Thetownend.com

Led by Mr Greg Dyke....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27289819

Are they seriously considering completely shaking up a system that has worked very well for decades just to try and improve the national team? Why bring in laws to help the big clubs poach young talent off smaller clubs for nothing, then create a new league for these kids to go and play in? Seems completely pointless.

I hope common sense prevails. This is NOT the answer!

If I supported a Premiership team and cared massively about the national team then I'd love this plan.  I do neither of those things therefore hate this idea.

Doubt it will happen anyway, restructuring plans come up every now and again and always end up being binned.

I've not read his suggestions in detail but isn't he basically on about reserve PL teams playing in the lower leagues? In which case, why not? It works for the rest of Europe.

This isn't worse than the whole academies idea which lets big clubs poach young talent for cheap from somewhere else. That's much worse.

I don't see a problem with having Man U II playing in the league. But they shouldn't get a free pass just because 'daddy' is in the Premiership- they have to start at the bottom and work their way up.

What would happen though if Man U II were promoted to the PL? If they are unable to be promoted, then how will they be able to play in a league that is otherwise competitive?

Well then Man U II would play in the PL.

Seriously though, I doubt that'd ever happen, because if a reserve team does so well one year in the championship then its better players will probably be promoted to the First Team.

Perhaps they should be assigned to a fixed league, but then it's unfair on everyone else in the league.

But that's what happens now. We only have to look at our team this year to see PL reserves playing in lower leagues.

And just how would another 20 clubs be integrated into the 3 other divisions?

Doesn't seem to affect them too much in Spain, but maybe they are just used to it? A few of the top teams have reserve sides who've made it to the second tier, but can't get promoted to the top division. If they come top the next team just gets promoted

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983%E2%80%9384_Segunda_Divisi%C3%B3n

Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

Also, what about attendances? How many of these B teams will be reasonably well followed. Yet another kick in the teeth for lower leagues financially?

Ah, yes, another scheme to "benefit the national team and help develop young English players", that old lie again. That was the lie they used to sell the Premiership, and guess what? The top teams stuffed their teams with foreign players to the detriment of young English players and the national team. And if they're allowed to get away with this, they'll stuff their B teams with foreign players.

Notice also that the Championship clubs are banded with the Premiership clubs in being allowed to enter their B teams lower down - this is a bridgehead for Premier League 2 by the back door.

The "problem" here is that the top Premiership sides are warehousing players they have no hope of ever being able to use, not even so much on the off chance that they might become useful, as to stop the other sides from signing them. I don't see why the lower leagues should continue to be pulled apart to solve problems the mega-clubs have created for themselves.

The idea of  football as an actual sporting competition grows ever more distant each time something like this is suggested and inevitably nodded through. The FA should grow a pair and rein in the PL, not keep finding new and ever more ridiculous ways to hitch up their skirts and bend over for them.

This would benefit the big clubs only. Would do nothing for the likes of swindon town. A bit like a Tory government looking after the rich whilst the poor suffer.

Bang on the money

I see Chelsea have won the Youth Cup for the third time in 5 years.

Not one of those who played has become even a bit part player for the first team.

2 players have each played once for first team.

Until they limit the number of foreign players who can be in the starting 11 will there even be a chance of seeing an improvement in the national team

Imagine a Championship made up of 20 PL reserve sides and 4 real clubs. You could finish in the bottom four and win promotion!

That time you play Man Utd B and Van Persie and Rooney are coming back from injury but the rest of the season they have fucking Darren Fletcher. No thanks.

Maybe, I don't know myself, but does the rest of Europe have the same kind of depth of professional / semi-professional football structure as England?

I think we may be blessed here with having four, arguably five 'divisions' that are the bedrock of professional football. Scores of towns and cities throughout the country are represented nationally through their (mainly) long-standing football clubs, and supported by thousands of members of their communities. Does this happen anywhere else?

Any diluting of this structure through the introduction of Premier League 2nd teams would lead to the demise of professional lower division clubs and the gradual evolution of what would become 'regional' giants (probably in Prem 1 and Prem 2 with 2nd teams filling two lower divisions).

I bet Gartside is creaming his pants in anticipation.

The PL, FA, Team England and Champions League can go fuck themselves.

Unlikely to happen but what would happen if Man Utd A got relegated and Man Utd B were promoted... They probably wouldn't bother with pushing to promote Man Utd A the next year, they'd just bank the parachute payments and put all the best players in the B team and carry on as usual, surely..??

This...and you are correct, no-one has the same depth of professional football as we do in England.

Crowds of 8k in the Italian Serie C (equivalent of League 1) is pretty much unheard of, and I'm sure that would be the same in Germany and Spain.

Think it's a good point about the depth of football, and I agree with those who've said this is a touted move to benefit the top clubs, dressed up with some nonsense about the national team to make it more palatable.

Germany is the only comparable country I think in terms of attendances, although they do also allow reserve sides in the league structure (up to a maximum of the third tier though).

Their equivalent of League 1 had average crowds of 6,162 in 2012-13, not far off our own division where the average was 6,309.

