Published: Tuesday, 26th January, 2010 8:00am
The beautiful game is getting ugly
by Alan Bunce
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THE longer the current football season goes on the darker the cloud over the game seems to get.
Ever since the First Division clubs hijacked the Football League in 1991/2 to restart the following season on their own terms as the Premier League, the amount of money sloshing around has never stopped growing in absurdity.
On the face of it when normally sensible business people are happy to catapult players' wages ever further into orbit, it seems to go against any kind of business acumen.
A few years ago several major supermarkets were fined for running a cartel which kept a few pence on milk and items which they didn't want to compete on.
But there is not much sign of football clubs trying to band together to stop wages crippling them. All the top clubs plough on with incredible disregard, stuffing players' bank accounts with money they could never live long enough to spend.
Limiting wages has been talked about for years and most people seem to agree it would make sense.
But we have been waiting a long time for that. All that time small clubs have struggled harder to survive while big ones have fought harder to find the next billionaire.
Now the cracks are appearing from Man Utd at the top to Portsmouth at the bottom. Players wages might be the biggest cost but the biggest question must be why did football inflict this on itself?
If company bosses are happy to pay staff hugely more than themselves, it's not much of a stretch of the imagination to wonder why. How does it benefit them?
I have no idea. But I do know that when there are troughs the size of the Premier League, an awful lot of snouts will be attracted.
However it is running dry now and Vince Cable has long hinted that some football clubs might be heading the way of the banks. And Gordon Brown won't bail them out.
Banks don't seemed to have learned much from being greedy and reckless. I just hope football does.
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Windsor and Eton FAN
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Jan 26 10 11:04
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Make your way down Stag Meadow on saturday. Kids go free and you'll get the chance to see the only unbeaten side in england!! Honest, working men playing football for the love of it and fans who'll chip in and clear snow off the pitch. A world away from premiership and thank GOD for that!! You wont regret it.
Alan Bunce
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Jan 26 10 20:51
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Kind of you to offer. However the mighty Royals rather than the Royalists, captured my support in 1969 and I'm still with them.
Windsor and Eton Fan
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Jan 27 10 00:08
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Cor! You are brave!!! \\r\\n\\r\\nAnytime reading are away pop down. Quite a few fans of pro-teams have been turned to the delights of non-league. Certainly dont have a chairman with a ego big enough to name a ground after himself!!
anti-football type
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Jan 28 10 13:51
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As I can see it, there's 2 problems which Bad-boy Bunce seems to have overlooked:
1) People like Glazer buying a club with money they don't actually have, but instead arranging for the debt to be carried by club once they've been "bought", and then carting off as much loot as possible
2) no-one cares about football anymore! If they did, then they would going, and the clubs would be in much less of a hole
my hope is that the whole rotten racket collapses in on itself, and it becomes a community activity once again. Like the Haxey Hood, 2 parishes fighting it out over 6 acres on a feast day, fresh goose for the "winner", diabilitating injuries all round ...
discuss
Windsor and Eton Fan
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Jan 28 10 16:05
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It's the hillsborough disaster that has forced all seated grounds and smaller capacitys and that started the rot. Real football is still about. It's just harder to find and not well supported.
huggle
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Feb 10 10 12:07
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hmmm and we all know who's to blame for hillsborough don't we?!! 'Victim FC'
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