Gartside.

[Don Rogers Shop]

This cunt needs shooting.Would love Bolton to go down this season now,you watch the attendance drop at the reebok if they do.

[pauld]

Most of the papers seem to reckon the proposal will be chucked out today anyway. Tbh, I'm increasingly coming to the idea that Gartside set this up as a straw man anyway, rather than seriously expecting it to get adopted. Certainly that'd apply to the Rangers/Celtic thing which was only ever in there to draw attention away from the restricted (or none in the original) promotion aspect of his proposals.

But none of that alters the core fact - DRS is right and we should get arriba to cut him.

[Bedford Red]

It has been thrown out so the BBC site says on the breaking news bit at the top, no big suprise, but it will rear it's ugly head again in the future i'm sure.

[land_of_bo]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8353937.stm

[Batch]

It has been thrown out so the BBC site says on the breaking news bit at the top, no big suprise, but it will rear it's ugly head again in the future i'm sure.

"The other relevant ideas contained within Bolton's paper will now be taken forward as part of the wider strategic review being undertaken by the Premier League since November 2008 with the aim of providing recommendations before December 2010."

[pauld]

So like I said, use the clearly unacceptable Celtic/Rangers thing as a straw man so you can slide your far more damaging "pull up the drawbridge" proposals in under the radar. I guess they didn't even discuss throwing Bristols City/Rovers out of the League because they're Welsh?

[Summerof69]

It has been thrown out so the BBC site says on the breaking news bit at the top, no big suprise, but it will rear it's ugly head again in the future i'm sure.

A bit like 'Game 39' !!

[Rich Pullen]

It has been thrown out so the BBC site says on the breaking news bit at the top, no big suprise, but it will rear it's ugly head again in the future i'm sure.

Until Bolton are relegated to the Championship I would imagine.

[Summerof69]

Bolton are relegated to the Championship I would imagine.

Hopefully in 6 months time...

[jonny72]

In any case you're tilting at the wrong windmill really - where Gartside's proposals are aimed at and what I think most of us are concerned about is the massive gulf between the Premiership and the Football League. Which is causing clubs to break themselves to get up or to stay up. There's a reason why the pundits soil themselves every May about the Championship play-off final - "The richest single game in world sport" - worth £60m to the club that wins it, we're constantly told. But that huge amount needs to be committed in the first season almost entirely into the playing squad. And still newly promoted clubs struggle to attract the kinds of players that will allow them to compete. Why would the kind of average to middling player that fills out most Premiership squads go to newly promoted and widely reckoned to be likely to struggle Burnley for example, when he can rake in 30-40 grand a week at Bolton? Who'll spend that kind of money on frankly fairly mediocre players because they're shit scared of going down. Because if you remove that 30-40m golden teat, then all of a sudden they've got a squad of overpaid mediocrities on massive salaries with long contracts (and they all do have long contracts because otherwise you can't compete to attract even the mediocre players). And if you don't go straight back up in the first season, it could break you completely.

The problem isn't the financial gap between the Premier League and Championship. The problem is that Championship clubs spend money they can't afford in an attempt to get promoted to the Premier League, and once there clubs spend money they can't afford in an attempt to stay in the Premier League. This is the first thing that needs to be sorted - stopping clubs from spending money they can't afford.

And if clubs stop competing on salaries with money they don't have, the massive salaries simply won't be there for the players and they'll either have to take what is on offer or fuck off out of the country. Salaries are highly inflated at present, solely due to clubs competing with each other, spending money they don't have and pushing salaries ever higher in the process.

I'd prefer us to stay in the 1st Division rather than spend money we don't have and the same applies if we get promoted to the Championship. If by some miracle we get promoted to the Premier League, I'd by far prefer it if we banked as much of the money as possible and built an even stronger squad for the Championship the following season after the inevitable relegation.

[Ardiles]

Early minutes released for the meeting have revealed the following.

'...resolved to abandon any plan to invite Rangers FC or Celtic FC to join the Premier League.

It was further resolved that Phil Gartside is a ####er.'

[OK.  I made that last bit up.]

[Summerof69]

This is the reason Rangers and Celtic are desperate to join the PL :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8356651.stm

[pauld]

jonny, we're arguing the same thing from different ends:

1) There is a massive financial gap between the Premiership and the Championship
2) In order to compete, all but the top few teams need to massively overstretch themselves
3) They can choose not to overstretch themselves but if they do so, they must also accept they likely will not be able to compete

As I've said before I agree with you that clubs shouldn't gamble with their futures by paying out the stupid wages, but many do so rather than not compete. Whether you blame the clubs for trying to compete (as you do) or the massive inbuilt financial distortion of the Premiership for making it impossible for them to do so without risking the club's future (as I do) is a bit chicken and egg really. Fact is, it's supposed to be a sporting competition and it isn't. The Premiership is ruining English football.

[Barry Scott]

This is the reason Rangers and Celtic are desperate to join the PL :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8356651.stm

They're playing in the Scottish League so perhaps they should spend like it. They do not deserve to be in the PL and shouldn't be allowed in the PL.

If they can't sustain their current spending perhaps they should stop, er, spending?

I personally couldn't see them doing anything in the Premier League anyway. I think they'd struggle and sooner or later suffer the same plight albeit in the Championship.

Oh, and Gartside, what a total and utter cunt. I truly hope Bolton get relegated ASAP. Almost as much as i wanted Reading relegated when they were playing with the big boys.

[JOHNNY REEVES]

here here