Legod Second Coming

Err, yeah, it built them a 32,000 seat stadium - what sort of question is that??? Has it helped the national team? YES. By playing alongside Ronaldo and Henry and previous players of their calibre we SHOULD have improved as a nation. We have not because, in the paraphrased words of Jamie Carragher: "I couldn't give a sh!t if I miss a penalty for England so long as I don't miss one for Stanley Park" Who do you think is paying for Cappello? SKY!!!!

Err, yeah, it built them a 32,000 seat stadium - what sort of question is that??? Has it helped the national team? YES. By playing alongside Ronaldo and Henry and previous players of their calibre we SHOULD have improved as a nation. We have not because, in the paraphrased words of Jamie Carragher: "I couldn't give a sh!t if I miss a penalty for England so long as I don't miss one for Stanley Park" Who do you think is paying for Cappello? SKY!!!!

Hmm, as I watched us beat birmingham I thought exactly the same... not...

Hmm, as I watched us beat birmingham I thought exactly the same... not...

Although I am a firm believer in the manager having a strategy which the board supports (rather than vice versa), whichever the scenario surely all the manager has to do is identify that he needs, for example, the best left-back available and that he is thinking of Cole or Bridge. The Chairman/DoF/FD/CEO then comes back and says, OK, we have found Gareth Bale. And they all agree that's fine. The problem only arises when the manager builds his team around certain key players and they are pulled from him without his knowledge, surely?

Although I am a firm believer in the manager having a strategy which the board supports (rather than vice versa), whichever the scenario surely all the manager has to do is identify that he needs, for example, the best left-back available and that he is thinking of Cole or Bridge. The Chairman/DoF/FD/CEO then comes back and says, OK, we have found Gareth Bale. And they all agree that's fine. The problem only arises when the manager builds his team around certain key players and they are pulled from him without his knowledge, surely?

LOL! No, used to negotiate with them for rights though!! I have a lot of sympathy with them as a result. If you want to know why football is fecked up, don't ask an organisation which is commercially adept and simply buys rights from the rights holders, ask the rights holders who couldn't organise a proverbial in a proverbial!! Just watch what happens to cricket now they have accepted the Stamford match... These sports never learn that it is about what you DO with the money your media partners and sponsors are willing to offer that is KEY to the success of the sport... There is no issue with a sport receiving vast sums of money for its commercial rights. There is a massive problem if that sport cannot create an equitable distribution of the money because its protagonists place self-interest ABOVE the interest of the sport.

LOL! No, used to negotiate with them for rights though!! I have a lot of sympathy with them as a result. If you want to know why football is fecked up, don't ask an organisation which is commercially adept and simply buys rights from the rights holders, ask the rights holders who couldn't organise a proverbial in a proverbial!! Just watch what happens to cricket now they have accepted the Stamford match... These sports never learn that it is about what you DO with the money your media partners and sponsors are willing to offer that is KEY to the success of the sport... There is no issue with a sport receiving vast sums of money for its commercial rights. There is a massive problem if that sport cannot create an equitable distribution of the money because its protagonists place self-interest ABOVE the interest of the sport.

That's also true - SKY needed subscribers and football gave it to them. It was a marriage genuinely made in heaven!

Someone else would simply pay. There is a worldwide demand for Premiership football and it is not SKY who push the price UP!!! That, again, is the FA who understand the value of its rights. To clobber SKY (a profit-making organisation) for overpaying for a product is quote ironic when you think about it...

I think he actually said that the stadium has a ten year pouring contract. The stadium was built in 2001, so we actually should only have three years left.

I did say Phil, I don't envy them!! Let's say they didn't structure it they way they have (which effectively benefits the big four). They (big four) would simply get together and try to sell their rights independently of the league... I've never done football rights personally, but racing rights I've been involved in and that's how it goes - striking a balance between what is saleable and what is pap for the benefit of as many people as possible. Like I said, it's nigh on impossible to get right.

Not sure how the package is constructed or negotiated, but no doubt when you take all the advertising and sponsorship revenue into account it makes them something of course! Probably from pubs who simply want to be showing football, but who knows??

