Football The 2020/2021 Season Thread
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Aoami
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Too good for Spurs. Can you imagine him working with that arsehole Levy?
Embattle
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He has seemed rather bad tonight.
Raven
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I dunno, years of abject failure from Levy and the loss of Kane could force the club into a new direction. They are in exactly the same place as when they spanked Bale money up the wall, surely they won't make the same mistake.
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gunner440
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Doubt it. Huge fallout last time with Agnelli and there were some exchanges in one of the last Inter v Juve matches.
The reason Antonio Conte & Juventus owner Andrea Agnelli hold such bitter hatred for each other
It's difficult to imagine, but only seven years ago, Antonio Conte and Andrea Agnelli were walking hand in hand towards eternal sunshine and glory. Now, they'r
gunner440
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All good. Been following a few threads but not that much to contribute so didn't post.
This cup might as well be called the Emery Cup. That's some insane record he has.
Aoami
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Not sure where else he'd go though. Juve obviously not sold on Pirlo, Allegri looks nailed on to go Madrid. Surely Spurs is a big step down for him, especially as he has left Inter because they couldn't guarantee that they wouldn't sell their best players.Doubt it. Huge fallout last time with Agnelli and there were some exchanges in one of the last Inter v Juve matches.
The reason Antonio Conte & Juventus owner Andrea Agnelli hold such bitter hatred for each other
It's difficult to imagine, but only seven years ago, Antonio Conte and Andrea Agnelli were walking hand in hand towards eternal sunshine and glory. Now, they'rwww.90min.com
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1) Yep. Emery deserves a trophy of his own. It's an amazing record.
2) Post more. It's got to be better than my inane drivel
gunner440
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Not just that lol. They dissolved their other club Jiangsu FC 'cos things weren't going well for them financially and keeping Inter would have been a far better bet for some return in the future. Getting rid of players isn't really a choice for them but a necessity. Inter are currently having serious cashflow problems.
Aoami
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Yeah I've heard, sounds like it's becoming a massive issue for most big Italian clubs?
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Looked at this:
Chelsea return 800 Champions League tickets amid fan anger at cost and rules
Chelsea have returned more than 800 tickets out of their allocation of 5,800 for the Champions League final with Manchester City in Porto
Meh. When CL final tickets for lollerpool were going for an average of £1500 a pop and they were as rare as rocking horse shit you've got to say "unsold" says a fair bit.
But then. Football is hella expensive. And I've been drinking.
gunner440
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Not just Italian clubs. Last time I was reviewing some of the big club finances you'd be surprised just how much of their income is generated outside of their home nations and has almost nothing to do with matchday revenue which is a drop in the ocean in comparison to TV rights in the erm.... "emerging" markets. We're talking about some countries in Africa and Asia that have seen an emergence in demand for football. It's nuts really when some of these places barely have running water yet they're happy to pay over the odds to watch teams they have supported for years but never got to see live games before.
The Sky / BT etc. deals are big but they're only really at national level. It's the big deals outside of the UK and Europe that are starting to tip the balance in terms of importance.
Cashflow has also been a delicate topic for most clubs in the last 10-15 years where we went from GBP 120k a week being a top tier player salary to it now becoming above average. Ignore the profit / loss accounts published annually as they're pretty much for show. Think of it as a house of cards that needs to continually propped up by funds (regardless of the source). With COVID kicking in last year, it disrupted the flow and a few of them came crashing. The British teams struggle but then again the average player salary is far higher than most leagues. Contrary to popular belief, players don't really get paid weekly or even monthly at some of the bigger places. In some clubs, players are paid once / twice a year so that cashflow line is really tricky in these cases as you can imagine we're talking the entire annual salary * number of players that has to be paid in one go.
The ESL I think was necessary. I don't particularly agree with it but football as a global sport is losing viewers as is a lot of sports. Ignoring the clickbait headlines and such, Florentino Perez's actual reasoning for the ESL being a natural next step. A lot of sports including football are actually losing out on audiences. Ignore the football fans you know as they will always be football fans. I'm talking about generations now growing up and becoming hooked onto e-sports and internet streamers rather than traditional sports.
