Middle Class opposition to "Conspicious Consumption"

[Xhaka Can’t]

Surely love for football has got to do with the club you support, other clubs are an irrelevance if you're happy with what's happening at the club. People make excuses about how it's other clubs that are the problem, I'd point to the bizarre happenings in the last 6 years as a significant reason for the loss of interest...I've certainly lost interest, mainly because nothing seems to really change and we're seeing a board who are happy as things are and a manager who alos feels that way.

Is it enjoyable to see a repeat of pretty much the same rubbish every season, is it fun to watch other clubs sign players whilst you sell your best players whilst not replacing them adequately, is it fun having a manager who refuses to acknowledge his team defficiencies and praises them at every turn, is it fun to see similar problems with the team season after season? I think not.

I'm on the phone so cutting and pasting your post is hard. I'm only referring to people making excuses it is other clubs is the problem. I don't think people are doing that, certainly I'm not. There isn't a problem there rarely is. There are problems. I am more frustrated by how our Club fails to make effective use of the resources it generates through us than anything else. If we do that and don't gain success then fair enough, we've done what we can. But we haven't done even that.

As for what is going on elsewhere, I cannot comprehend how anyone thinking clubs being able to throw unlimited amounts of money around repeatedly until it eventually works out for them without any consequences no matter how often they get it wrong - to the extent they are paying 100k towards the salary of another top 4 club isn't a problem. Albeit another problem

[Niall_Quinn]

I think you'd have to be incredibly stupid not to realise that we're getting played by the board as well, our policies are despicable in all honesty. Other clubs fans seem to get much better value for money than our lot and yet's it's considered OK...if football isn't about people coming in and spending lots, it's not about business either....you can't have it both ways.

If you want football as it should be then profit shouldn't be the primary aim and sugar daddies shouldn't be allowed, it seems like making a large profit every year is "OK" in a general sense, but spending big amounts of money isn't, kinda odd.

Would you rather pay less and get a better product, or pay more and get an inferior one? I would have thought that's easy to answer.

Fair points. In my mind our board is as bad a city's, it reduces the game to a financial equation constructed for personal gain. The aim of certain individuals with very shady pasts that own chelsea and city seems to be legitimacy. They have "obtained" all the money they can ever use, now they want to distract from the methods they used to obtain it. I guess having 50,000 scream their support drowns out the noise of millions screaming their protests, provided you can get the former on TV and keep the latter off it. Our board members are only filthy rich at the moment, mere babes by comparison. So I guess they have to play it at at a lower level and keep on sucking. Maybe one day they too will be as admirable as Roman Abramovich. Mind you, we have our own nasty, vicious, criminal thug waiting in the wings. The real test of peoples' attitudes in this debate will be how they respond if that odious swine gets control and starts pumping in the cash. The apologists for city claim we'll all be jumping for joy. I won't because football will be pretty much dead by that point and I never wanted to see that.

[Letters]

I hope the people spouting nonsense on here do realise the league has only become more competitive as a result of this 'financial doping' and we've probably seen the best title race in years this season. In the past only us or United could realistically win the league.

And last year it was only Utd or City. From a month in it was clear one of the two would win it.
Yes, Chelsea will probably be in the mix next year as they're buying their way in so it'll be a case of which billionaire wins it.
Competitive. Yaay.

Football does pre-date the late nineties you know. Back in the 60s and 70s you'd have a different clubs winning it most years, The year we won the Double in '71 Everton finished 14th. The previous season they'd been champions and we'd finished 12th. Surely it's better in a sport where at the start of a season you just don't know what's going to happen and there's always hope your team could do something - and that hope extends to fans of many clubs. There weren't these huge gaps between the haves and have nots.

Now it's down to 2 or 3 teams. More competitive than the late 90s and early noughties, maybe. Less competitive than at pretty much any time prior to that though.