When I say 'it works,' I'm referring to the success of the national sides and not how many mugs turn up to watch.

If improving the England setup is the goal - which it should be - then why not replicate what the better nations are doing, with less dollar behind them.

It's proposals like this that make me want to punch Tim Lovejoy in the face.

It takes a lot less than this to make me want to punch him... his opening his mouth normally has a similar effect!

What I don’t understand about B teams in general, and perhaps someone with more knowledge of how it works overseas could fill me in, is how do the squads work?

Would they have to register players separately for the whole season, or could they move players between the B and First team, like you would do with the reserves?

In which case, and this is an extreme example; if say Manchester United B were going for promotion and had a vital end of the season clash with fellow league leaders Bristol Rovers (had to pick a non league example) and the A team had nothing to play for – what could stop them moving Wayne Rooney into the Bs for the weekend?

As far as I remember (from playing Football/Champ manager in Spain) players registered in your B side could not move freely into the A team (I think they could during a registration window).

Therefore your scenario would be impossible AFAIK.

Also, in Spain, the B side cannot be in the same league as the A side. Therefore if Barcelona B win the 2nd division title, then they couldn't be promoted.

I suspect these rules would be used in England too if this was to happen.

It would make the whole football league a complete farce, really.

Why should the goal be to benefit Team England? How would we, or any other small club, benefit from an improved national side?

They can go fuck themselves. They've taken all the money, the least they can do is leave us with 'the dream'.

Because England winning a major tournament would be quality...

I fail to see how the national team would benefit.

I think we should have more beaches. Get the youngsters out on them homing there skills at a young age. It works in Brazil!!!

Oh and more poverty, drugs, gun crimes and murders too. It's the way forward you know.

Whhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey good one footballladsbanter

They're phasing the B teams out in Germany apparently

Thanks! (I think)

 This idea as, most can see is absolute bollocks of the highest order.....yes in Spain, they have B teams, but it's really only the massive clubs that do. Historically it came about, because there isn't really a proper professional pyramid like in England.

 Our pyramid is a thing which should be treasured....not fucked about with by clueless goons like Dyke.

 Spain's strength is down in no small way, to the notion of clubs supporting a region as a counterweight to the monolithic dominance of the central government backed Real Madrid, through the Franco years. Madrid are the model that the Prem like here...as they tend to hoover up talent, play them in the Castilla and then flog them on to the other clubs. Occasionally one might get through, pretty much like in England, but the majority of these will be flogged on for 2/3 million Euro...a tidy little earner..to other smaller clubs.

The counter aspect is provided by Barca and Espanyol who look to use Catalan players, and more so by the Basque clubs Bilbao and Sociedad, who in the case of Bilbao, only use Basques and Sociedad will mostly use Basques.

When the Sweaties get independence in Sept...the Catalans and Basques won't be far behind....and Spain will be fucked internationally.

The Lega Nord....might fancy splitting Italy and forming Padania...they like Catalonia already have an unofficial team, thus fucking the Azzurri.

Best thing Dyke can do is fuck off north of the border and campaign for Better Together.

a) Because it's no more got anything to do with improving the national side than establishing the Premier League in the first place did.
b) If they want to replicate what better nations are doing, then do that. Establish the 100+ regional FA development centres for young players as bridge between grassroots and academy sides, like the Germans did; invest in the 1000s of quality training facilities like the Dutch did; create public sports areas like the Spanish did. Oh, no, we just pissed a load of money up the wall on Wembley instead.

There's no real desire within the FA or government to do the hard work to replicate what the better nations are doing to actually develop young players, and this definitely doesn't do it.

How the FA waste money is a regular soapbox of mine as I travel round taking my son to play football matches. The FA expect the grassroots (i.e. parents) to fund everything. So good changes become an unwanted expense for clubs (e.g. recent changes to require different size goals and pitches, so there are a couple of years on 9 a side between 7 and 11 a side). He went on tour to Holland last year and the facilities at youth level for every town are insanely good - even electronic scoreboards on the 3G astroturfs.

If there was a 'like' button on this forum this post would get it...

Since there isn't, I will go all retro and venture an 'I agree. A good point, well made".

The logical first step would be to put a quota on foreign players. But of course that might impact viewing figures.... Oops I mean is against European freedom of trade rules!

The Premier League would say (and on probably only this issue I agree with them) that you won't make the England team better by making the standard of the league worse. Quotas will also drive up the wages of the top English players, because there aren't enough of them.

It definitely seems like a good idea to find a way to ban Ricky van Wolfswinkel, but I'm not sure what problem it solves for the England team.

pauld's post hits the nail on the head.

Would it make the Premier League worst though? Even teams like Man City have the likes of Garcia, Dimechelis etc playing for them and they are average in the extreme. With a bit of experience you could easily replace them without having a detrimental impact. Another big reason they don't get the games is English players always have a premium price tag on them so clubs go for the cheaper foreign imports instead. Limiting the matchday squad to contain 4 or 5 English players would be a good starting point.

