[Salopbaggie]

A bit of a rhetorical question, I have just watched the destruction of the Sham by the Sh*ty and it got me thinking, is there really any point having competitive football these days outside of local park games?

I know the value of a player is not directly comparable with their ability, but it does give a massive indication. We would probably struggle to get to a squad value of £50 million, Manchester City's squad value is around £1.43 BILLION and they are not alone, Man Utd, Spurs and Liverpool all have squads valued around the £1 billion mark, so the question, is there really any point trying to compete with teams like that or are the others just there to make up the numbers up and give those top teams even more revenue from the screening of games on tv? Man City's shirt sponsorship deal alone is worth 150% of our entire squad value every single year.

[St Charles Owl]

I agree with this but I would put one caveat in to think about. The top 6 are well ahead in terms of money and ability, no doubt about that, but is the rest of the PL made up of medium sized clubs with the exception of Everton? The teams challenging for 7th place are the likes of Bournemouth, Watford, Leicester, Palace, Southampton etc are arguably "smaller" clubs than a number of teams in the Championship and do they "settle" for 7th spot??? Would the likes of L**ds, Derby, WBA, SWFC, Sunderland have higher expectations, assuming they had the financial backing in the first place? If Newcastle had an ambitious owner, could they challenge? I do wonder sometimes if the clubs in the PL have accepted their "normal" position as 7th place down because they are already at their peak! Just something to think about.

[talkSAFT]

This is a great issue, Salop. Expect 100 responses after today's game!

[wba1978]

It's a by-product of modern society unfortunately. Until overt capitalism is truly exposed, and its failings realised (socially and environmentally) this financial domination will remain the status quo...

[BaggieMan]

It will never be a level playing field as it was in days of old.
Financial Fair Play is a load of bullshit with the FA, Uefa, and FIfa all turning a blind eye to the massive spending of these top six clubs over the years due to their billionaire owners and Arab oil rich sheikhs.

I just wish I could press a button and the top six would all disappear into a European Wealthy League and real genuine and fair competitive football could return to grace those level playing fields once more.

Never on the field of fair play football has so much been spent by so few...

[BaggieSteve]

Although I'm long in the tooth and been watching the Baggies since 1962, I've always tried to resist saying "in my day..." when discussing current football since I used to get the same when I was a kid, often being told that George Best was not a patch on Stanley Matthews. The game evolves and players change, along with everything else associated with it - the ball, boots, kit etc. I think all these things have been positives.
However, I believe the one thing that has really harmed it is the amount of money that is now influencing all decisions made with regard to football. The fact that teams want to get promoted into a higher division, not to win it or see better opposing players/teams but to receive the financial rewards that go with promotion says a lot about the ambitions that clubs have...or don't have. For a team such as ours, promotion into the EPL would allow us to fulfill some fixtures and get some money, and that's about it. I've probably never expected the Albion to win the top division since I've been a fan (although we gave it a good go in the late 70's) but I've always felt the FA Cup was a realistic ambition. I don't even believe that now. I know there has been the occasional outlier - Leicester winning the League and Wigan the Cup - but these are such anomalies as to make them instantly memorable. I suspect if you ask the fans of similar clubs to the Albion, they will have not dissimilar views, although maybe not as grumpy as mine!

I agree a lot with salopbaggie in his original question, yesterday's game between West Ham and Man City should have been a match between two established EPL clubs but it was completely uncompetitive...probably not helped by VAR. i expect we'll see plenty more of these games this season when the top six are not playing each other in their own mini league.

[silverbaggie]

It will never be a level playing field as it was in days of old.


I just wish I could press a button and the top six would all disappear into a European Wealthy League and real genuine and fair competitive football could return to grace those level playing fields once more.

Agree totally Baggieman. The only problem is that the TV Companies would follow them into Europe and the English League Clubs would get absolutely no air time at all.

Mind you that might have another benefit; perhaps Gary Lineker and those other grossly overpaid so called experts would be given their P45's and thus save us all a helluva lot of money.

[drewks]

One word:
MONEY.

Interesting thread; I'm sure that every single fan of those outside the top 6 would agree.
Surely, all added together this would be 10x the number of the top 6 supporters?!
Tail wagging the dog.

As has been said many times, TV revenue is the cause, and the curse. Really not sure how this can be addressed though. People seem unwilling to ditch Sky, don't they?

[talkSAFT]

The Game has gone seriously barking mad, yet The Authorities are lapping it up (their bonuses are probably based on Revenue).

Players come and go like revolving-doors now, so the Bond between ridiculously-paid Players and Us gets thinner every Year. Inevitably Football will eat itself when Season-ticket-holders finally have had enough and stay away. It's going to happen soon enough, especially when kids, fed on Friday/Sunday/Monday night Football, get home too late, thus ruining School the next day. And now we've got VAR*, which not only ruins the excitement, but means you miss the last train home!

* ps wouldn't it be funny if a Captain asked for VAR because he called "Heads" and the Ref thought it was "Tails".

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Inevitably Football will eat itself when Season-ticket-holders finally have had enough and stay away.

Not going to happen, unfortunately. While most football fans at most levels of the game know full well how unfair the financial set-up is, the dream of reaching the Premier League one day is still enough to keep people showing up week in, week out. The only fans who get jaded enough to really stop caring about the sport are those like us who've spent years in the Prem, hit the glass ceiling hard and realised just how pointless the whole division is.

The global TV market is what's creating the wealth in English football, and as the powers-that-be are throwing all their weight into tapping new markets in Asia and North America, it's not going to dry up any time soon, even if everyone in the UK ditched their Sky subscriptions. A breakaway Euro league is the only workable solution, but if the big clubs go then the riches will go with them, and within years we'll be back to crumbling old stadiums and shit facilities. Maybe that trade-off would be worthwhile, but it'd be nice to think that there's a happy medium.