Sky Bet Football League thread 2015/16

[MDK]

But you have to go past the wall and face the wildlings 

[Gazz]

16 minutes ago, Adam said:

Will they ever fuck OFF with these shitty proposals that pay no consideration to the fans or anybody that actually matters!?

The Football League is a joke organisation.

What's actually that bad about it?

Less fixtures means less mid-week / bank holiday trips for away fans (in principle, we'll see what TV makes of that), which are always poorly attended. If they also made the final two divisions of equal stature but with a North / South division like the National League North and South, then that would save money on travel for both clubs and fans.

Premier League 

Championship 

League One 

League Two 

League Three North - League Three South

[Adam]

1 hour ago, Gazz said:

What's actually that bad about it?

Less fixtures means less mid-week / bank holiday trips for away fans (in principle, we'll see what TV makes of that), which are always poorly attended. If they also made the final two divisions of equal stature but with a North / South division like the National League North and South, then that would save money on travel for both clubs and fans, whilst also meaning a current League Two team like the mighty Grimsby are still only three promotions away from the Premier League.

Is there any suggestion of them making it 'North/South' again though? I've seen nothing to say that, so I can't go forward assuming it will be the case.

I personally am actually against regionalising the bottom 1/2 divisions. As a fan of a club who would at present time be in said division, I don't want to be restricted to only watching my team play other northern sides. Yes, it saves on travel etc. but it isn't exactly a crippling expense and I enjoy going around the country, seeing more places and watching my team against more clubs. I've had days out to clubs as far away as Brighton, Portsmouth and Margate over the years and I would not like to see the opportunity to go to those games disappear in favour of increased matches against Notts County, Bradford and Bury.

Clubs will lose revenue from having four less home matches a season, quite a large amount really when you consider they would also be forced to reduce season ticket prices as a result, so they won't be happy with that. If they're that worried about fixture congestion, which I don't really think is a big problem except when clubs have loads of games postponed due to bad weather, then reduce the cup system because there really is no need for FA Cup replays on top of the League Cup and League Trophy matches all crammed in to the first half of the season like they are for football league sides.

Again this is assuming all four of these divisions will be national, but altering the structure in this way will actually make a lot of clubs another step further away from the top tier. Every single non-league club (that doesn't get brought up into the 'EFL') will be a further step down the pyramid, as will all clubs automatically 'demoted' through the shifting in league structure at the end of that season, 2018/19 I think it's supposed to be. How is that fair? It just adds to the accusation of a 'closed shop' up at the top.

The fans haven't been consulted, again, and that is one of my biggest gripes with this. They never pay any attention to what we think, even though without us their organisation and precious brand wouldn't exist.

That is just my initial reservations based on what's been revealed so far. I expect I'll be able to write a thesis on the matter in a couple of weeks.

EDIT: Responding to your edited post list of how the structure might look even if it was regionalised, but using your original example of Grimsby still only being three promotions away from the Premier League as they are now, they actually would be back to four away. They would have to go up from League 3, then League 2, then League 1, and then the Championship. Right now they would only need to do the latter three. Hence...even regionalised, we all get one step further away from the top table.

[TCO]

Yeah the only negative would be a bit on a chaotic year before its implementation with unusual promotion and relegation.

Other than that it seems good, gets rid of the outlandish 46 games + FA Cup + League Cup + FL Trophy.

[Matt]

So what the fuck happens this year before?

They relegate 7 championship teams and 3 come up. Promote 4 teams from league 2 and relegate 12 from league 1. Promote 2 national league sides and relegate 14?

 

This is fucking ridiculous. And it's just going to put prices up because clubs aren't going to want to lose income. The football league are fucking retarded.

[Adam]

2 minutes ago, Matt said:

So what the fuck happens this year before?

They relegate 7 championship teams and 3 come up. Promote 4 teams from league 2 and relegate 12 from league 1. Promote 2 national league sides and relegate 14?

 

This is fucking ridiculous. And it's just going to put prices up because clubs aren't going to want to lose income. The football league are fucking retarded.

