Not just of the Danny Rose articles, but of the Premier League in general.
I haven't posted on here for a while, but am a regular reader and I'm seeing more and more I don't like about the game at the top. Let's start with the money as it's the thing you can't get away from at the moment.
10 years ago, £30 million was enough to buy you virtually any player in the world, bar the very, very special stars. Nowadays it buys you a Michael Keane, a Moussa Sissoko or a Marko Arnautovic with a little bit of change left over. It's devaluing transfers and creating a false economy, propped up by overflamboyant chairmen desperate to move their clubs to 'the next level'.
Sky's 'investment' into the game is often painted as great for the sport, but when you see overspending of the levels above, is it really such great news? All it's done has increased transfer fees across the board with enough money to prop up a national economy flying around.
I'm not one to claim that footballers should earn the wages or soldiers wages but the game has reached a point of absurdity. In many ways, we are to blame - whether it be through paying the eye watering prices for Sky/BT or parting with a heavy chunk of our salaries to watch our side week in. Despite the rise in TV money that clubs are receiving, our ticket prices remain the same. The clubs don't care for us as fans, in fact they treat us with disdain. You won't see a decline in ticket prices because they'd rather blow the extra money on an average mid table performer. We're mugs and we know it but we do nothing to stop it.
It used to be the people's game that we could relate to, with working class heroes everywhere you looked on the pitch, whose motivation solely lied in winning trophies and giving their all for their club, not on securing a win bonus, goal bonus and signing on fee in the summer when their contract is up..
Nowadays you have players moaning that their £70k is not enough. When Ashley Cole nearly swerved off the road over being offered £5k less than he believed he was worth, we all laughed. Oh silly Ashley, how out of touch you are, we said. Yet now some sympathise with players 'only' earning £70k a week, when these poor souls are 'easily worth £120-140k'. It's obscene levels of money but we're not listening, just trying to raise the bar because a few clubs at the top tell us that it's where it should be.
The Danny Rose incident hurt as a Spurs fan, perhaps because I thought our players were bigger and better than that. I thought they shared our fans vision for organic growth, a focus on player development under a top coach and a sustainable future at a club with a plan. The realisation that this may not be the case after all is a somewhat demotivating thought to me, I don't know about you.
I look at lower league clubs and down there you see communities with players close to the fans and clubs appreciative for the support they get on the whole. They get buy on budgets less than 1% of the Premier League giants but turn up every Saturday putting in the same amount of effort but for so little less. It's the same with Rugby. They live in a realistic world where you have to bring the community together to keep the club alive. They won't ever take you for granted like a big club will because they've got a fan base in Vietnam that they could be growing or a training kit sponsorship they could be securing.
You can;t get away from commercialisation, and the game would be worse off for it if it had none. But for me things have just gone too far. I'm on the brink of falling out of love with top flight football.
So is there too much money in the game? Are you feeling disorientated with the game? And at what point do we bow out, stick our hands up and say that enough is enough?
Anyone else getting bored?
posted on 10/8/17
Football changes over time, and fans get older. Apologies if I'm being over cynical but I do read these types of comments a lot on this forum, usually in summer, in some sort of faux self reflection. There's usually intangible comments that may resonate but don't mean that much 'there's no passion left' 'the bubble will burst'. Soon as the season starts it's back to the norm.
I don't know why £30m being a top end of fees for a footballer is 'normal' (in grand sense of word - £30m is not normal in any walk of life) but inflation now meaning it's not 'normal' for you. It's what we paid for Shevchenko and for fans of an older generation yes that was more expensive than them seeing a transfer record of over )10m for the first team. Things are getting more expensive but long ago did feed in football make any real world sense, and long ago were footballers paid the average wage. Football changes all the time, change in every sense of the word, the culture, style, money, pre war football different to 50s football, to 70s etc. and popularity has increased since then and fans stay fans of their own clubs and football in general regardless.
posted on 10/8/17
I have gone for 20 years but even after we won the league a few years back I was not gonna stop supporting chelsea, but think I am falling out of love with the romance and passion of the game. I have since got massively into other sports but they are much the same.
