On 01/03/2025 at 16:58, Scott Harris said:

It really irritates me that Americans, who have done nothing but ridicule this sport since before I was born, have come into it, decided to buy a ton of football clubs, and are now telling us that the way we have been doing things is wrong and we need to listen to what they do with their sports. Yeah, the most popular league, in the most popular sport on the planet, should listen to American billionaires, it's not like we haven't been doing perfectly fine without them.

Half of the Premier League and Championship is owned by Americans who are looking to change so much about the game, and I all I can say to that is "who the hell do you think you are?"

Not the best time of our lives to have appreciation towards Americans I guess...after that showdown at WH.

Anyway I watch the NHL and in terms of league and how well it is setup is much more balanced and well executed than the Premier League for example. This again is just my humble opinion. I am not a match going fan as many are here.

We have massive parity between clubs that results in 1-3 clubs fighting for the title. We have massive differences on how clubs operate on financial level. Many aspects of the league are a kin to a jungle and again favours the rich. Poaching young players to name one. This is why we have clubs that sell players to bigger clubs like Brighton.

Maybe the American model would kill something from the game that I can't predict but I don't see it. Ticket prices going up to kill the game for local people is a big threat and a problem naturally. But on the playing field it is much more healthy system.

On 02/03/2025 at 11:10, El regreso said:

They can Foxtrot Oscar !!!

Bring back Marina and Michael these two couldn’t wipe the mud off their shoes

I dont know how Emma Hayes managed without these two supporting and assisting her, must have been difficult. Mind you i bet she learnt a lot from them in the short time they all worked together. She probably thanks her lucky stars that she worked with the two geniuses. 😐

11 hours ago, evissy said:

Not the best time of our lives to have appreciation towards Americans I guess...after that showdown at WH.

Anyway I watch the NHL and in terms of league and how well it is setup is much more balanced and well executed than the Premier League for example. This again is just my humble opinion. I am not a match going fan as many are here.

We have massive parity between clubs that results in 1-3 clubs fighting for the title. We have massive differences on how clubs operate on financial level. Many aspects of the league are a kin to a jungle and again favours the rich. Poaching young players to name one. This is why we have clubs that sell players to bigger clubs like Brighton.

Maybe the American model would kill something from the game that I can't predict but I don't see it. Ticket prices going up to kill the game for local people is a big threat and a problem naturally. But on the playing field it is much more healthy system.

The salary cap, and an excellent draft system, help increase the competitiveness of the league. Despite all these measures, realistically there are still only 4-5 clubs challenging for, let alone winning, the Stanley Cup. And in other American sports like the NBA and MLB, there are only 2 or 3 realistic contenders. American sports look equitable from the outside but they are also experiencing a parity crisis.

The reason why American sports are so financially successful is that they are saturated with monetization at the expense of fan experience, and that's what people really, really don't want for football.

15 hours ago, RMH said:

But, doesn't the PL belong to UEFA? I mean, if the PL decided to follow FIFA rules and not accommodate to the rules in the continent, couldn't that put at risk their participation in the European competitions such as Champions League, Europa League or even the participation of England, Wales, Scotland and NI in the Euro?

UEFA are subject to FIFA, so UEFA is bound by whatever FIFA decides. Not all UEFA members are in the EU (UK, Russia, Norway, Turkey and Switzerland being the main ones) so this rule change will not apply to them and so FIFA either has to make one rule for the whole football world, or have a two-tier system for EU and non-EU clubs.

The ESL case will decide whether UEFA is able to place restrictions/suspensions on leagues or clubs that follow other administrations or rulesets, so that even if UEFA decided to break away from FIFA, it may not be able to penalise PL clubs for joining another competition.

Edited March 4, 20251 yr by SydneyChelsea

11 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

The salary cap, and an excellent draft system, help increase the competitiveness of the league. Despite all these measures, realistically there are still only 4-5 clubs challenging for, let alone winning, the Stanley Cup. And in other American sports like the NBA and MLB, there are only 2 or 3 realistic contenders. American sports look equitable from the outside but they are also experiencing a parity crisis.

