Arsenal Thread

Gerd what you are talking about is the problem with Capitalism. It happens in every type of business.

If you have a small biscuit company that suddenly makes a tasty biscuit that everybody likes, then more and more people will buy those biscuits, which means that that biscuit company can invest in bigger and better premises to make more biscuits, different types of biscuit and in research into which biscuits people like.

This biscuit company then becomes a household name, that dominates the biscuit making scene and takes alot of money. While other lessor known companies struggle along, until maybe one day they get lucky and create a biscuit that everybody likes.

Unfortunately the poorer companies cannot compete with the bigger company unless they find a way to get a better product out there. Which takes time and alot of money and a bit of luck.

If Arsenal didn't get Dennis Bergkamp and Wenger when we did, or if players like Ljundberg and Henry were flops, then we could be in an entirely different position we are in now.

It has taken the Premierleague a long time to become (arguably) the most sort after league. We were always overshadowed by the Italian and Spanish leagues for decades.

Now it is the Premierleagues turn to prosper one of the reasons it has is because it always had the fanbase there and when you have the fanbase if you can work out how to get them to spend money, then you have struck oil.

Premierleague clubs only get the TV money they do because people buy the packages the TV broadcasters sell, therefore they give a percentage of that to the football teams. Some teams have more fans or prestige and more people would like to watch, so they get a bigger cut of the money. It's all capitalism, It stinks and stifles people, but it is never going to change.

But clubs were always successful because they built up a fanbase and were run well, also got a bit of luck here and there. Then they built up and were able to make themselves into bigger clubs.

So now it is very important to keep checks on the teams that operate extremely over their means, with no concern for the look of their finances. Especially in sport where unfair advantage can ruin the game.

By ruining, I mean pushing up wages and transfer amounts and making a generation of players hungry for money rather than prestige and also making clubs take advantage of their fans, just to try and keep up with the other teams around them.

It's all fucked up, but we need to try and stop it from getting even worse if we can.

On the note of Russia havin gthe best league, I think it takes alot more than money to do that. Premirleague Speaks English which is accesible to alot of the countries in the world, It is not as cold as Russia :)) which means players are more likely to want to go there.

Can't imagine alot of players from hot countries wanting to play for a long while in Russia? (Maybe I am wrong) I'm not saying it is hot in Britain, but I think it is bearable for alot of those players.

Also the Premierleague (English leagues) had tradition and had a product in the FA Cup that was watched world wide anyway and had a world wide audience that it could also build on.

You may be right in that the Russian League will be the biggest, but they need to do alot more than just have money, they need to lay foundations to make people want to watch them and be accesible to alot of people around the world.
 
Well Bobby in the most capitalistic land in the world (USA) sports is better regulated than football in Europe. NBA has salary caps, a well regulated draft (the worst team can in principle pick the best young players).
What i mean is that it is utopic to keep capitalism out of football, but you can protect football against free market pronciples. If you do that it becomes an even more attractive product. I fully understand that English fans are quite happy with the way football is regulated now. I can even understand that the EPL is (without a doubt) the best league in the world, because yes, all these clubs have a long tradition (but that is also the case for Man City and Chelsea) and have a large (and deserved) fan base. But clubs like Benfica and Ajax also have fans from over the world and yet they are not more than (sometimes) well payed feeder clubs...in the long term that is bad for football. On the one hand you see a globalisation of the game (in that aspect football follows prevailing economic trends) but on the other hand (and that is the paradox) fewer and fewer clubs can win silverware. Basically only English and (two) Spanish clubs can call themselves favourites of the CL. That is not good for football.

About Russia: money will be enough Bobby, look at all the good Brazilian players who already play for Shakhtar (i know not Russian, but you see my point), look also what Zenith Leningrad managed to do: Dani plays for them (would be a key player in most English clubs) and thi summer they even bought one of the best young Italian defenders (Domenico Criscito).

Oh Bobby and you talk with reason about the Fa Cup, arguably the most famous export product of English football. Look how it is treated by the big clubs: they play with reserve or youth teams, Man Utd once even refused to participate (the ultimate reason why i stopped being a Man Utd fan after more than 30 years). The FA Cup is perhaps the best example why football should be (a litle bit) protected from capitalism and free market.
 