I think the FA is missing the blatantly obvious however. No decent English players play outside this country, this lack of experience in foreign leagues is a big factor in where we are. Spain have have players plying their trade in the German league and Prem, Brazil have players all over the place, as do Argentina in fact as do all the top teams. The insular nature of English players is the biggest issue in my opinion.

Its not insular - they ain't good enough and none of the top foreign teams dont want them

Why does it have to be a top foreign club? They could go to some mid-table La Liga team for example rather than warm the bench in the PL. It comes back to the fact they have a stupidly premium price tag and that PL teams pay stupid wages even for reserves.

Those prices and those wages would go up if there were quotas.

Would it make that much difference though as there would suddenly be more English players available. I doubt that if you added all the English regulars together and divided it by the number of teams you'd probably only have enough for 3 or 4 per club tops.

I didn't go on to read subsequent postings before posting, so sorry if answered elsewhere - but it's the English and German leagues that stand out in terms of the depth of support down the leagues.  One article I read a while back cited the example of our yellow friends down the road who, a few years back, were attracting crowds of 6,000+ in what was effectively Division 5.

It isn't broken, so don't try to fix it.  You'll just end up screwing the whole thing up.  And most will only appreciate what we have now when it's gone.  Swindon vs Man Utd B is a pre-season friendly, nothing more.

Why would there be more English players available?

This is old data http://comparetheleagues.com/european-league-stats/second-divisions/

League One's (England's third division) has an average attendance of 7,328
http://www.football-lineups.com/tourn/League_One_2013-2014/Stats/Home_Avg_Atte/

That's bigger than every second division except France, Germany and (of course) England. It's bigger than Serie B, the Spanish segunda and the Greek superleague. League Two gets about 4,200 on average. That's not much smaller than the Greek superleague.

Prem clubs would want their B teams in the Champ and L1. It wouldn't make the England team stronger and it would make the pyramid (which is the best thing about our game) much weaker. It would further consolidate power and money in half a dozen clubs and it can fuck right off.

Can't we have a "cunt" button instead? I think it would be more useful (although not in the post refererred to I hasten to add)

 :cunty:

Greg Dyke - respect him as a businessman but the saviour of English football, what's that eh? 

Premiership rationale -

top teams have too many games and players are burnt out re international football, so let's ease the fixture overload and help the England team

Premiership practical - 

cut down on cup games with lower league nonentities and restrict number of teams allowed into PL and instead play more friendlies across the timezones in new markets and have a Champions League with 4 teams (inc. 3 non-champions) and have endless "group matches" with good new TV deal.  FFS didn't Man Utd get a bye from the FAC one year so they could play a big money game?

Must turkeys vote for Christmas twice?

Over the last twenty years, the Premiership teams play less league matches, and the League Cup and FA Cup have had their fixtures trimmed via more one off games (LC), and the FA Cup is now allowed only one replay instead of continuing until there is a winner, not withstanding there is a lot of 'squad rotation' in the cups.

The only competitions that have increased their fixtures are Champions League/Europa League and qualification games for the WC and Euro Champs, caused by the break-up of Russia (even though Putin is doing his best to bring them back together), and the break-up of Yugoslavia.

The European competitions only get interesting when it becomes knock-out, like the old competition used to be, whilst the qualification for the next Euro Champs could be easily simplified.

As France will automatically qualify as hosts, we need 23 out of 53. My method would be to take the worst 14 European nations by FIFA rankings, make them play off in two-legged matches, to qualify for the next stage, where they will play the seven seeded countries, again in two-legged play-offs, and the winners qualify for Euro 2016.

The other remaining 32 countries, again are drawn in two-legged play-offs for the last 16 games. All qualifying done and dusted, and every game important and qualifying is done inside 4 matches instead of 12/14 matches.

But UEFA don't do common sense...and nor does the FA.

All for the cash man.

that cunt Dyke went to my old school - I will bring the ghost of Ralph Scurfield down on him if he fucks up my football league!
You know who he is boy!!!!!

The people that run football are just complete cunts of the highest order!

I read the reason for this is they want to give premier league reserve/young players more game time. How about you stop the top clubs signing everybody under the fucking sun, preventing them from playing first team football!!!!!

It so simple, limit the number of players any club can have on its books, stop the mess we have at places like Chelsea and City where they have 20/30 players out on loan. The quality would filter down the clubs in the premier league and the divisions.

Problem solved.

The FA hasn't got the balls to say 'no' to the PL.

Fixed.

Just heard Dyke's press conference outlining the first of his proposals. Not overly convinced they will improve the national team. Also not convinced (Despite his trying to put a spin on it) that it will be beneficial for lower league clubs.

Cant wait to play Sunderland "B" on a Tuesday night at some non-league ground in Wearside.

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/the-football-association-scrap-their-b-teams-plan-and-protect-our-pyramid?recruiter=92227550

Online petition against the B teams plan

Not surprised to see Hoddle praising the idea on SSN. Bit disappointed though.

haha, Danny Mills using our "link" with Spurs as an example of the partnership system

It's all about success for England at the World Cup and it really is narrow minded to put your club ahead of your country.  Surely success at the World Cup for England is worth some sacrifice?

