Whats wrong with football?

[Batch]

to be clear. i want suffering and misery for oxford. but i want that through terrible performances and not a panel because of an owner. as fans you live for the club every week and to have your season decided by events off the pitch is hard

I meant I agree with you. My app didn't quote properly, now fixed.

Only club I want to see go bust is out next opponents.

[Flashheart]

I would not wish admin on Oxford either. While I'm all for the banter around the footballing side of things, I wouldn't take pleasure in fans seeing their club torn apart (asides from a few dickheads). The only reason most of them are even Oxford fans at all is that they just happened to be born there. The difference between me being an Oxford fan and Swindon fan is about 50 miles.

As for Franchise, however. They should be made to start again.

[Tails]

Well at least one of our fans will be happy with the 15 point deduction next season.

Based on the amount of unsavoury actions coming out about our owner now, they should just bin us off to the Southern Prem and be done with it..

Don't twist what I said. Happy to discuss it properly but if you're gonna spin it more than fucking Sonic the fucking Hedgehog don't bother!

[Tails]

Yep, that's a fair point, as is Berniman's. I may have posted in anger before properly thinking things through. Quite out of the step with the usually considered and thoughtful tone of the forum overall

But it can't be allowed to just pass. This was an attempted coup, it might have been a shit one, but that's what it was, football's answer to Trump's shit coup in January. You can't just let that go, there has to be consequences, if only to deter anyone from trying it again. Banning the owners and executives involved from ever being involved in football again would be a start but there's no way the football authorities will do that, even if they had the power to do so which is doubtful. And it wouldn't really hurt the billionaires anyway.

^^ This. But said a lot more eloquently than I ever could, as always.

[pauld]

I'm going to try and defend the "punishment for the clubs" a bit I think, both my comments on here and my rather more extreme suggestion on Twitter (you always have to be more extreme on Twitter) "Expel all 12 clubs from Europe and their domestic leagues. Let them start again right at the bottom of the pyramid and learn the meaning of earning a promotion", also something that was written more in anger than expectation it would actually happen.

I do agree that punishing the fans is unjust, and I also agree that just because we, Luton, Rotherham, Wigan, Bournemouth and all the other clubs that were punished for having bad owners were punished this way doesn't make it right that others should suffer injustice. BUT I think there's a difference in punishing these clubs and the punishments meted out to Luton et al and any potential punishment meted out to us by the FA. And that's in terms of the effect on the club's existence. Docking Liverpool 20 points would fuck them next season but it wouldn't harm them long term. And it's not like Liverpool fans haven't had experience in having to wait for a while to make an impact on the League. Or to take my more extreme example, which wasn't entirely serious, but let's take it at face value, even if you made Man Utd start in Conference North it wouldn't be an existential threat to those clubs. Like Rangers have done in Scotland, they'd climb their way back to the top table, the real fans would probably have quite a bit fun on the way rediscovering real football, and a lot of lower league clubs would have their coffers swelled as they passed through. And it would certainly get rid of the Glazers. In contrast, docking Luton 30 points and so condemning them to the Conference very nearly finished them off. Likewise, the points deduction for Wigan at one point in time did look like it would prevent the club being sold out of administration, it could have been a killer blow to them, in a way that wouldn't be the case for the Selfish Six.

There's a 15 point penalty for putting your own club into administration or other "insolvency event" as I believe the league regs put it. Surely there should be a far harsher punishment for attempting to cause insolvency events in 86 other clubs?

[horlock07]

[Berniman]

Don't twist what I said. Happy to discuss it properly but if you're gonna spin it more than fucking Sonic the fucking Hedgehog don't bother!

I didn't twist anything, all i was pointing out is if your view on other fans getting punished is "fuck em" then you can't complain when Swindon fans get punished for the shit show that our dictator is/has served up.

No need for the saltiness.. it's just opinions.  Mine is that these clubs should most definately be punished, to the max - but when dealing out those punishments they should try to have the punishment affect the real perpertrators (the owners) rather than the fans.  Whether they are fans of clubs that have experienced success or not shouldn't come into it.  And to say they are rich, they will recover is true for the owners, but a good majority of the fans are not rich, some of them put themselves on the breadline to go and support their club - i don't see why those supporters should be punished.

I'll leave it there because I have obviously stirred up emotions without even realising it.

[4D]

I agree with him

eternal misery and suffering is what I want for them

karma looks to be mocking me though

Isn't being an Oxford fan enough?

[pauld]

I didn't twist anything, all i was pointing out is if your view on other fans getting punished is "fuck em" then you can't complain when Swindon fans get punished for the shit show that our dictator is/has served up.

