Desidude666

Finally, it draws to a close! Man Utd win the league for the second year running... whoever thought Chelsea would falter in the dying seconds, that gave United a 2-point title!!!

Now onwards to the Champions League final and it's Chelsea once more - if they do it, that'd be history! Onto the double!!!

Woo hoo!!!!

Manchester United Official Web Site

Red4Life!!!

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven. - Ludwig van Beethoven

Advertising

Desidude666

And they win the Champions League...

BBC SPORT | Football | Europe | Man Utd win in dramatic shoot-out

What a year!

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven. - Ludwig van Beethoven

Maritxu

hmm I hate it when the rich teams win. I think it makes sports boring that the same old teams always are fighting for the victory.
Nothing else to add, I could care less about English teams. However it is good they won since they won't be playing in the European cup this year (hopping none of the UK members get pissed off at her)

"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."
Thomas Paine

"When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist."
Archbishop Helder Camara

caffeine

But the important thing to remember is that English teams are going to go on to dominate European football for the foreseeable future. No other league has the global support base of the Premiership, which means nobody else can pull in the same money and players. Three of the four semi-finalists have been English teams for two year's running. I'm not trying to gloat; I think it's a bad thing to have all the money concentrated - and the Premiership is slowly turning in to the world's league; which leads to ridiculous ideas like a 39th game played abroad.

This has been a miserable season all round - my English team relegated to the non-league, and my Czech team relegated too; to be replaced by a team with the same name owned by the man who ruined the club in the first place. There's no fucking justice. I thought I'd be happy to see Chelsea win nothing, but not if it means the double for Man Utd. The only small consolation is that Sparta didn't win the Czech league.

Grumble grumble.

Maritxu

In that you are very right. Oh well, my dad is a Real Madrid fan and also agrees that it is better some other teams win.
But yeah, when football is a business you should know what to expect. Or you can as well end up like Barça, with unmotivated players... but why would they be motivated? they have nothing in the world to work for because they are already way too rich. Tell a kid who has all he wants like Ronaldino to wake up soon and go train.

"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."
Thomas Paine

"When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist."
Archbishop Helder Camara

caffeine

I don't think any players are motivated to do well by money - it's not like Ronaldinho's unique in earning obscene amounts. Even terrible players earn ridiculously high wages - the average wage for a League Two* player in England is well over 60,000 Euros a year; and for the Premiership it's over 850,000 Euros. This is the average including players like Wigan's reserve goalkeeper - the average striker's earning over a million. This is why tickets cost so much and clubs still go bust. Any top European player is a multi-millionaire already - the motivation is the desire to win things.

I would be in favour of transfer and wage caps; but that just invites the big clubs to form some breakaway federation and a European Super League.


*Four those who don't know English football, League Two is the 4th division - silly name changes for sponsorship reasons have left our league numbering system a bit bizarre

res

That would be impossible since the clubs operate under FA and FA operates under UEFA which is under FIFA.
The costs of maintaining such a league would be too big for it to be profitable.

For example

If Man U, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal decided they are against the transfer and wage caps (and I don't see why would they be against it) and break away from FA that would mean the end of premiership.
That would mean end of huge number of sponsor deals and TV rights for those same clubs and FA.
If they decided they wanted to form a new CL that would benefit the clubs immensely since it's the richest clubs in Europe that made CL what it is. What would happen is that the player will go on strike (like NBA lockout in 1999) but since being professional athletes is what they do, and there's scores of them in the world, they would be forced to agree with UEFA and FA of each country.

There would be little or no backlash if it was to be tried. The problem is Sep Blater, president of FIFA.
Platini is trying to reform UEFA and make this game about football, not money, again but Blater is holding him back at every turn.

Blater is trying to push through a rule that would enable players to leave as many clubs during the saeson they want.

Desidude666

Technically it isn't all that boring in Europe since this is only their 3rd Cup in history. Champions League is obviously a 'rich' club competition as the format is between a select few clubs topping their local leagues.

I think English teams have proven their rising quality of football this year, I am a United fan, for me, it's a great feeling... but on this form of stage, poor teams may not make it to a final. Gone is the time of Gabriel Batistuta who stick it out at their respective clubs out of loyalty even after relegation, today, money talks. 100 million pounds for Ronaldo? That's ridiculous money we're talking about!!

I think a couple of years ago, Porto FC made it to the finals. French champions Lyon made it to the finals too. In the 1990s, shocking Redstar Belgrade made it, but these aren't 'big' clubs if you think about it. Once you're in the final, we are talking about 100 millions pounds in income mate.

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven. - Ludwig van Beethoven

Desidude666

Too bad, they got ripped off off the FA Cup. I thought they totally dominated against Portsmouth this year. Rednapp's men were simply defending their way to the cup at Old Trafford. After Arsenal, the cup was more or less won, it was a shocker if not we'd see a Triple repeat this year!

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven. - Ludwig van Beethoven

Desidude666

You can't do so, have one region have a wage cap while another, probably Real Madrid, who are financially backed by the city council of Madrid. They are the kind of clubs who are insane in the market, not to mention Chelsea with their Russian billions.

If you practice universal caps on wages, it's fine. It's not fine if you have the English FA cap their wages but the elements in Italy where AC/Inter Milan or their Spanish equivalents in Barcelona and Madrid are above the system.

The idea is good, but the more money we see in the infrastructure, the more improvement in quality for the fans. You need money in the modern game, the more you have it, the better you are, like in most other forms of businesses.

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven. - Ludwig van Beethoven