England's best performance at the World Cup since 1966, came in 1990 when they reached the semi finals and only lost by the lottery of penalties.

This achievement came on the back of 5 years with English clubs out (banned) of all European competition, so hard though it may be, I'm sure we would all support the top 5 PL clubs doing their patriotic duty and sacrificing the Champions League for the next 5 years.

Jesus! I barely know where to start with this. I can hardly believe that a collection of former footballers and people involved with the game can seem to have so little appreciation of the feelings of fans.

I don't think I've ever found myself cheering on Steve bloody Claridge in an argument before. Danny Mills what a clueless fucking twat.

There are two phrases that generally let you know that someone has based an argument of utter fucking bollocks and Mills used them both:

"Something has to be done" - translate as "We have to do something, anything whether it works or not"
"Everybody knows / everybody agrees" - with no evidence to fucking back it up.

For your information Mills two things:

One - Show me some fucking evidence that indicates that the number of English players in the top flight has anything at all to do with the England teams performance in international competition, because anyone with access to the internet can see that there's no bloody correlation whatsoever.

Two - who is this everybody that thinks we need more English players in the Premier League. Fans of PL clubs seem perfectly happy having international stars form all over the world turning out for their sides and the rest of us don't really give a fuck frankly.

Or indeed the youth development system they claim to be trying to improve by this bag of shite.

Why are people surprised ex-footballers have gone along with this? Ex, and current footballers are not known for their logical thinking and supreme intelligence.

They've been used as pawns here. A few will probably be hung out to dry, and so they should be.

Bring back capital punishment for Dyke and his commission.

Can't see this getting passed. Remember a few years ago they considered abolishing the draw and ending the game with a clear winner via a penalty shoot out. No chance of this happening!

The only encouraging thing to come from this was the 'strategic loan partnership' idea. The tie up we have with Spurs has worked reasonably well for us and the likes of Pritchard and Mason have benefitted from experience in competitive football.

A proper partnership could see players loaned for more than a season or released to the lower club with a favourable buy back clause if the player shines. Maybe lower level clubs could receive a share of a future transfer fee if they improve a loan player over the period of the loan.

The B Team idea is just tosh and would ruin the integrity of the Football League. Clubs outside the Premier have been shafted for 20 odd years. We are happy with our competition and the ability to move through the leagues. Having Man U B block your chances of promotion isn't my idea of a fair competition. Look at the likes of Norwich, Hull, Stoke and Southampton who we have played since dropping out of the Championship level in 2001. The League has always been about that and this could destroy the very thing that attracted the TV millions in the first place.

I will boycott any game, home or away, that involves STFC vs the 'B' team of any club in a supposedly competitive fixture.  Why?  It would be meaningless.  If they were going to let folk in for free, then maybe.  But it would not be worth any of anyone's money to watch.

The FA have ballsed up here.  In time, they will realise this.

The League 3 plan for Premier League B teams is as popular decision by the FA as letting Wimbledon move to Milton Keynes to become Franchise.

To me, it feels like this has been building for a while and is the whole reason why the EPPP was brought in in the first place. At the time the EPPP seemed like a daft way to get young footballers into reserve teams at the expense of those in the lower leagues. Now it seems that the EPPP and a 'B' league go hand in hand, prem and championship teams get young players on the cheap from the FL, and then give them their own style of training and playing regular competitive games without ever running the risk of spending big money or big wages.

The FA would never had got away with bringing the 2 in together hence the slight gap in between the 2. Although there is also the possibility I'm talking crap and the 2 are completely unrelated  ???

Greg Dyke formed a committee that needed to justify its existence by producing a 'deliverable'.  That's basically what this will be about.  It's how most shit decisions are made.

I think we'd all agree that sending young players to the lower leagues to aid their development is a good idea. But don't we do that already? I think lower league clubs would probably use loan players more often if it weren't for the fact that many of them are just not good enough. For every James Milner there's a shed-load more Moses Ashikode's and Daniel Boatengs. It's more miss than hit.

Making lower league clubs take on players will cause the lower leagues to become flooded with sub-standard players, which will in turn make the lower leagues less competitive. This means that those players that do have potential will be going to play in leagues that are less competitive than they would otherwise have been.

Somebody's not thought it through properly.

Or in short.

English football has something that, as far as I'm aware, nobody else does. Which is competitive lower leagues in which they can develop their youngsters.

And they want to effectively do away with it? They should be looking to take advantage of it!

It will be passed unless there is a revolt at grassroots level.....unfortunately this mirrors the situation in the country, the Tory's mantra of "we're all in this together" being replicated in the FA's "we're doing this for the England team". Newspeak, for the poor will have to pay for the rich.

Can you imagine either of our 2 wannabe owners, turning their noses up at a couple of mill being chucked their way, because of the cultural heritage of STFC?     No....nor can I.