[Özim]

I'm on the phone so cutting and pasting your post is hard. I'm only referring to people making excuses it is other clubs is the problem. I don't think people are doing that, certainly I'm not. There isn't a problem there rarely is. There are problems. I am more frustrated by how our Club fails to make effective use of the resources it generates through us than anything else. If we do that and don't gain success then fair enough, we've done what we can. But we haven't done even that.

As for what is going on elsewhere, I cannot comprehend how anyone thinking clubs being able to throw unlimited amounts of money around repeatedly until it eventually works out for them without any consequences no matter how often they get it wrong - to the extent they are paying 100k towards the salary of another top 4 club isn't a problem. Albeit another problem

I agree with you, that having owners who can spend unlimited amounts isn't great for the game, however I don't believe that it completely stops clubs competing, Man U basically had the title sewn up before an inexplicable collapse, this without having a particularly good team.

We can't stop other clubs having huge amounts to spend, I refuse to believe we can't compete though, the problem is that we've decided we don't want to and that's incredibly frustrating.

[Özim]

Fair points. In my mind our board is as bad a city's, it reduces the game to a financial equation constructed for personal gain. The aim of certain individuals with very shady pasts that own chelsea and city seems to be legitimacy. They have "obtained" all the money they can ever use, now they want to distract from the methods they used to obtain it. I guess having 50,000 scream their support drowns out the noise of millions screaming their protests, provided you can get the former on TV and keep the latter off it. Our board members are only filthy rich at the moment, mere babes by comparison. So I guess they have to play it at at a lower level and keep on sucking. Maybe one day they too will be as admirable as Roman Abramovich. Mind you, we have our own nasty, vicious, criminal thug waiting in the wings. The real test of peoples' attitudes in this debate will be how they respond if that odious swine gets control and starts pumping in the cash. The apologists for city claim we'll all be jumping for joy. I won't because football will be pretty much dead by that point and I never wanted to see that.

I can understand your point of view, but then what is the answer, to sit there an put up with what is an undesirable situation? I want to see top players like we use to see at Arsenal, I want to feel excited about the new season and feel that we have a chance of winning something, I really don't enjoy seeing us being happy to get 3rd/4th every season, that doesn't replace that feeling you get when you see your club lift a trophy, the only thing it does do is swell the bank balance, something we don't use (it might be different if we did)

[Özim]

And last year it was only Utd or City. From a month in it was clear one of the two would win it.
Yes, Chelsea will probably be in the mix next year as they're buying their way in so it'll be a case of which billionaire wins it.
Competitive. Yaay.

Football does pre-date the late nineties you know. Back in the 60s and 70s you'd have a different clubs winning it most years, The year we won the Double in '71 Everton finished 14th. The previous season they'd been champions and we'd finished 12th. Surely it's better in a sport where at the start of a season you just don't know what's going to happen and there's always hope your team could do something - and that hope extends to fans of many clubs. There weren't these huge gaps between the haves and have nots.

Now it's down to 2 or 3 teams. More competitive than the late 90s and early noughties, maybe. Less competitive than at pretty much any time prior to that though.

Are you saying you didnt' enjoy the late nineties and early noughties when we were one of the two teams though? The problem here is the fact we're never one of the genuine competitors, we're always outside that group and never seemingly moving forward or even trying to.

Having a team you believe in, who have some steel about them and whom you feel can deliver on the biggest stage is hugely enjoyable (even if you don't win). When we had our best teams there were some huge highs and huge lows, but the reason we had those lows is because we were genuinely disappointed when we lost, now we expect it so the disappointment is minimal, certainly for me, when we lose it's disappointing but not to the extent it once was, I dont really think we have a hope of winning anything and thus when we fail I'm already prepared for this.

[Kano]

What a great 'achievement'.

it was by the players, definitely yes.

[fakeyank]

Board is at fault? Wenger is at fault? Blah blah blah.. we have been reading the same shit over n over again. In fact, I have typed the same shit over n over again.. so what on earth do we do about it? What is the solution? Sick of hearing what the freaking problem is tbh...

