic bid was to apply political pressure to Haringey to get them moving on the transport links. The only time they started to get helpful before was 10 years ago when it seemed Spurs may move North to Picketts Lock (UK bid for the World Athletics championships, the location was to be a new biuld stadium at Picketts Lock, Spurs were to buy the stadium after the event....Haringey suddenly got desperate as they saw a major local business about to go out of the borough.) And to apply political pressure to Boris to get Haringey some investment....Newham is doing very nicely from 2012 from Greater London council taxes...would be nice if Boris did something to share the investment about - the something Spurs want is the development zone given to Haringey, resulting in subsidised business rates. Good for Spurs and good for Haringey.
Spurs have the space to rebiuld WHL, owning all the land from Park Lane (current away end) north to Northumberland park, and from the High street east to Worcester avenue
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&q=westfield+stratford&wrapid=tlif130497205153110&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl
the current ground sits against wprcester ave, behind the shops on th high street, between the Paxton and Park Lane. The approved 50 000 seater new staium would sit slightly North, centre cirle about on the paxton road, pretty much central in the whole chunk of land. The club just needs Haringey to commit to sort the transport links! oh and to finance a small matter of the biuld...original estimate was £250m (Emirates cost £205 million so that would seem reasonable) however Spurs have recently said costs have escalated considerably...hmmm.
Wherever they end up Spurs need a bigger stadium, WHL capacity 36 363, Spurs season ticket holders = 36 000, waiting list = 22 0000.
Levy (the chairman) has made a new stadium the clubs number one priority, it will happen.
BTW....who was to have biult that proposed new stadium in Stanley park.....I heard Liverpool city council were to fund it after the club threatened to move.