Don't you remember back in the 70s and 80s when the English top flight was made up of predominantly English players, and we won all those World Cups?!

I've not really taken much interest in this so far, so does this mean that every PL team will have a B side or just a few?

If its just a few what teams are going to make up the numbers for this new league?

If this is being touted to get young players some competitive action then why not just ban any promotion for the B teams - so if Man U, Arsenal and Spurs finish 1, 2 and 3 in the league just promote those non PL B teams who finish in the highest 3
Places

It's confusing to say the least. Yesterday at the press conference Dyke intimated that PL & Championship clubs would be able to field B sides in a new League placed between the Conference and League 2. Promotion and relegation would occur, but only up to League 1 level. There's a truckload of unanswered questions from that snippet alone.
This morning, on BBC Breakfast, they stated that there would be 10 B sides from the top PL clubs. If this is true, once again it raises a lot of questions.

The area of his press conference that seems to have slipped past most people is the mooting of 'Strategic Loan Agreements' between PL clubs and us bottom feeders. Whilst it may sound ok in principal, he went on to state that it would allow greater control of loan players from the parent club than they currently have. Sounds to me like the formation of feeder clubs, but with a snazzier tagline.

I saw Dyke on the news this morning and his attitude really fucked me off. How anyone can think this is going to improve the National side beggars belief.

Not really a surprise that that herpes ridden twat Pete Winkelman supports the idea

Cunt

I had a quick read of the report, one thing that comes up with regards to the current loan system is PL clubs not being happy with the training, playing style, facilities and so on at lower league clubs which makes them hesitant to send players out more. This is where the greater control element comes in.

I'm all in favour of it. Players will get the experience they need and hopefully, smaller clubs will get players for free or on the cheap, help with improving facilities and coaching and so on. Needs to be done carefully though to ensure clubs retain their independence and so it's fair. It appears to work well in Major League Baseball, maybe a model that could be copied.

And do you really trust the FA or Premier League to ensure either of those? Or to do it carefully? No chance. The feeder clubs will be bitches, dancing to the PL club's tune. Within a few years, most of them will be more like a second B team than any semblance of their former selves as Swindon, Oldham etc.

The 'improve the National team' excuse was rolled out when the Prem was introduced, I can't remember the logic, but I think it was to do with the eventual reduction of teams from 22 to 20 would give more time for international breaks.

Was hogwash then and is hogwash now.

Help Ingerlund is a convenient peg to hang any changes that benefit the big boys on when you need to PR it to the rest of the footballing world. Afterall, they couldn't very well say last time "Look Alan Sugar needs to sell more satellites, Murdochs pay tv plan is going tits up, and we want loads of cash to make the gap between us and the rest of the Football League a huge gulf."

I absolutely hate the proposals.

However, for the first time, the PL wants something that the rest of football needs to agree to (and the FA should be sticking up for grass-roots football, what ever that means!). So the first issue to be discussed is fairer distribution of money within the game. Without that, the FA & the PL can f**k right off. If they won't discuss that then there is nothing more to discuss.

Will these games be played at Old Trafford and The Emirates or some backwater ground?

The only positive I can see is maybe an increase in attendances for home fans wanting to see some of the PL youngsters.

Here's an idea - why not stick them in the Scottish league?

I'd predict the opposite, could see a fair amount of fans boycotting these games.

Young kids might successfully nag their parents to take them to see this version of Chelsea, Arsenal, etc but your regular fan isn't going to fall for the hype.

It just smacks of not taking the lower leagues seriously.  Lets use them as a practice ground for the really important stuff, premier league teams.  Because the premier league and the national team are so much more important but cant possibly bear the burden.  Its not their fault that they have to pay ridiculous wages, carry stupidly large debt, buy every player with no intention of playing them just the intention that no one else can use their talent. 

What really annoys me is the element of playing around with the lower leagues for the betterment of the bloated sky sports premier league.

Etc etc blah blah Im in a bad mood and its not going to get any better as Im listening to Nick Cave.

my kids won't. I wouldn't be going to those games.

Which in turn could make a season ticket less attractive.

Which in turn could turn me into a more casual source of income.

Might just be me. If not it's something stfc should consider should it go to vote. But then why would they need or money, they can rebrand to some b team.

Cant see manures b team being allowed to play  23 lg games at OT
Pitch wouldnt stand up and the A team wouldnt be able to play  :cry:

Cant see those clubs building somewhere that fits current league entry standards either

They could of course groundshare
Chelsea play reserve games at Aldershit currently so could easily see manure B chucking a few quid at someone like Oldham/Rochdale and playing their.
To the detriment of their playing surface

Can't see them getting the crowds to justify the expense of opening up Old Trafford etc, not to mention the damage to the pitch. Much more likely that United would play at somewhere like Oldham, City at Stockport, Arsenal at Barnet etc.

Those clubs won't be able to afford to turn them down, even though it will f**k the pitch for their own first teams.

Apologies posted at same time as M Wooley, didn't see his post.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/sport/sport-headlines/new-league-structure-to-include-fictional-football-teams-2014050986422

I would go to see us against Melchester Rovers.