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USA Sports has problems too w/ salary caps n trade and whatnot . When player union n team owner can`t agree they lock the league from starting, trading. Imagine if football can`t release transfers or start the league on time due to player unions wanting more money or commercial right % . I think MLB was in lock down for 1 season and the fans was sicken by it ,but union are unions.
 
gerd said:
Well Bobby in the most capitalistic land in the world (USA) sports is better regulated than football in Europe. NBA has salary caps, a well regulated draft (the worst team can in principle pick the best young players).
What i mean is that it is utopic to keep capitalism out of football, but you can protect football against free market pronciples. If you do that it becomes an even more attractive product. I fully understand that English fans are quite happy with the way football is regulated now. I can even understand that the EPL is (without a doubt) the best league in the world, because yes, all these clubs have a long tradition (but that is also the case for Man City and Chelsea) and have a large (and deserved) fan base. But clubs like Benfica and Ajax also have fans from over the world and yet they are not more than (sometimes) well payed feeder clubs...in the long term that is bad for football. On the one hand you see a globalisation of the game (in that aspect football follows prevailing economic trends) but on the other hand (and that is the paradox) fewer and fewer clubs can win silverware. Basically only English and (two) Spanish clubs can call themselves favourites of the CL. That is not good for football.

About Russia: money will be enough Bobby, look at all the good Brazilian players who already play for Shakhtar (i know not Russian, but you see my point), look also what Zenith Leningrad managed to do: Dani plays for them (would be a key player in most English clubs) and thi summer they even bought one of the best young Italian defenders (Domenico Criscito).

Oh Bobby and you talk with reason about the Fa Cup, arguably the most famous export product of English football. Look how it is treated by the big clubs: they play with reserve or youth teams, Man Utd once even refused to participate (the ultimate reason why i stopped being a Man Utd fan after more than 30 years). The FA Cup is perhaps the best example why football should be (a litle bit) protected from capitalism and free market.
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Just had a read up on the NBA stuff and it is very interesting. I only had a quick read, but if you go over the salary cap you get taxed a certain amount, is that right? where does this money then go?

It would be great if that happened here if that Tax then went into lower league football etc.

The drafting system seems like a good idea, but seems to take away from the human element of a player deciding where he would like to play? a player could end up in a city hundreds of miles away from there family and friends etc and has no choice on where they go? (I just had a quick read, so sorry if I am being silly).

But the top players still seem to get ridiculous money in NBA working out to salaries of around 400,000 a week?!

Definately something needs to be done and should be done.

I love the premierleague but I would be open to making things level across the whole of the footballing world. But with different laws in different countries, one country is always going to be able to benefit more than another and have an advantage. It would be extremely difficult to manage.

The American sports is a bit easier as they play amongst themselves, so can regulate things better. Football spans many many contries of differing prosperity and laws, so it will be nearly impossible to sort out I would imagine, especially with corrupt wankers like Blatter in charge of major footballing decisions.

You can tell me you told me so in a few years if Russia do become the next big thing, but I doubt it at the moment :))
 
Yea American sports is different...first the league is a closed league of 30 teams...wich team are franchises...meaning they can be sold and can change cities. Imagine if liverpool or totenham need to switch cities? thats non sense. Football every league have atleast 2-3 division...

The problem that yall dont see with american sports regulation is that player doesnt care about winning the title or a championship or loyalty to their club. They play an over schedule season of 82 games depending on the sports meaning regular fixture aint that important and the only game that matter are the play-offs. yall are disguted by the likes or Nasri adebayor going for money , but what yall dont understand is that every player in american sports are like those guys.

and drafting is the worse system in the world to produce talent...yea a big player can end up at a bottom team but its just preventing alot of player to grow and develop to their full potential...
 
Of course it is easier in America because all those club are from the same country and depend on the same laws.
But in Europe we have the EU. The Eu can force laws that stimulate a more fair competition. I don't see why it would be bad for young players playing in lesser teams. The best eventually end up with the better clubs. What happens in football: the best young players end up on the bench because often they are bought by big clubs to prevent them going to other clubs..that is not better than in NBA.

And then i have another argument Bobby. If you say that the EPL is the biggest competition not only due to the television but because of the tradition and the broad fanbase most clubs have, surely regulation will not hurt English clubs (i sincerely doubt it, and as a fan of English football and English i would like them to be competitive, but in a fair competition).
 
The NBA is different, of course, it does not have relegation. The draft distribution is interesting, but in European football wouldn't work very well. That, of course, considering European players only. Therefore it still wouldn't stop big clubs from buying talents from overseas.

All clubs stretch their finances to remain competitive, but I think you know what I mean. Compared to Chelsea and City, Arsenal is an example of a company run responsibly. During the construction of the Emirates Stadium, there were transfer windows where the club had actually made a profit on transfers. Now AW is starting to spend a little bit more, but as we all can see, the trend of caution in the transfer market remains.


On another note: speaking of transfers, I think Wenger should go for Marta and Hope Solo. They're way better than Diaby and Almunia :P
 
gerd said:
Of course it is easier in America because all those club are from the same country and depend on the same laws.
But in Europe we have the EU. The Eu can force laws that stimulate a more fair competition. I don't see why it would be bad for young players playing in lesser teams. The best eventually end up with the better clubs. What happens in football: the best young players end up on the bench because often they are bought by big clubs to prevent them going to other clubs..that is not better than in NBA.