In Spain and Latin America (not sure on the UK as I haven't lived there for a while now), the trend of the youth to spend time watching their favourite e-sports and YouTubers has gone up massively and makes sense when you think of it. Cost to watch football is a big subscription. Nowadays you have to pay for 2-3 subscriptions if you want to watch the games and even then you still don't get to see the 3pm kickoffs in England. Cost to watch your favourite e-sports and YouTubes? You just need a mobile phone or tablet (even if they're shitty) with an internet connection as they're usually reliant on ad revenue rather than subscriptions.
Florentino's projection was that whether we like it or not, football has become this incredible money machine which is all fine and dandy while there's money. Eventually when this generation of society replaces the current ones in terms of the disposable income, purchasing power, the spend on football will drop and a lot of clubs will suddenly find themselves in a position similar to Leeds United circa 2007.
The whole "care for the fans" thing is a PR show in my view. The guys who deal with the numbers know that whether there are crowds in the stands or not is almost irrelevant but to say that would be PR suicide. The ~GBP 4-5m per matchday in revenue is tiny compared to what they lose out in broadcasting income. I remember one of the interviews on TV where some fans were saying that football should be about the fans and in a way they're right, just that it's not the local fans that are important.
Note, I've had similar findings with tennis and golf. Tennis is trialling out various initiatives to make it less boring to the non-fans but has yet to be implemented overall. Rugby (Union) is getting people onboard with the recent push of 7's which is far easier to watch for a non-fan.
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Making tennis less boring to non-fans is the telling sentence @gunner440.
Rather than lose market and money vs esports etc. these companies would rather change the sport.
Football doesn't matter. Continued income matters. If they can make more money by putting two more goals on the pitch they would. The game is nothing, money is everything.
Rather than lose market and money vs esports etc. these companies would rather change the sport.
Football doesn't matter. Continued income matters. If they can make more money by putting two more goals on the pitch they would. The game is nothing, money is everything.
Moriath
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with all the bad stuff about travel right now i would be happy that people have been a bit sensible.Looked at this:
Chelsea return 800 Champions League tickets amid fan anger at cost and rules
Chelsea have returned more than 800 tickets out of their allocation of 5,800 for the Champions League final with Manchester City in Portowww.theguardian.com
Meh. When CL final tickets for lollerpool were going for an average of £1500 a pop and they were as rare as rocking horse shit you've got to say "unsold" says a fair bit.
But then. Football is hella expensive. And I've been drinking.
gunner440
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Nowadays everything is a commodity - our health, our personal information etc. To mix emotion with the money side doesn't work. It just so happens that it was football that blew up. It could have easily been any other sport.
Whether you disagree or not is almost irrelevant. If you want to stop it then the only way is to hit them where it hurts except that even if all the national fans boycotted going to the stadium it wouldn't matter as I mentioned above.
You'd have to convince the fans outside the UK and Europe to do the same but good luck trying to convince them of that when for a lot of them the concept of local club, local support and the club is for the fans idealogy goes against what they want which is to be able to watch and 'support' their club from whatever country they're in.
As soon as the returns dry up, the financial interest will as well but then we run the risk of the good players just getting snapped up by other leagues where the interest is still high.
I remember initiatives to make football more 'sexy' by removing draws (i.e. penalty shootouts at the end of the matches in the case of a draw) but seeing as I've not heard much since then I'm guessing it failed.
Tennis has a lot of ways to make it less boring. Football's components are quite limited to be honest. What else can you do? I don't think shortening matches would work. The Nations League thing is trying to get neutral support which tends to be strongest during national team tournaments.
gunner440
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It wasn't really the people being sensible. They weren't able to travel due to the UEFA-imposed restriction.
gunner440
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Why would he go back wtf. I mean, I would understand him coming back but not so soon after having been terminated?! Last year didn't really count football wise for me.
I'd take him back in a heartbeat but both sides need to learn from previous mistakes.
gunner440
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Aoami
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I know PSG had a few excuses, but not being able to win the league with them is pretty poor. If Levy has come crawling back with an attractive offer, as he is not able to attract a big name, I could see it happening.
Edit - News is spreading by the looks of it - Mauricio Pochettino: Paris Saint-Germain boss in talks with Tottenham over return to club