If you want to breed slightly overweight lazy genuis's yes... Altho surely Micky Channon would be more appropriate...

Like everything, invest too little money - failure. Invest the right amount of money - success. Invest too much money - failure. It is not SKY who determine where the money goes, that's the role of the FA. It is not SKY who pay Robinho £160k per week. It is not SKY who put the power in football in the hands of players. It is not SKY who regulate agents and transfers. In fact, all SKY do is buy and sell rights as any media operator does. What a sport does with the money, is down the sport. So football is killing football.

That Phil is not the fault of Sky, that is the fault of the FA (since they own the Premier League). But I feel for them. The big clubs have the power because it's them that people want to watch. You should see the Championship viewing figures for Sky - they're awful!! The FA have a tough task to balance the demands of the big clubs who know they can sell their rights individually and make more money) and the needs of grass roots football. What is beyond doubt is that Darlington get £500k they WOULD not have had without SKY. So in some senses, the FA have done a good job. I don't envy them, I really don't.

Not really, either you buy cheap and aim to sell at a profit, or you breed and sell at a profit. It makes no odds. You can't keep hold of the best players for long.

Otherwise spot on...

No, we will effectively be operating the same way as 70 odd other clubs who have to survive outside the Premiership. And in fact, in the same position in which we operated before the Premiership. That our young players will be sold is not totally of our making. It is because of the prices commanded for proven quality footballers. Yes, it's hitting us because we are not in the Premiership. But without raking over old ground, we are where we are. To get out of this position either we need outside investment or have no option but to trade our way out. Where I think Wilde is very economical with the truth is in explaining his volte farce with regards to Lowe. If Rupert had the best interests of the club at heart, why did Wilde try to oust him??

It does go to show that love or loathe Rupert, he does have a plan. BUT, I am confident that had those bids been high enough he would have sold. That's not anti-Lowe, that's economics. I love this house, but if someone is willing to pay well over the odds for it, then there's plenty of other places I could live and park a sports car on the drive!!! It's funny CB, that Lowe's original vision is now being used by clubs in the Premiership and elsewhere as one of two possible options right now: 1. Sell your club to a soverign wealth fund (gun-runner, dictator, delete as appopriate). 2. Build your club from within and make it sustainable. Well, I, for one, am firmly in the option 2 camp, come what may and while I stood with the other 25,999 and asked him to go, my gut feel is that he's actually the right person for where we are now.

Aye, but the Premiership was created and packaged with selling the rights to a broadcaster in mind, that's what I was getting at. So, knowing that SKY had a dedicated sports channel with hours to fill and and that football was a potentially marketable product (with a following who weren't necessarily minded to go to games), the Premier League came together solely in order to sell their rights to a media company (SKY). The money made from the sale is what then helped to turn the Premiership into the most expensive league in Europe - at the time the Italian League was probably Europe's premier league by a mile.

Yes friend and here is what I love about this government. How much did it cost to rebrand to the Highways Agency and stick all those bloody signs up telling me how long the job is going to take and how proud they are when it's finished???!!! I'd rather they simply gave the money to YOU to get the job done quicker!!! My beef is that your target cost should be at least double!! I know it's not really true but if it takes one man four weeks to paint a bridge, then give him four men and do it in a week!!!

Like Pompey will be part of the new breakaway uber-Premiership... your manager been banged up yet? Or is he off to West Ham...

Football was on its knees. Grounds were empty (with or without seats) and the game was dying. Sky came in an delivered the kind of players who would never previously have been attracted to England and helped improve the game immeasurably. For a long time, the game benefitted tremendously from the increased revenues and the improvements in safety and amenities etc. Call them sanitised grounds if you like (and I love Loftus Road). Where football went wrong - was the Bosman ruling. Which is one of those laws, like most, which has 'unintended consequences'... Those being that football clubs earn money simply to spunk it away on players and not reinvest it in their clubs.

The reason club managers are going is because a DOF structure on the continent works and foreign owners want to employ it as it saves them from managers leaving. So they are moving to a 'coaching model'. Good/bad?? Who knows. Works at Real.