Great minds and all that
So  many unanswered questions with these proposals . Doesn't sound like been thought through at all

Also, Spain had B teams when they were shit.

http://lutontownamerica.com/index.php/the-fa-commission-controversary/

Raises some interesting points despite being written by a couple of Luton bloggers

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/t1.0-9/10252131_693057430753540_2363779609277258828_n.jpg)
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Sunshine-Room/

I firmly believe these proposals would end professional lower league football. And when it happens within a generation, sadly, no one will give a flying fuck.

There'll be one league, they'll get all the money, all the players (and won't have to worry about giving money to lower leagues/clubs and other shit outside of their interests) and the lower leagues will be but a footnote in Association Football history.

Eradicate the lower leagues == decrease expenditure and increase support and income.

What about the financial restrictions imposed on League clubs - which we fell foul of for breaking the wage cap..

How the hell can PL reserve players already on thousands per week be 'equalised' to present a level playing field with genuine lower league footballers?

And - personally I would imagine  a lot of these PL starlets would have to endure a damn good kicking most weeks from some gnarled old pro. Is that what PL clubs really want for their precious babes?

Not sure if it's already been mentioned but aren't these proposals potentially going to be counterproductive? Surely you won't be able to have a B and loan players to other clubs so whereas PL league clubs loan better young players to Championship sides are the now going to have to play for some league 3 B team instead so actually a backward step from where things are now. These proposals just don't stack up and are up there with the type of stupid ideas the FA are have thought previously.

Or Fulchester United!

Where do you start with this fucking abomination. How the fuck is this supposed to help the national team.
Which 10 teams will be allowed to play B teams? What about the 11th or 12th team when a rich owner turns up and they become the new Blackburn / Chelsea / Man C. The prem teams will want them to play at the highest level so I'd imagine they will over time form the top 10 of the Championship so effectively the 11th placed team could get promoted to the Prem. What if one of these 10 got relegated, would they then have to fuck around with the leagues.
Where will they play. Will they take support away from lower league clubs ala Franchise cunts.
This really is the most brainless fucking stupid idea to have come from the FA - much worse than their 39th game.
This fucking complete and utter contempt for the 72 and the Conference clubs makes my fucking blood boil. . Stopping lower league clubs playing non EU nationals is the way forward. I thought top clubs had found a way around this anyway by placing young players in clubs other EU countries getting them naturalised as EU citizens. They can afford to do it, we can't.
I would like to do a big fat dirty shit on the document and hand it to that bellend Dyke.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27340850

Story asking 'would a b league produce more Xavis and Iniestas?'

My answer - I dont give a fuck if it would.  They aren't going to play for my team are they.  They arent going to be Duncan Shearers, Alan Mcloughlins, Paul Bodins, Colin Calderwoods, players who are going to play for my club for more that 5 minutes.

Football isnt all about the big 4 / 5.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27340856

And the premier league twat in chief also thinks its a stupid idea.

Other than 2010, Spain have done no better than us at the World cup. Maybe they aren't good because of their football structure. Maybe that just got a fucking good bunch of players regardless. Like France did. Lets not pretend Spain have the answers, not yet. Come back when they have replicated over time.

The Germans aren't bad at winning things. Yet I'm told they are ditching their B-Teams.

Brazil are even better at it. Is there success due to B teams? Do they even have them?

Lastly Danny Mills is a fucking prick of cunt. Who thought it would be good to let this no mark open his gob with shite like 'Hartlepool Utd fans would rather see Pools play a Manchester Utd B'.

What the fuck do you know? Your only a fan and not even a fan of an important club. Your views are irrelevant.
(The above is how I imagine Dyke's thought process).
It's telling that neither The Conference or supporters groups were consulted during this whole clusterfuck.

What league wouldn't benefit from a large breasted winger? Quite simply if it happens it will finish football as a major spectator sport after 10 years or so Imo. Can guarantee there would be no promotions from league 1 to the championship, that will be their answer to avoid "confusion".

How I imagine Dyke's thought process is either: This is what I want to say, now I need to make up shit to justify it

or

I'll propose something so preposterous they'll have to accept what I really want (Prem B/feeder club/whatever)

Sorry didn't these poor old B Teams have somewhere to play previously wasn't there reserve leagues?

Set them up again and bobs your uncle lower teams could enter also and be able to access the apparent marketing Utopia of watching Man United's latest 14 year old foreign wonder kid who will never play for the first team.

It's things like this that make the idea of a European league starting more appealing, let the top 4/5 fuck off Into Europe full time and then the rest of us back to normal

I could quite happily support town for the rest of my life never playing the top 5. It would make fuck all difference to me. If I was given a choice of playing Man U or the Scum - no contest. Agreed, let the top clubs fuck off and leave us to get on with it..........and they can take their B teams as well.

Sounds like the FA Commission totally ignored the evidence submitted by Supporters Direct :

http://www.supporters-direct.org/press-release/sd-responds-to-fa-commission-proposals-for-feeder-clubs

Most of the time the best players, or at least those in the best form don't get picked for England anyway.