And then i have another argument Bobby. If you say that the EPL is the biggest competition not only due to the television but because of the tradition and the broad fanbase most clubs have, surely regulation will not hurt English clubs (i sincerely doubt it, and as a fan of English football and English i would like them to be competitive, but in a fair competition).
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Of course it hurts the team to be relegated, because they are moving down to a 'lessor' competition and can't charge as high prices and recieve as high TV revenues. The championship is one of the most competitive leagues which is great, but this is because alot of teams are similar and play similarly.

So although it is great and a close league, it gets abit samey. But the real fans still stay and so the atmospheres are unique. Whereas Arsenal for instance alot of the people that can afford to go to matches now, might not be the people that will stick with the team if they got relegated (God Forbid!)

But your argument with the fanbase, also like anything, you pay for quality. As you fall down the league the quality diminshes and only the more passionate fans stick around and support, people would rather spend their money on entertaining things rather than suffering (especially if your team is shit). It's human nature.

I love hearing the stories my dad told how he would make up his mind on the Saturday morning if he wanted to go and Watch Arsenal, call up a few mates walk down to the stadium get a ticket and go in. No real danger of not getting in because it was standing and could hold alot more people. The stories he tells are great and I think football has lost so much from that era which is sad.

Sometimes I think it would be nice if we got relegated, so then at least I could go and see my team on a regular basis :DD I used to get jealous of a friend that was a leyton Orient fan because he was a season ticket holder which cost him about £80 a season and he got to see the team he loved everyweek.

Now I barely go to a handful of games, due to money contstraints mainly and availability of tickets.

Something needs to be done, but It is difficult to know what would be fair to everybody and make sure all teams throughout the world have to follow the rules.

EDIT: even if the EU could impose rules, then countries like Russia would then definately have the upper hand and the contries in the EU would suffer as they would be restricted. So it really does need to be a world wide footballing thing or other places will just be able to capitalise.
 
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A draft wouldn't be fair nor even possible. First of all, because in Football, the youth players already belong to a club. In the NBA, the youth play in Universities that have no relation at all with the NBA teams.

Right now clubs like Arsenal and Barcelona work a lot with youngsters and invest a lot on developing them. It wouldn't be fair to have a draft when this clubs have invested so much in having a competent youth accademy.

Plus, a lot of clubs base their survival on developing good players and sell them. Those clubs wouldn't exist if the current model would change.

Considering the salary cap, the only solution for it to work would be to create a super European league with the big clubs and impose a salary cap to that competition. It works in the NBA because the NBA is only one organization, it's managed as a private corporation, and they can do as they want. To replicate this model, a superleague should be created and we know that UEFA won't allow this. Some clubs have something like this in mind for the future, but I don't like the idea. It would represent the death of local competitions and the love for smaller teams we don't want that at all.

Small teams that didn't make it to the superleague would struggle a lot financially and at the end I really prefer to have domestic competitions. That said, domestic competitions should be reduced to 16 teams. And what the UEFA should do is to put some rules about TV money distribution, and have ALL the european federations impose those rules to clubs. That way, it would be more fair and things like the spanish scandal wouldn't happen.

If you don't know, Barcelona and Madrid receive from TV 100 M€ more than the 3rd team each. It's a lot of money and that's what makes the difference. That's why the Spanish league is turning into a fight of the same teams each year. The Premiere does a much better work at distributing TV rights money.

In my oppinion, all clubs should distribute exactly the same share of the pie.
 
A draft could work - but not for youth players. It would be for players either in their last year of contract (bit like the NHL) or out of contract. It'd be awesome imo.

The Spanish league already is a joke. Yes, it's exciting seeing Real v Barca knowing that the match is so important, but it's just ridiculous the rest of the time. They might as well give a trophy for third, because that's all any other team can hope for.
 
BobbyBox said:
EDIT: even if the EU could impose rules, then countries like Russia would then definately have the upper hand and the contries in the EU would suffer as they would be restricted. So it really does need to be a world wide footballing thing or other places will just be able to capitalise.
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I instanly knew a clever guy like you would use that argument, and of course you are right.
I don't really know what should be done, but football needs a sort of independent task force to think about some sort of regulation that would bring back fair competition. In all honesty i don't think something like that will ever happen.

Oh and fans should have more power...i quite like the Spanish socio system (although i don't know it in details).
 
Only 3 clubs remain owned by "Socios" in Spain anyway: Barcelona, Madrid and Bilbao. The rest were transformed in societies and are owned by the capital right now, but those 3 refused to be transformed and remain owned by the Socios. I wish all the clubs were like that. I know fans would love to actually own their club.

About the rest, as I said, the only way to put control would be to create a new european league with rules of its own. Bloody impossible, I think. But at least UEFA could impose more strict finantial rules to the clubs and impose a fair distribution of TV rights in the countries, but the big clubs have too much power. At least here in Spain, Barcelona and Madrid are more powerful than the federation itself.
 
