Football Supporters: Fans Or Customers?

dtp, on 09 February 2016 - 10:36 AM, said:

My simple take is that Sky etc are pumping money into football, and other sports, whilst the club's themselves continue to pump money out of football by means of paying salaries to players they can ill afford. The extra revenues coming in next season will make no difference at all to the financial stability of football clubs. They will basically remain with debt up to their ears with no thoughts to their long term financial stability as they give away the extra income to greedy players.

Until the salaries of the players are limited then this crazy mismanagement will continue. The big boys will look after themselves in terms of signing, quite often, average players and making them multi-millionaires. It is absolute madness but the clubs are in competition with each other and that competion means that if one is prepared to pay a player £150k a week another club will trump it with an offer of £175k. Then, guess what, this player from the other side of nowhere will declare it has been his lifetime ambition to play for whichever team it is he has signed for rather than tell the truth and say that club wanted him more because they came up with the best salary package.

No, Sky etc want armchair customers, they are not interested in the real fans. There is enough money going into football to bring admittance prices down to a level affordable to virtually everybody and their families. Stadiums could be full and atmospheres fantastic throughout the leagues and not just the premiership.

In England, though, this will not happen, Premiership Clubs are not bothered about any Clubs in the Football League. They are too greedy looking after themselves looking after greedy players. Sky etc are getting what they want and they are not interested how the monies they pump in to the game is distributed.

Bayern Munich are spot on with their season ticket pricing policies with some being available at just over £100. As they say, if they were to increase the price of all season tickets by £200 it would bring in another £2 million but what is £2 million to them it could go in 5 minutes negotiation on a transfer fee.

A few shock waves are required at the very top to bring a change in attitudes. For instance, what would happen at Chelsea if Abromovich pulled the plug, demanded his money back, and no one else was prepared to come in and pay the asking price?

Great read, that.
Others of my age will recall Bob Lord , Fuhrer/Chairman of Burnley for yonks who said that his ideal would be a club that could exist without supporters. Plenty of Premiership would-be oligarchs have seen this particular promised land just over the horizon and have pocketed the Sky etc money in the fond belief that it will liberate them from any obligation to the oiks who turn up every week to watch their current crop of mercenaries.
Premiership fans, armchair and otherwise have always struck me as being a bit thick and docile. I always thought Newcastle's were the prime example until the recent mutterings as they wised up to Ashleys all-round vileness. This, the Bolton merchandise boycott and the Liverpool walk-out gives me hope that people are waking up a bit, but the only fan protest that can even begin to hurt the clubs and register with the press and media and is for people to stop buying season tickets.

What is it with the the weird mix of disengenous propaganda and wilfull self delusion that props up the Premier League ? There was a short piece in the Guardian last week about a German clubs strategy of taking risks on what might turn out to be bog average players because they know they can dump them onto the Premier league for stupid amounts of money. 5LIVE had a revealing discussion about the Neville / Valencia fiasco which pointed out the average Spanish fans contempt for Premier League football. It doesnt even turn out players. Bale excepted, where are the Premier Leagues great products? The ones who who can name their price in Germany and Spain in the same way that any old Euro-mule can after being spotted on youtube by one of our brass-hemorrhaging champions league make-weights ?
The Premier League is a poor and tainted product held afloat by its own self importance, and the sad thing is that even when a club like Leicester has an impact on the field the most likely consequences of its success is either a sudden decline in the face of impossible financial burdens or the alienation of its traditional support in the pursuit of a permanant seat at the top trough.

Bob's Board - Chesterfield FC: Football Supporters: Fans Or Customers? - Bob's Board - Chesterfield FC