The Community Shield raises hundreds of thousands per year for charity. Should we be surprised Liverpool and United don’t like it?
I now see the Premier League have come out against the plan!! Lots more talking to be done methinks. I have an idea why don’t they let us back into stadiums while we wait!!
Might be more talking but if the big six are set on this then it’ll happen. Shades of late 80’s and early 90’s when the Premier League did over the FA and Football League.
As @enniskillen suggests, it won’t stop there.
Market forces. Business. It’s how it works.
https://twohundredpercent.net/rick-parry-megaclubs/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
As usual, Ian King puts it better than I could.
I’m all for binning off the League Cup. The Premier League reducing from 20 to 18 is odd and just following the way of some of our European leagues.
Surely it won’t happen where the top few get more of a say? It’s just not right at all in our game. English football is not built on the top few deciding everthing. If it does happen, then soon after B teams will follow.
Maybe it’s time for those few to move over to a European Super League if they aren’t happy with a democracy in our game.
I’m not sure he does. There are no comparatives. He says allowing Premier League clubs being allowed to have 15 players on loan is B teams through the back door. But how many are they allowed to have now? I thought Chelsea had over 20 out on loan. So 15 might be better.
He says the league share of 25% of tv revenue leaves 75% of revenue with 20% of the clubs but how does that compare with status quo? I think 25% is a significant increase.
No parachute payments, which if this had been in place before wouldn’t have seen the likes of Wigan hugely skew the third tier competition.
I’m reading lots of stuff like this on line this afternoon that I think I’m supposed to be outraged by. I haven’t found the thing that particularly presses my anger button just yet.
If I recall correctly, the original intention with the PL was to reduce from 22 to 20 and then to 18 after a few years. This was to bring it in line with other european leagues, to improve the England team cus our ;ads couldn’t beat the sneaky foreigners as they were all tired after having to play those extra 8 games in the season, apparently. But after the initial reduction the money got in the way and no one was prepared to vote to enact the change to only 18 places at the trough.
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And the Government, this evening have strongly condemned the proposals for what is seen as a cartel of top clubs taking control of top flight football. A spokesmsn spoke of ‘backroom deals being cooked up that would create a closed shop at the very top of the game’. yhis when football should have been coming together. Goodf for them.
Time for the EFL to bin Parry. He can’t be trusted.
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I’m neither outraged, shocked or surprised.
This has been inevitable ever since the PL was founded & the money became ludicrous. In fact my only surprise is that it’s taken this long.
I wish the PL would just morph into a Euro Super League and let a new body run the domestic game to replace the EFL. This is the thin end of the wedge, less clubs, less relegation, more power to the big six, PPV games, PL summer tournament, expanded Euro league.
Man U salary bill last is £352m, the PL average is £158m (roughly the same as an NFL teams salary cap & there are 55 NFL players in a match day squad & they don’t pay transfer fees), so not only is this crazy/unsustainable; but the £250m bung is literally nothing.
The money is staggering & football will continue to eat itself until it implodes. I’m glad I’m a little old Walsall fan, just wish the EFL had some teeth. But who cares really! PL has long ceased to be of any real competitive interest & this will just make it worse.
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The greed of the Man United and Liverpools of this world is breathtaking in its blatant arrogance.
I’ve said it before and I will say it again.
Ditch the bastards and let them bask in a European Super League.
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Not a great deal about Lg 1 & 2 but I always find David Conn’s articles interesting,
There’s a lot of good stuff there but I think the concern is that’s all just a bribe to give control to the top clubs who can then do as they please in future.
Take out the voting rights issue and I think a lot would agree to it… but I bet the likes of Manure and Liverpool wouldn’t.
Huge problem we have is the average football fan really doesn’t care less about League 1 or 2, this is not helping the matter.
The premier league and sky have made it so easy for fans to sit at home and ignore their local clubs.
True. But the likes of Norwich, Blackburn, Derby etc will not like this. They are big clubs.
I think that’s where the ire is. The EPL clubs outside of the nine plus those in the championship (and maybe Sunderland) who would see themselves as potential EPL clubs are the ones feeling burnt.
Working through it, I think for us the loss of the league cup is the only thing to worry about but with upside elsewhere.
Andy Holt is always a good person to listen to when it comes to us small clubs and his view is that it looks ok but his instinct is to not trust anybody involved in running the huge clubs or anyone involved in the administration of the game. Which is a decent take.
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West Ham have now came out against it (allegedly) despite being one of the ‘Big 9’. Apparently the first they heard of this plan was via the Sunday papers.
“The big six are using Covid for a power grab,” said the West Ham source. “If this goes through, over time they will just use more and more for themselves.”
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Regards the League cup couldn’t it just be a competition for EFL clubs and perhaps the National league ?
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The league cup is irrelevant as it is, nobody gives a monkies about it. Not really. I wouldn’t bat an eyelid if they got rid of it in its current format.
It would become more interesting if it was just for football league clubs, thats an interesting idea.
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I can’t see it. We’re at Home to Dover Athletic on a cold, rainy Tuesday night, how many would feel their pulse racing at that prospect? Or Torquay Away?
I’m sure there would be decent crowds for finals and semi finals, but mostly I doubt it would get much interest. The League Cup as it is has a certain amount of fading glamour because of the chance of getting one of the big lot, Liverpool, Chelsea, etc., plus maybe our noisy neighbours from Aston, Sandwell or The Food Mixer.
I think Saddlers fans would be more likely to jump to the defence of the League Cup if it wasn’t for the fact we are so useless in cup competitions. I suspect 30 years ago we’d have been horrified at the idea of losing the competition that had given us so many great, recent, memories.
Dismantle the League Cup and I think it would take away our chance of a fat pay-day, thus increasing further the inequality between us and the Big Boys, and it would also deprive us of the chance to build support with a cup run that sees us beat Wolves in round three, Villa in round four, and lose narrowly to Spurs in round five in front of 10,000 traveling Saddlers. Or we could beat Kings Lynn in round one and then lose to Bromley at Bescot on penalties (and you know we would, you know it 
).
I know it isn’t perfect, but I’d rather keep it. We just need to get better at it. 
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Agreed. Not forgetting our SF exploits against Liverpool, or the 43,000+ for our game at the Hawthorns - a record FLC attendance in the competition at the time.
As was said over the week-end, having an additional cup competition is considered an anathema by UEFA who have for years been agitating against them. France will scrap theirs next season. The pressure to scrap the competition is coming from EUFA and the Greedy League, who are required to share 45% of their gate receipts with the visiting team, including us minnows. They don’t like it!
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