The 2011/12 Gary Speed Memorial Thread

[Colly]

Few are. Nice to know the beast has been awakened for a match other than the Tyne/Wear derby too.

We've got Sammy for the derbies now, Shola can go back to terrorising Barcelona.

Several foreign-owned Premier League clubs want to scrap relegation, according to League Managers Association chief Richard Bevan.

If more clubs are sold to foreigner investors, they may have enough votes to force through the change.

But Bevan hopes that a government-led inquiry can help prevent the proposal.

"We're very keen that the report is successful in helping the Football Association introduce a licensing programme for clubs," he said.

"Because there are a number of overseas-owned clubs already talking about bringing about the avoidance of promotion and relegation in the Premier League.

"If we have four or five more new owners, that could happen."

More to follow.

Off BBC. God, this sounds retarded.

I'd like to think it would never happen, but with more and more self serving foreign or UK owners coming in, the rule where chairmen decide these things needs to have something in place where the FA or others can step in for the good of the game. I was so pleased to see the big clubs come out last week to call the Liverpool fella a twat, but there still needs to be an external control.

I for one don't want to see a Premiership that Wigan are trapped in and we'll never see the likes of West Ham, Forest or the Sheffield clubs again. Or Leeds. Hang on. I'd vote yes...

[brenchill]

It's a scary thought, really.

I firmly believe that one day, all 20 Premiership clubs will have super-rich owners.

[TCO]

So they basically want to make it like an American sports league with huge franchises? It'd be good at closing the gap between the big teams and the small teams but it's just not fair and will never happen. How do you choose the 20 teams anyway? What if it had come in the year Newcastle went down and Blackpool went up? A stroke of luck makes one club insanely lucrative and another established Premier League side doomed all in one season.

[stokeriño]

I don't get the link between this train of thought and "foreign owners". Sure, some owners from different sporting cultures might have this sort of idea about how the league could/should work, but even then they'd have to belong to only certain Premier League clubs to even find it relevant. I'm sure the foreign owners of United, City, Liverpool, Chelsea etc. don't give a flying fuck.

[The Future]

Also.

I see Evra's up to his old "He said racist remarks to me" tricks after todays match. Has accussed Suarez of saying racist remarks to him during the game.

Must be the 5th or 6th time he's used the race card. Said it about Finnan who got cleared, said it about the Chelsea groundstaff they got cleared. He's said the ref was aware of it if that was the case then why didn't anything happen?

I don't remember the Finnan incident but for the Chelsea groundstaff it wasn't Evra who made the complaint it was Mike Phelan the assistant manager and one of our fitness coaches who supposedly heard the racial slur and then the club made the complaint.

Just reading about Finnan and the article I am looking at says a fan bought it up and Evra declined to make a complaint.

[stokeriño]

I know that Chelsea might end up employing any old idiots as groundstaff, but the idea always struck me as particularly bizarre, given that they work for a club just as full of foreigners (and most of whom with sufficient build to destroy your average man in a fight if so desired) as any other.

I dunno. I just had this image of them turning up for work the next day to find Didier Drogba and Michael Essien looking for 'answers'.

[Colly]

I don't get the link between this train of thought and "foreign owners". Sure, some owners from different sporting cultures might have this sort of idea about how the league could/should work, but even then they'd have to belong to only certain Premier League clubs to even find it relevant. I'm sure the foreign owners of United, City, Liverpool, Chelsea etc. don't give a flying fuck.

I know what you mean, and that's why I included UK owners in my post, I'm sure for one Mike Ashley would love to safeguard his investment. The article mentions that its a number of foreign investors proposing it though, although that may just be the fact that the vast majority of new owners are foreign anyway. That said I wouldn't rule out Liverpool after last week. They're hugely unlikely to go down, but if their new owners are smart enough to cover their backs they'd vote in favour.

I'd substitute 'new' for foreign, as I'd like to think its the established folk who know how important promotion and relegation is (someone like Dave Whelan) that would be more against it, perverse as it sounds given their league position.

Edited October 17, 2011 by Colly

[Hobo]

I don't think it could ever get the go ahead. It would involve radically changing the Premier League to a model like the MLS, otherwise it would just be the same league sans relegation. Which would cause the league to stagnate and could kill some of the smaller Premier League teams. It would effectively kill The Championship, and deny the possible promotion winners financial rewards that would've been available to them.

Really it would be an awful idea, the English league pyramid is in itself a wonderful concept. If you want to make English football more competitive then you'd probably have to input wage caps and other financial restrictions.

[Lineker]

Its a fucking daft idea. It works in the NFL due to the college/draft system, which is showing right now that an atrocious team like the Detroit Lions can become a great team. But in the English football league its a dreadful idea.