And AFC hit the nail on the head :

http://www.supporters-direct.org/news-article/afc-wimbledon-owners-call-out-greg-dykes-b-team-plan

If the FA and the Premier League clubs really want to give young English players a better chance of playing Premier League Football then here's an easy answer:

- expand the PL by one club
- give the FA the "franchise" for that place and exclude it from relegation / europe / tv revenue
- let that FA team loan as many players as it wants and sign players through transfers in the normal way
- restrict it to signing English players under 24

Job done.

Course it won't happen because you can't interfere with "the integrity of the PL competition". But of course you can completely fuck the football league structur no problam at all. Cunts

Base them in Milton Keynes in place of the current outfit. The locals won't mind changing allegiance.

Improve coaching and facilities, stop the hoarding of players by limiting squad size (thus meaning talent should filter down/go abroad). Job done.

I only had a quick read of the Dyke/FA report but i was appalled by the lack of thought it gives to supporters. I'm not sure it even favours the PL that much as the sole focus is the England national team and it takes as a given that is everyone's sole purpose in life. I'm surprised supporters groups aren't calling for Dyke's resignation as it is truly appalling what he has done.

You've changed your tune....

Not sure how you came to that conclusion.

I'm in favour of changes to the loan system.

Dyke should be sacked for totally disregarding the fans.

How is that changing my tune?

Fair enough...a simple misunderstanding, you said you'd read the report.....and then you were in favour of it.  So in fact just the loans bit.

Interestingly I did a bit of research on the 30 man squad that Woy used recently v Denmark....of those 23 had at some stage been on loan at lower league clubs, or brought up through the youth systems of lower league or non-league clubs.

Only 7 had been able to move straight from a Prem clubs academy into 1st team football.

Cut the amount of games top sides play. Champions league should be champions only.
Cut the amount of foreigners per squad to five.
Have a winter break.
Stop giving coaching badges to clueless idiots.
Let kids learn how to win instead of all taking part.

Slight flaw...if we participate in the Champions League we can't limit the number of foreigners in a squad

of course it's flawed under current rules..fuck them though,they need changing

Oddly one of the criticism aimed at kid's football in England, by those in the know, is that there is too much emphasis on winning, and not enough on developing skills for fun.

which is bollocks. Let the best know they are the best and push them on further.
For too long shit kids have been told well done etc, when they should be told to do something else.

Which is bollocks. Are you saying a 9 year old should forget about football because he's not that good and is in a losing team? Do you not think that with better coaching a 'shit kid' could become good?

I hope you're not a teacher. Or a parent.

at 9 you'd be able to tell if they are good or not. Nothing to do with the team they are in. Infact the team may well be holding a decent kid back.
Yeah I'm a parent. Shit kids are shit kids. Holding good ones back.giving everyone a go often means talented kids have to wait their turn to be fair to others.

That's bollocks,  the only lad I went to school with who played eventually to a high standard was good at that age but in no way the best of the group.

in who's opinion?maybe they were wrong?

So you tell the shit kids to get lost and never play football again and fill your kids' team with poached talent from elsewhere? Do you advise the Premier League?

what the fuck are you on about?

Exactly,  you cannot establish who is and isn't good at that age so I don't understand your comment that kids should be told to give up just to support those considered the best?

My little contact with kids football these days is scary,  presently have two acquaintances on Facebook getting very aggro as little darling has been dropped from the others team!

You said shit kids should be told to do something else and that in effect only kids with talent should play football. I disagree. I think a kid who may be shit at age 9 could become a kid with talent at age 10.

which goes back to my point about idiots being called coaches.
There are kids teams everywhere that give boys
 equal time as their parents all pay their subs.
Why should a lad that dribbled the ball passed 3 kids and smacks the ball in net then stand a watch a kid whose parents get excited when he toe punts the ball out for a throw in with his only touch of the game?
The let everyone have a go attitudeonly suits the losers 

no chance. It's there or it aint.

Maybe because on the other 99 out of 100 times that kid tries going it alone he loses the ball?

I see it all the time watching my nephew play. Those kids aren't anywhere near as good as their parents think they are.

you either miss point deliberately or I aint explained clearly. Either way I can't be arsed to elaborate

We should drive on the right hand side of the road.

Spain do, and they win everything

:D

See Dyke's latest statement is that it will be "depressing" if Man City win the title....he also intends to carry on with his plan despite opposition from just about all quarters, except a handful of Prem clubs like Man City.

What is depressing is that a goon like Dyke, should be in the position of head of an organisation which is supposed to be custodian of our game.

Isn't the problem here that kids develop at different speeds and their skills at that age are quite low. So the kids who will stand out - the 'winners' - are the bigger, physically dominant kids who won't be so impressive when they are all 19. John Terry is always going come through in that system, Messi probably isn't.