[fakeyank]

And you are Joey Barton's retarded brother.

Tbh, Barton at least 'seems' somewhat intelligent on twitter. Not something you can say about any of your posts.

[Tipsychubbs]

There's precisely nothing snobbish about being opposed to the degradation of traditional sport and the rise of commercialism posing as sport.

Football clubs are already a business, so the commercialism and sport factor is a dual one that goes hand in hand. After al we are paying for tickets to see our clubs, and paying a subscription fee/tv licence to watch/listen to them on tv and radio that goes into the running of the business of football. A grand don't come for free. Commercialism has been there ever since the clubs stopped being community clubs and started charging tickets.

Do Man U do their asian tours for the good of the game? Do Sky/UEFA pay all those tv rights to clubs merely for the good of the game? Arsenal are doing a match in Nigeria soon, again for the good of the game? Africa and especially Nigeria as its most populous county is one of the biggest and fastest growing fanbases in the world. Do Real Madrid signed Beckham without having an eye on the commercial revenue he would bring through shirt sales and exposure, likewise L.A. Galaxy? Wealth is being shared out, rights to broadcast sport are being paid for, and commercial opportunities are being exploited, this is nothing new, and it was happening before sugar daddies. Football clubs have had boards and shareholders for decades, people investing and then profiting from the clubs long before there were any sugar daddies (in the modern, bottomless pockets sense).

The "I'll believe it when I see it", statement is a further indication of complacency. Basically your argument is to let a few people decide how the game will develop and then accept their decision as inevitability. And to be quiet as it all unfolds. Fine, but why is it snobbery to refuse this silence?

There hasn't been any super league yet so you're simply projecting and worrying about something that hasn't happened and is unlikely to happen. Its a strawman argument that can't be used as an argument against the main point of sugar daddies. In fact, the idea was proposed by a lot of top clubs in various countries, it wasn't started by the sugar daddy clubs, and proposals have been rejected to far, so why are we even talking about it?

It's really odd all the various claims coming out from those who believe dumping as much money as it takes to achieve an objective constitutes sport in it's traditional sense. I hear I am a snob, bitter, jealous, a racist even. All I'm saying is, in my opinion, it's a bad place the game is heading and that's a shame in my eyes because it's a game I have grown up with and loved as far back as my memories go.

And where exactly is the game heading? There have always been rich clubs around, and now some are even richer? Can these even richer clubs with bottomless pockets buy every single player and render competition meaningless? Ask Montpellier.

You want me to place the victory of clubs run by the endlessly wealthy in the same context as the achievements of clubs who operated on at least a somewhat level playing field? I refuse, what of it?

On a personal level, obviously you don't have to love it or like it. But since it is official, it is in the record books, nothing illegal has happened then why all the fuss?

We could go to the authorities with a legal document highlighting the crimes against football that have been committed.

But we can't, because there haven't been any. Last time I checked, it is not illegal to be rich, and it is not illegal to have bottomless pockets against those other wealthy clubs who don't.

Unfair to the sport? The clubs that are sitting on their hands, not maximising their own resources and being the complacent ones will think so. Newcastle almost broke into the top four through wise acquisitions and good management. Montpellier have just won the league in a 3 team title race, and even Manchester United have been wildly successful, and they are wealthy but don't have bottomless pockets In fact the clubs who have sprung up with sugar daddies are increasing the competitiveness. If we buck our ideas up, we could have four teams challenging for the PL (but I'm not holding my breath on Arsenal, obviously).

If FFP is enforced in a tighter way or if wage/transfer caps are introduced then cool if the authorities want to change the rules in a financial sense if they want more parity as to the pay scale, but as I said until then, so far it simply looks as if a jealous, bitter contingent are rabble rousing in the name of a misguided, elitist and snobbish 'purity of the sport' angle. If football was so pure then people like Titus Bramble and Joey Barton would not be earning 10s of thousands of pounds a week, before you talk of sugar daddies.