[bluepooch]

Hideous amounts of money pumped into the Premier League ,some say the best league in the world and we can't get one team through to the quarter finals of either European competition.Its a total waste of money and proves that the vast difference in finances does not result in vast difference in quality.The wealth should be distributed fairly from top to bottom and that includes grass roots.
Oh and just to add there is about to be a massive increase in TV revenue for the players next year...How is sky going to fund this I wonder ?.Hmmm let me see oh yes they have just announced an increase in subscription fees for sports and entertainment packages.When will people realise they are being milked to the limit by the greedy bastards and make a stand against it .

[Devongone]

Really quite hard to disagree with any of that Pooch.

Never mind a couple more years, we'll be up there, digging our sticky mitts in the honey pot, preparing for Anderlecht away ....

[spireitematt]

I agree with you Pooch.

I dislike the Premier League and hate this franchise. The Premier League has been so poor for the last three years with the quality of play. This is how I see it you have a 3 horse race every season between Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal maybe 4 if you include Liverpool and mainly its Chelsea or City who can win the league because they spend more than anybody else. Then you've got the Top 4 teams who are happy at getting Top 4 because European football means more money and it means attracting the top world class players, well that's what people think and those teams are Arsenal, Liverpool and Man United now. Teams celebrate getting top 4 like they've won a trophy. Then you've got those teams like Stoke who are happy with just finishing mid-table every season and staying in the Premier League and then you've got those teams like QPR and Aston Villa who try and stay up every season and in my opinion I think it's sad.

I would like to see teams like West Brom and Stoke challenging for the title but financially its unrealistic unless they got a rich oil baron who would buy the club. Everyone says the Premier League is the best league in the World but I disagree its the best brand like Roy Keane says with the Prawn Sandwich brigade because true fans cannot afford to go to matches because it costs an arm and a leg to go watch a Premier League match. I think we have a crap England squad because British youth players aren't being given a chance and Premier League clubs are not bringing them through because they think its cheaper to buy a foreign experienced player than it is to buy an English player or bring any youth through and those youth players come to clubs like Chesterfield or go out the game altogether. Also there is no passion in some of the players maybe its due to them earning obscene amounts of money.

Look at the FA Cup this season little Bradford City went to Chelsea and caused the shock of the competition by beating Chelsea in their own backyard which shows that there isn't much difference between quality of players down the leagues.

Sky are milking the armchair fans who can't afford to go to games and there also milking Sky subscribers who don't even have the Sports channels to pay for the rights to show Premier League matches. The Premier League need to distribute the TV revenue money down the leagues down to Grassroots level like the Germans do but the Premier League clubs won't want that and the players won't want that because they'll want there TV appearance fees.

The reason why Spain and Germany have the best National teams is because there Government and there leagues put money into grassroots football where here in England we don't and that means we aren't bringing any up and coming players through the ranks. Every football fan can see it but those at the top of the FA are just ignoring the fact and instead are coming up with wacky ideas like putting Premier League B teams into the JPT or creating a League 3 which is harmful to clubs like ours but that doesn't matter if it kills off Football League clubs because they're more worried about the Premier League and the money at the top.

[Devongone]

Scudamore, the Premier League's Chief Sex Obsessive, says financing the grass roots game is not the Premiership's business. But if they did do that, then that's how they'd be finding players, rather than picking off the talent other countries improve and discover in both their own and developing countries.

Contrast the I'm-all-right-Jack attitude of the Premier League, with the wonderful man who Chesterfield's website featured celebrating his one hundredth birthday at the ground - Tom Brocklehurst. Tommy Brock' gave years and years of service to local amateur football ..... for nothing ..... it cost him. A more honest, decent man you'd never find. I'm delighted he's still going.

Even when the standard looks dire to the spectator, the local amateur game provides the opportunity not only for those who are ordinary to play the game, but also for developing talent to get a new experience. Because of it I got to play against men as a fifteen year old ...... and even if you're the most skilled player on the park there's loads you can learn from these guys that you'd never experience in youth football.

In France and Germany villages will still have their own teams, sometimes with excellent facilities. Here the game is slowly dying and the money at the top merely provides an illusion of success. Sometimes the truth bleeds through, like no teams in European quarter finals. But a Malaysian millionaire will buy somebody success and Sky will feed it through its subscriptions and the merry-go-round will be off again.

When you see not even perhaps the top German or French teams you'll hear about the eighteen year old making his debut, the nineteen year old keeper with first team games under his belt ....... and here we rave about Roy's tiny army of the few coming through to join Rooney and Sturridge and Hart. Why have we only one keeper in the whole country, could it be that any promising youngster won't get a chance at a decent level until he's 26? And will never have played against men until he's out of his teens.

If the money reached the bottom in football, the talent would rise to the surface and great men like Tommy Brocklehurst would have finally won!

[Dancingwilldoit]

The thing is though, fans could put a stop to it tomorrow. Just don't renew your Sky subscriptions.
Fans are being ripped off big style. Less money into Sky = Less money and power to the prem. Sky subscription is way above a season ticket price, I know which I would rather have.

[Devongone]

I agree, but the fans won't do it. Unless someone really starts a campaign. An old-fashioned football fan maybe.

[Devongone]

After saying the grass roots game is not the Premier League's responsibility Scudamore has announced a £1billion giveaway to support the game.

I wonder where the pressure came from to cause that about-face? But I'll take it.

So now if we can get facilities and coaching, all we need is for them to be used properly ...... so that kids develop skills they use creatively for themselves, without the pressure of feeling that replicating the coach's instructions to the letter is the only way to success. Let's make a game about different talents and not a monoculture of triangles.

[Dancingwilldoit]

Its ok talking the talk but lets wait and see if and where it materialises. It should be interesting.

[Devongone]

Elected Governments pump imaginary money into all sorts of stuff so why trust the duplicitous unaccountable premiership ...... so I agree with you Dancing. Let's see where it goes and hear about grass roots organisations benfitting, before we get too excited. But hey at least they're no longer saying the rest of the game has nothing to do with us.