Also, coaches have biases. If people haven't read Moneyball, there's loads in there on this (in baseball). Coaches think they can pick "it", but they can't. The story of moneyball is that the little fat kids who don't get out are far more valuable to the team than the obvious superstars.

Very true, but at the age arriba was talking about (9), there's also an inherent bias towards the kids who've been playing organised football for a while - at U9s, you get kids who've never played in a team playing against kids who've been playing organised football for 4-5 years. Guess what? The kids who are new to it can look a bit awkward/make daft mistakes - give them a couple of years and they're running rings round some of the "better" players who just had a head start.

Don't know that that aspect of the theory behind Moneyball really applies down to kids tbh, at least not that young. IIRC it's based around professional sports, a lot of it isn't transferable into amateur sport at lower levels, much less into kids' sport. (Disclaimer: not read Moneyball itself, but read a couple of the books that claim to build on it and countless articles referencing it)

The point I disagreed with was that a kid with no talent at 9 could become talented in a year. Won't happen. Maybe good at local football level but I'm talking real talent here. What these shake ups are all about.
More kids than ever are playing football, yet there are less top English players than ever.

Interestingly, I went to my Nephews football final on Saturday at Sixfields Stadium, it was an U11 final.

You could sort of tell which Kids have 'got it' technically, natural balance, the way they kick the ball etc. Obviously, the bigger stronger kids stood out. The managers had the kids well drilled, passing patterns etc, if all coaches coached to that, then we would have a generation of good technical players coming through. It takes time, of course is does. I cant comment on kids at U9, I think kids at this age are to young to be judged. that should really happen at somewhere around U13.

A good read taking apart the Commision report :

http://theblueandwhitefanzine.co.uk/blog-b-teams/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoBCx93TCcY

I'm a bit pissed tonight.

Can you imagine if we had the money to keep this going?

Macari was God but this was good.

 :pint: :pint: :pint: :pint:

what was the original post?????????????????????????

We'd have run out of players by now

Reminds me, my mate sent me this the other day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbEAD_hiLnI

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/10859378/Football-League-draws-up-plan-for-Premier-League-B-teams-to-enter-Johnstones-Paint-Trophy.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/10859378/Football-League-draws-up-plan-for-Premier-League-B-teams-to-enter-Johnstones-Paint-Trophy.html)

The idea is for 16 B teams from clubs with Category One academies to join the 48 League Two and League One clubs in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy on a trial basis for the next two seasons. The competition would start with 16 groups of four with one B team in each group. Each team would play each other only once, so the draw would decide whether home or away. The 16 winners would qualify for a straight knockout.

Obviously sounds better that reforming the league. The more interest point is that all b teams would play at their main clubs grounds and all gate receipts are given to the league clubs.

Not in favour of that either really. Even if it is only the JPT.


My view is that it is in danger of it being the thin end of the wedge regarding it legitimising B teams.  Plus it makes teaching Wembley harder.

Even so, the jpt proposal is no more helpful to raising the standard of the national team anyway.

Besides, the league cup is a B team cup now .

Shit idea....I'd rather they went back to having some Conference teams in, if it has to be tinkered with.

Just a fudge...and a poor one at that.

No B teams in the pyramid...end of.

We should be looking to axe the Football League Trophy instead of expanding it to include the 'B' teams.

Don't know about axing it.

we've done pretty well out of it over the years

One final and a couple close-but-no-cigars? Huzzah!

I recall one chairman saying that they'd made a loss in getting to the JPT Final. Nobody would miss it... Well, perhaps Carlisle United.

Just say no.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27707184

Looks like the cunt won't give up http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/28421879

On what basis does Dyke think Woy did 'quite a good job' re the WC?

It could not have been any worse.

Fucking retard

If they really want to improve the national team have players contracted centrally & have England as a team in the Premier League. Guarantee them a place in the premier league & champions league each season and only players that are eligible for England can play for them.

Never going to happen, but it's as sensible as having a B league :)

I'm sure the clubs would love that.

Team England would have to purchase the top 16 or so English players from their clubs and the other PL clubs would lose a CL spot.

I'm not disputing that Dyke seems to be utterly clueless, but we did get a point off Costa Rica, we could have lost that as well.

Yay!

I wish Greg Dyke would realise that, as FAChairman, he represents all clubs aligned to the FA and not just a few Premiership Clubs. Don't forget, the Premier League was formed to 'supposedly' improve the fortunes of the England side, and we know how well that went.

The only way to get more England players in the first team is to make a rule that a minimum of 6 Engliah players must start in PL games, but I think the EU might have a bit to say about that.

I wish Dyke would just fuck off

I wish the EU would just fuck off then we could do what SO69 says.

EU freedom of movement would balance itself out (perhaps even benefit us) if our players would ever consider moving abroad. As it is, we get one every few years at best.

The simple fact is that our players generally are not wanted abroad as they are top wack on wages, fees etc while generally shite. We don't have a great track record of our players being successful abroad.

What's the point of moving abroad when they earn more money in this country?

Depends what the difference is I suppose. I'd jump at the chance to do my job in Tenerife for 2/3 of the wages.