No need for the saltiness.. it's just opinions.  Mine is that these clubs should most definately be punished, to the max - but when dealing out those punishments they should try to have the punishment affect the real perpertrators (the owners) rather than the fans.  Whether they are fans of clubs that have experienced success or not shouldn't come into it.  And to say they are rich, they will recover is true for the owners, but a good majority of the fans are not rich, some of them put themselves on the breadline to go and support their club - i don't see why those supporters should be punished.

Out of curiosity, because I don't have a good answer for this, what punishment do you think would be suitable then? "I don't know" is a perfectly reasonable response btw, as I say I don't have a good answer either.

However, I do worry that if the punishments aren't eye-wateringly harsh this isn't the last we've seen of this. And next time they will succeed, which will be a much worse outcome for those fans than any points deduction or relegation would be e.g. one of the obvious logical consequences of such a League would be portability for the franchised clubs as per the NFL. Sticking with my prior examples, Liverpool fans might whinge about a 20 point deduction next season, and Man Utd fans would hate going to play local clubs in Conference North, but they'd hate both of those things a hell of lot less than having their club moved to LA or Mumbai.

[Panda Paws]

I'm not sure why everyone's hell-bent on punishing them? What regulation have they breached?

They've disenfranchised millions of people. That's punishment enough. Suggestions of points deductions etc are laughable.

[pauld]

I'm not sure why everyone's hell-bent on punishing them?

Because if they aren't punished and harshly they will try again, with likely catastrophic consequences for the whole football pyramid. Let them go and play in their own closed league, fine, no problem from me. But they also want to go and take the lion's share of the money with them. We've already talked about how massively overleveraged pretty much the whole of the Championship, that is on the back of owners gambling on reaching the Premier League. Take the riches out of the PL and that incentive goes, along with those owners, leaving the clubs with crippling debts. And that soon ripples down into Leagues 1 and 2 and thence into the Conference and below. The football pyramid is a tightly woven ecosystem, you can't just rip out the top end without causing huge problems further down.

What regulation have they breached?

Well there's this one:

L .9.
Except with the prior written approval of the Board, during the Season a Club shall not enter or play its senior men’s first team in any competition other than:
L.9.1. the UEFA Champions League;
L.9.2. the UEFA Europa League;
L.9.3. the F.A. Cup;
L.9.4. the F.A. Community Shield;
L.9.5. the Football League Cup;
or
L.9.6. competitions sanctioned by the County Association of which it is a member.

https://resources.premierleague.com/premierleague/document/2020/09/11/dc7e76c1-f78d-45a2-be4a-4c6bc33368fa/2020-21-PL-Handbook-110920.pdf

[Panda Paws]

I'm absolutely bang against the ESL and delighted it's crashed and burned, resulting in complete embarrassment for all concerned.

But they've not actually played in any competition outside of that list, and from a governance POV I'm not sure what rule they've broken.

The complete destruction of their relationships with fans is enough for me, and anything more than that would be a huge legal issue.

[RobertT]

I know some people will respond by pointing out it is a free market and punishing owners is not really something that sits well with that, but football has always really been a membership of a club gig.  Be that a league, a competition etc.

I think it is time, if people really want to take this moment as an opening for real change, where the Govt and/or FA/FL go for radical rule changes.  Make it a pre-requisite that any club seeking or having membership needs to ensure a % of the voting rights of any business are held by fans (the mechanism can be debated to ensure this is done effectively like in Germany).  That's not force seizure of assets, but it does provide an immediate pause for thought for some of these owners.  The money will still be there, they can still keep some of it like they do today, but they cannot sell the business without approval and they cannot force such ridiculous ideas as the ESL down anyones throat unless the fans back them.

I know it's radical and unlikely.  I know it comes with challenges.  But either we really do think football is something of value to communities that we can allow business people to support and maybe even make some money from, or we just think it is a consumer business in which case who the fuck cares.  I like watching the odd Play in the West End, I do not support it.

[pauld]

Well said Rob. I think James B put it well on the Loathed Strangers Pod from last night (apologies if I'm not quoting correctly) "Owners just own the economic rights, but the club belongs to us". He was talking about the ownership situation here, but it applies equally well to any level of the pyramid.

[RobertT]

Yep - I'm not advocating for fans taking any ownership of value, or even being involved in the day to day.  Just essentially being a shareholder that can block key decisions when needed, or more accurately, be engaged when such decisions are going to be likely.

The price a financial owner has to pay for being involved - the business aspect of football is unlike many others - the customers are unlikely to go to a competitor no matter how good or bad or how costly the product is.