Maybe this is a crazy idea, but why not try to do something.
With all the sociale media the ordinary football fan has the opportunity to protest.
I wonder if people in here would join a facebook group for real financial fair-play in football with a more way of dividing television money even if that would mean that clubs like Arsenal and Barcelona would receive less money?

What do you think?

PS: maybe i should start a specific thread about this, but i have a feeling it would be a very short thread...oh and to the Arsenal fans: sorry to hijack your thread.
 
Looks like Barca are buying Sanchez reports of them wanting 50M euros? wonder how much they are actually paying?

If it is anything like 50m euros, then it makes the Cesc thing even more ridiculous.
 
Apparently it's €40m over 5 years, I wonder if some guy is going to turn up at the Friuli Stadium every day for the next 5 years with €25,000 in cash.
 
Sanchez will cost exactly 26 M€. And if Barcelona wins the CL or the domestic title there will be a bonus of 11 M€. And 2 friendlies arranged between Barcelona and Udinese.

So, don't trust any specific spanish newspaper talking ridiculously about 45 M€ deal for Sanchez or yearly installments. Those news sources (all spanish sports newspapers) are very biased and unprofessional and you won't get the right info. And besides, it's not even official, things still could change.

I don't think this makes Cesc transfer more or less doable. From start Barcelona is willing to pay a maximum of 40 M€ for him and it's the magic number in the operation. Wether Arsenal accepts or not is a different question and it's in their hands, of course.

Barcelona has 65 M€ to spend this summer (45 M€ plus the sell of several players). So 40 M€ can still be afforded even if they're not offered by now. I understand both clubs are simply negotiating.
 
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Tell that to whoever payed that much for Young / Downing!

I think you did a great signing with Gervinho and you paid a fair and reasonable fee for him. And I rate him much higher than Young and Downing too!
 
Young went for 18M, I wanted Sanchez but even I can't agree with the fee he's going for which will end up in the 35M+ Range.
 
Sanchez is at least twice as good as Young and Downing.
Compared to what Liverpool payed for Carroll, Sanchez is an absolute bargain...

But to be fair, this is all theory.
It might well be that Sanchez never finds his place in Barcelona and then he is of course extremely expensive. It might also be very well possible that Ashley Young turns out to be a fantastic player for Man Utd, and then he is also a bargain...Even Caroll can turn out to be a bargain...
 
drekkard said:
Sanchez will cost exactly 26 M€. And if Barcelona wins the CL or the domestic title there will be a bonus of 11 M€. And 2 friendlies arranged between Barcelona and Udinese.

So, don't trust any specific spanish newspaper talking ridiculously about 45 M€ deal for Sanchez or yearly installments. Those news sources (all spanish sports newspapers) are very biased and unprofessional and you won't get the right info. And besides, it's not even official, things still could change.

I don't think this makes Cesc transfer more or less doable. From start Barcelona is willing to pay a maximum of 40 M€ for him and it's the magic number in the operation. Wether Arsenal accepts or not is a different question and it's in their hands, of course.

Barcelona has 65 M€ to spend this summer (45 M€ plus the sell of several players). So 40 M€ can still be afforded even if they're not offered by now. I understand both clubs are simply negotiating.
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you aint getting fab for that shitty price. fab is our captain and has like 10 years left in his contract and is regarded as one of if not the best creative midfielder in the PL.

40m? your having a fucking laugh.
 
jonneymendoza said:
you aint getting fab for that shitty price. fab is our captain and has like 10 years left in his contract and is regarded as one of if not the best creative midfielder in the PL.

40m? your having a fucking laugh.
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:LMAO:


On a serious note I think Ramsey n Pong were excellent in today`s friendly. Nasri can sure dribble though, I think Sagna may find it hard to keep his 1st team spot with Carl`s movement left me imprss his early crossing looks very promising.
 
jonneymendoza said:
you aint getting fab for that shitty price. fab is our captain and has like 10 years left in his contract and is regarded as one of if not the best creative midfielder in the PL.

40m? your having a fucking laugh.
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I'm not having a fucking laugh, simply expressing the situation from what I know and have read. I'm not the club nor the journalist so don't blame me or talk like that.
 
You know what really is a fucking laugh? Financial Fair Play. There's this article in the Guardian about City's £400M Etihad Sponsorship.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/jul/12/arsenal-manchester-city-premier-league

That had Wenger saying Arsenal's £90M Emirates sponsorship for 15 years was a bad deal :LOL:

If billionaire owners can't invest as much as they want, they can have their billionaire friends doing that. Everyone will be laughing at UEFA if this is not stopped.

Now I have to ask: how can you NOT single out the likes of City, who operate on £121M loss? And are expected to register much more losses in the next financial report?
 
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