Football is the best sport in the world to watch so we as fans, just have to enjoy it. Ignorance is bliss. It helps when your team is winning though
posted on 10/8/17
As a Forest fan watching Championship football week in week out, season after season, I see premier league games on TV and wonder how you guys do it.
First of all, how do you even watch a game at the ground these days? You can't see for f******g camera phone flash and people recording every minute of every game. I see this week in week out on the TV, and I live in Canada so I see every single prem game just about!
Second, having just seen all the bs pre season tournaments in the US and the such like, how does it feel not to be able to catch those early season glimpses of your new team? ( not so relevant for spurs fans this season though i guess ; ) )
I agree entirely with this article. As a fan of a Premier League club you can now watch so many live games of your team, yet ironically you must feel so distant from the club itself? I honestly believe no premier club gives a t*** about their fan base. I mean ticket sales account for barely any revenue for the club. The premier league now is more of a tourist attraction for visitors to the UK so "fans" will always be there, especially the top 6 clubs.
The way the prem is going I'm glad Forest are in the Championship. The top 6 are running away with everything and being in the Championship we are more like to get to Wembley via play offs anyway!
posted on 10/8/17
I have long since fallen out of love with modern day football. I still support Liverpool but I don't go anymore. I'd rather spend the time and money with my family.
Perhaps this is just what happens in your 40's but I have many other priorities now. Football has been about money for a long time now but the levels are insane now but that's the environment that the league has created, one whether players feel entitled to £100k per week.
With me though, money is only part of it. I hate the gamesmanship in today's game. The diving, play acting & conning the ref, it's too much. And what really annoys me - it's totally condoned by pundits and fans alike. As long as your team wins, who cares. You can go down holding your face trying to get someone sent off because apparently that's part of the game. Going down easily in the box seems to be accepted as 'having the right to go down there'. It's awful. This is the game I grew up loving.
Finally, us fans. Yeah sorry to say it but the sense of entitlement of big club fans I find really distasteful. It's like we're all somehow entitled to win trophies and if it doesn't happen everyone calls for the owners to spend ludicrous amounts of money to achieve that. It's as if nobody actually gets any enjoyment out of watching football anymore, only winning.
Was talking to a mate of mine at the weekend who feels pretty much the same. He's just brought a season ticket to York City for the coming season. I don't blame him.
posted on 10/8/17
It's basically an acceptable sporting monopoly but it's hard not to say this without sounding sour after last nights events.
It needs a big overhaul, players having to see out contracts or only 4 players being able to have +100k contracts (kind of like how they do it in MLS).
Honestly the final straw for me was pre-season friendly 'Manchester Derbys/El Classicos' etc. Actually f*cking pathetic and a real stain on the game. Plus the media ruin it for me as well. I do really enjoy watching football though, even out with Spurs there are great teams to watch throughout Europe.
posted on 10/8/17
The financial doping at City and Chelsea, along with Moneybags United, has driven up wages to the point of insanity, these clubs have turned the PL into a contest of who has the most money instead of a football match.
Something badly needs to be done, whether that is a player wage cap or a club wage bill cap, or some kind of transfer restriction or limit on agents fees etc, there must be a way to even things out a bit more and limit the ridiculous amounts of money sloshing around.
Football is already rotten to the core due to money, and it`s only going to get worse unless something changes.
posted on 10/8/17
Yes inflation is terrible, let's ban it from football but have it in our everyday lives.
Quite telling we talk about inflation and the money in our game and some of our players are earning what Cole took offence too about 11 years ago though
posted on 11/8/17
As a rich football journalist, I welcome the Premier League becoming more like the NFL!
In my opinion, the more commercialisation the better! Money = fun! The players know it, the FA know it but for some reason the fans don't understand it! It's very SAD to see the fans trying to hold back the Premier League!! If the Premier League doesn't move with the times it will quickly become overtaken by Spanish, French, Italian and German leagues!
Far too many football "fans" pretend that things were better in the past...but think about it: there were more injuries, worst pitches, more drugs, more football thugs (mainly Liverpool #JFT96), a much lower quality of football, no games in HD, worse refs, no cool technology, no corporate boxes for me and my rich friends and perhaps worst of all, less cool foreign players! Wake up sheeple!
posted on 11/8/17
Hi Barry!
posted on 11/8/17
LAbilly