[Matt]

Yeahhhhhh I mean apart from the fact I support a Championship club that hopes to rejoin the Premier League sooner rather than later, I don't approve... the entire idea is just dumb. It'd kill the Football League, it would kill the Premier League as there's fuck all to fight for if you can't make it into the top 6/7 and more importantly, why the fuck do Wigan have the right to stay in the Premier League forever if they come 20th each season compared to Southampton if they come first each year (just for argument's sake)

We'd probably end up in the reverse situation to the one we're in right now where we'd see the likes of Bolton and Stoke sending out reserves in the Premier League half the time and then full strength teams for the cups in the hope they get a cup run and make Europe

It makes Collymore's idea about the north/south divide seem like a good idea.

[Colly]

Called it with Dave Whelan. I'm not his biggest fan but he's came out and said if it happened he'll pull Wigan out of the league. Possibly hyperbole but its a clear statement. Also Fergies stated it would be 'suicide' for the league. Need football people at governing bodies.

[IAceI]

Said I'd want us to do the same at Sunderland if that happened and stand by that as well. I fully agree with senile Dave in this matter, and I now feel very dirty having said that - but he's right.

[-A-]

Easy for him to say when he certainly wouldn't be invited to be in the new league

[Colly]

Who said anything about an invitational league? If relegation stopped Wigan would be in there.

[Adam]

Easy for him to say when he certainly wouldn't be invited to be in the new league

I'm curious then, are you in favour of the franchising system that most believe would utterly ruin the game?

[-A-]

I think that if they wanted to scrap relegation they wouldn't just pick the 20 teams from that season and say 'these are the Premier League clubs forever more.' What if Newcastle or Villa get relegated and Blackpool get promoted? They'd shit it. Why would one season of good performance justify being in the top division forever?

No, I'm absolutely not in favour of scrapping relegation (which is not the sane as a franchise system.) I think that Whelan gets no PR credit for coming out and saying he'd walk away from something that he knows he would have no part of. Just as the Liberal Democrats were for many years in a position where they could say anything they like because they weren't going to be put in a position to back up their claims. They can say "we'll cut taxes, reduce debt and increase spending!" and it's hard to refute because they'll never be in a position to do it. Whelan can say "I'll walk away from any elitist, commercial new Premier League!" when he knows perfectly well he'd never be invited into it.

Whelan irritates me constantly with his hypocrisy in these issues. He's in favour of a salary cap and yet Wigan are consistently the worst offenders for wages/turnover (over 90% of their income is spent on wages.) It says something that Real Madrid are nowhere near breaching the Financial Fair Play rules and Wigan are nowhere near obeying them. He wrote to Scudamore and suggested clubs should only be allowed to borrow 25% of their turnover when Wigan are £73m in debt from an annual turnover of £43m. He has pumped millions and millions of pounds into getting Wigan into the Premiership, at which point he moans about the practices of other clubs? Is he a guy who wants to preserve the integrity of football, or is he a guy who wants the rules changed so he has a better chance of winning? I think it's the latter.

Edited October 18, 2011 by -A-

[Colly]

Which of those suggested rule changes could possibly give Wigan a better chance of winning? Those are all fairly sound ideas, and the fact that Wigan and 90% of the league are currently not achieving them doesn't change that.

[-A-]

Which of those suggested rule changes could possibly give Wigan a better chance of winning? Those are all fairly sound ideas, and the fact that Wigan and 90% of the league are currently not achieving them doesn't change that.

A salary cap that isn't tied to turnover, which is what Whelan advocates. He's taken a club from the Third Division into the Premiership by spending a truckload of his own money and now he's reached the point where his finances don't allow the club to progress, so he wants the rules changed so that he can. Is he suggesting the changes so that he can save money? No, he doesn't want to make a profit, he wants to continue spending money and he wants Wigan to be a top club despite the fact that by any objective standards (sporting achievement, playing staff, history, finances, support) they aren't.

Last year I was totally behind Wigan staying up. I like the club and I think they've done a lot to bring good players into the PL. I just absolutely despise Whelan's hypocrisy for claiming they're the blameless David in a fight with the evil Goliaths. If you want football to be decided on the pitch rather than in the boardroom, then he is amongst the worst offenders in the sport. If you want clubs to succeed by what they do on the pitch and by the support of their fans then Wigan are absolutely undeserving of their position. They got to the PL and they stay there because of the millions that he spends on the club and yet he gets no bad press whatsoever, whereas City are seen as ruining the modern game? Hypocrisy.

Edited October 18, 2011 by -A-

[Adam]

I knew as soon as I'd hit post that I'd used the wrong word in 'franchising', I got stuck thinking about the ludicrous Rugby League set-up. But thanks for satisfying my curiosity.

As for Dave Whelan, I'm sure he knows that he would fall foul of a lot of these proposed rulings and perhaps he wants to bring his own club within line to those regulations if they become a reality, but right now doesn't need to so...just doesn't? I dunno, that's just a theory.

[Matt]

I think a more likely theory is "Dave Whelan is an annoying tosser", although for once I do agree with him.