They won't relegated 7 Championship teams, no way. They said something about not having promotion/relegation in the restructuring year, meaning we can all basically play to try and avoid being automatically demoted by the restructure, rather than anything else.

No fan of a club not in the upper reaches of the Championship surely can think this is a super idea. How will they get lower end Championship clubs to vote for an easier way to relegate them? How will they get League 2 clubs to vote in favour of the loss of revenue they're going to get from a reduction in home games, and an almost guaranteed demotion further away from the top division?

[Matt]

2 minutes ago, Adam said:

They won't relegated 7 Championship teams, no way. They said something about not having promotion/relegation in the restructuring year, meaning we can all basically play to try and avoid being automatically demoted by the restructure, rather than anything else.

No fan of a club not in the upper reaches of the Championship surely can think this is a super idea. How will they get lower end Championship clubs to vote for an easier way to relegate them? How will they get League 2 clubs to vote in favour of the loss of revenue they're going to get from a reduction in home games, and an almost guaranteed demotion further away from the top division?

So (ignoring promotion) 24 championship clubs will be fighting to come in the top 20. That's not too bad.

But then 24 teams are fighting to come in the top 16 of league one just to stay where they are. And 24 league two sides are fighting to come in the top half just to stay where they are. What's the motivation for any team that's safe or fucked by February? Why do they give a shit any more? When first is as good as 16th then why bother at all once 16th is guaranteed.

And they're just going to give up all that playoff money that year are they? Or are we going to have 16/17/18/19 and 12/13/14/15 playing to stay up?

This might be more stupid than the 39th game.

[MDK]

I'd love to see PL chairman and managers plotz if they said there would be an extra 2 relegation places for a year.

[Matt]

And let's not forget that 8 promotions from National League is going to cause issues down the ladder.

[TCO]

In other (better?) news, the new logo and shirt font leaked. The Football League has been rebranded as English Football League. Each division gets its own patch and the official announcement is due soon.

The current shirt font was hideous so this in an improvement, if only slight. I still have fond memories of my yellow Newcastle shirt with Carroll 24 on the back in that awful blocky font!

[Lineker]

Barnsley have killed the tie with an early goal at Walsall; it's now 4-0.

[GA!]

Since Grimsby are back home in the Football League, the new proposals can go do one. 

[Bobfoc]

They change the name of the Football League and still keep "The Championship" as the name of the second tier? Opportunity squandered.

[DavidMarrio]

What's with the stick man trying to find his way to the EFL logo for the number font?

[Lineker]

Just now, Davidmarrio said:

What's with the stick man trying to find his way to the EFL logo for the number font?

It's for prostate cancer

[Lineker]

Neil Warnock expected to be confirmed as the new Blackburn manager tomorrow...

[The Lusophone]

Poor Blackburn. :/

[Adam]

@MDK mate, I've seen talk of us being after Dean Cox. What's he like?

[MDK]

1 hour ago, Adam said:

@MDK mate, I've seen talk of us being after Dean Cox. What's he like?

You bastard.

Solid winger, left footed but can play right or left wing. He has a lot of passion as well.

[DFF]

A little late to the party, but I quite like the idea of the 5-tier 100 club league. It has a nice uniformity about it. Also, fixture congestions is a problem, so maybe it is best to do a (relatively) drastic change over one season end than trying to drag it out over a number of year.

I know they have suggested freezing promotion/relegation, outside of moves needed to re-balance the leagues, but I could see them doing something akin to Matt's suggestion as a halfway house.

For example..

The Championship needs to lose 4 teams overall. Have those four play the top 4 in League One in a two-legged play-off, for the four spots.
League 1  need to lose 8 team to League 2. You say that the bottom 4 are gone, and the 4 above play-off against the top 4 from League 2 - again, in 2-legged play-offs.
League 2 needs to lose 12 teams to the newly formed League 3. You could have the bottom 8 be 'automatically down', with the four above them playing two legged play-offs against the 4 above them. 
League 3 takes those 12, plus takes 8 from the Football Conferece (who, in turn, could have their own funky play-off system if they so wished).