The reason why American sports are so financially successful is that they are saturated with monetization at the expense of fan experience, and that's what people really, really don't want for football.

I am not saying this is good for European football or EPL but we will see things implemented from America to Europe due to guys like Boehly whose Dodgers btw won the world series 2024.

I am saying the parity between Southampton and Liverpool is massive. Liverpool buys top class peak age players and their revenue streams are on a different level.

In NHL for example the draft system makes sure every team needs to rebuild and the lower teams gain by getting the better rookie. Penguins won with Crosby but now facing a total rebuild of the team. Florida who won the Stanley Cup for the first time was in that rebuild almost 10 years ago.

What sets the teams apart is the location of the team which is not on a level surface. In Canada the arenas are full even if the team is not doing well. In places like Florida they need to do well to fill the arena.

The owner base, buying youth and everything connected to it in football are a jungle compared to American sport models. They are not talking about human rights there with Saudi owners involved or teams losing their best youth because of Todd Boehly and Chelsea for example.

There it is more about skill, brains, hard work and less about money in terms of the sport itself which is a total mind f**k considering America is the capitalistic hub of the world.

1 hour ago, evissy said:

I am not saying this is good for European football or EPL but we will see things implemented from America to Europe due to guys like Boehly whose Dodgers btw won the world series 2024.

Okay, going to stop you right there – “world series” – all the teams are American and there is a team from Canada? So “world” is a bit of a stretch.

 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, evissy said:

There it is more about skill, brains, hard work and less about money in terms of the sport itself which is a total mind f**k considering America is the capitalistic hub of the world.

But there is no relegation in the US leagues and it is all about guaranteed income.

It's the World series, because it was a trophy given by "The World" newspaper. A bit like the Carabao cup.

1 hour ago, Ajbod said:

It's the World series, because it was a trophy given by "The World" newspaper. A bit like the Carabao cup.

Carabaos are a genetically distinct population of swamp-type water buffaloes from the Philippines.

6 hours ago, TheCeleryKing said:

Okay, going to stop you right there – “world series” – all the teams are American and there is a team from Canada? So “world” is a bit of a stretch.

 

 

 

 

 

they used to do this with indycar, they had one race elsewhere, maybe australia and called it a world series. It was and still is amateurish compared to F1

Club apparently has £1.5bn net debt

38 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Club apparently has £1.5bn net debt

Incredible work, it took the new owners 3 years to rack up the same amount of debt as Abramovich did in 20

"“We thought Chelsea [was] frankly an asset, a business that was not terribly well managed on the football side, sporting side or promotional side" - Behdad Eghbali

2 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Club apparently has £1.5bn net debt

Yup.

Myself, and others, have mentioned this. So have Johnny Minerals and Younes talks football.

500 mill from aeris management at an interest rate of 12.96%, due to be repaid in 2033 when it will be worth closer to 1.5bill

702mill from a consortium of US banks, due to be repaid in a few years at a rate of 8%.

But hey at least we have a new stadium....err....a world class....err.

Several trophies....err.

Remember When some of us stated our fears this lot were going to be worse than the glazers? And many on here laughed us to scorn?

United debit with glazers not yet 900mill after how many years? Yet Blue Co have almost doubled that in just 3 years?

That Aeris debt will be worth more than all the glazers have put on United on its own!

45 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

500 mill from aeris management at an interest rate of 12.96%, due to be repaid in 2033 when it will be worth closer to 1.5bill

Where are they getting this from, though?

The Ares deal was reported in the Financial Times as a preferred equity stake in BlueCo, essentially a cash injection for stadium and multi-club projects. It isn't a loan, in the traditional sense. Ares have the same arrangement with Atletico Madrid's holding company.

At least the league did their checks on the owners and made sure they were fit to run a club! What do these checks entail by the way? Is it just whether we like the nationality or not?

Arkadiy Abramovich, Roman’s son is a billionaire. A Chelsea fan, with a Lithuanian passport. Now he is 31 years I wonder if he would like to run a football club? Maybe he could buy the club for a pound?

11 hours ago, axman2526 said:

United debit with glazers not yet 900mill after how many years? Yet Blue Co have almost doubled that in just 3 years?

That Aeris debt will be worth more than all the glazers have put on United on its own!

The Glazers are truly despicable however - that family takes money out of the club for themselves lol

1 hour ago, TheCeleryKing said:

The Glazers are truly despicable however - that family takes money out of the club for themselves lol

They do indeed. Just like having a "chairman" get paid 20mill a year for just having the title.

35 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

They do indeed. Just like having a "chairman" get paid 20mill a year for just having the title.

I think a Glazer daughter took a bundle of cash out as wedding gift on one occasion.

I do not think that our situation is as bad as the one United find themselves in. Though it is not great.

1 hour ago, TheCeleryKing said:

I think a Glazer daughter took a bundle of cash out as wedding gift on one occasion.

I do not think that our situation is as bad as the one United find themselves in. Though it is not great.

Give it time.

Edited March 5, 20251 yr by axman2526

https://x.com/Blue_Footy/status/1897306309831295350?t=TaxIGlpqOV_hJANpfhmt2g&s=19

Something positive about the recruitment model and praise to the directors.

On the contrary City sold their brightest talent to us for 45m. Who is also a triumph to the directors.

3 hours ago, TheCeleryKing said:

I think a Glazer daughter took a bundle of cash out as wedding gift on one occasion.

I do not think that our situation is as bad as the one United find themselves in. Though it is not great.

When it comes to damage control and pr, our owners are very similar to the Glazers. Outside of that though, they're very different. It doesn't get worse than the Glazer family.

6 hours ago, evissy said:

https://x.com/Blue_Footy/status/1897306309831295350?t=TaxIGlpqOV_hJANpfhmt2g&s=19

Something positive about the recruitment model and praise to the directors.

On the contrary City sold their brightest talent to us for 45m. Who is also a triumph to the directors.

Why should we praise the directors for signing the most obvious option in South America? Estevao wasn't even their first choice, it is well-documented we 'settled' for him because we missed out Endrick (their first choice) and Claudio Echeverri. It's not like we got him for cheap either, he will cost at least 34m and reach well over 50m in bonuses (hopefully).

Don't get me wrong, he is an excellent signing and we are very lucky to have got him, but there's no need to go overboard.

6 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Give it time.

It is not even close. We took out a loan against our assets, and have to re-pay that to the bank.

The Glazers took a loan out against Manchester United's assets, and the repayments go directly to them.

On 04/03/2025 at 21:56, evissy said:

I am not saying this is good for European football or EPL but we will see things implemented from America to Europe due to guys like Boehly whose Dodgers btw won the world series 2024.

I am saying the parity between Southampton and Liverpool is massive. Liverpool buys top class peak age players and their revenue streams are on a different level.

In NHL for example the draft system makes sure every team needs to rebuild and the lower teams gain by getting the better rookie. Penguins won with Crosby but now facing a total rebuild of the team. Florida who won the Stanley Cup for the first time was in that rebuild almost 10 years ago.

What sets the teams apart is the location of the team which is not on a level surface. In Canada the arenas are full even if the team is not doing well. In places like Florida they need to do well to fill the arena.

The owner base, buying youth and everything connected to it in football are a jungle compared to American sport models. They are not talking about human rights there with Saudi owners involved or teams losing their best youth because of Todd Boehly and Chelsea for example.

That is true for the NHL, which is the second most equitable sport (the first is MLS) in North America. The NHL is a special case though because it has the full power of American and Canadian markets which means it can be profitable and equitable.

This isn't necessarily true in NBA/NFL/MLB though, there are still only 3-4 teams realistically competing for the trophy and that too in a knockout format, which is inherently more unpredictable. You look at the regular season and it's the same teams that dominate the competition year in year out - the Dodgers have won their conference almost every year since 2017, and it's not even close. On closer look, parity is actually quite similar to the EPL.

There it is more about skill, brains, hard work and less about money in terms of the sport itself which is a total mind f**k considering America is the capitalistic hub of the world.

That's the grand irony of American sport - for all its obsession with profiteering and capitalism, the reason for its success is essentially player unionism and European-style socialism.

Edited March 5, 20251 yr by SydneyChelsea