OK I am clearly not going as far as saying that we have all fallen out of love with football however I do get the general feeling that the punter on the street doesn't have the same passion for football that they may have had in the past (whilst accepting that is something of a generalisation).

So my question is what five changes would make you fall back in love with football? It doesn't really need to be five, just sounded like a nice number!

Mine are

1. A change to ticket pricing, both in terms of a reduction in how much fans are charged for match day tickets and also doing away with the system where away fans are charged more than home fans.

2. Far far far stricter penalties for diving and feigning injury, irrespective of where it happens on the park.

3. Referees to have the bottle and the support to dish out cards for players harassing them, arguing with them etc etc

4. The FA to do away with these ridiculous rules about what you can and can't appeal. In fact for the Premiership do away with the appeal system in its entirety. Fourth official to watch the full 90 minutes straight after the game has finished and make a decision on any red cards awarded that shouldn't have been, or ones not awarded that should have been. Within two hours of the end of the game he issues a statement announcing any relevant punishments or removal of punishment. This shouldn't be for yellow cards, just red ones.

5. Match fixtures not to be so ridiculously spread out over Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Whilst I accept that television money is needed in the game I think it has gone too far when in a weekend you can have games kicking off on Saturday at 1230, 1500, 1715, then on the Sunday at 1230, 1500 and 1600 and the Monday at 2000.

Could come up with a lot more but these are probably the five biggies for me.

I can't think of 5, but I have one to improve saturdays and sunday.

Why don't Sky Sports scrap setanta and then give you a choice of every game that's on that day. There will be one big game obviously like Chelsea v Arsenal or whatever that will be shown on the channel, but press the Red Button and you get a choice of whatever game you want for £5 or something. And you can have deals for the season/half season and Sky Sports would make a hell of a lot of money out of it!

Too optimistic, or a decent idea?

All good points mate and would help,

I will add some strange ones

1: although I dont get to games anymore I'd say no more all seater stadiums and no stewards telling fans to sit down/be quiet, atmosphere is everything at a game.

2: Video evidence for the officials in the area, always check with fourth official on calls in the area or sending off offences, also a camera on the goal line.

3: player contracts to mean what they say, no two year buy out clause at a certain age a contract should mean no approaches from anybody unles there is less than say 6 months left to run.

I am not sure of how this could be applied in real life but the tapping up and the speculation makes it harder than ever to really take players to heart as you could back in the day.

4: no yellow cards for celebrating a goal, not that I need to see the players bare chests but it pleases my missus for some reason.

5: this is not a real one but just a thought....make it no points for a draw and goal average to only count on goals for, against only in the event of a Draw.

no more parking the Bus.

Edited November 29, 200816 yr by Chippy

Response to Rub Buh Juh

I an sure Sky would love to do that but it is the FA that wouldn't allow it. They don't allow live games at 3pm in a Saturday as they say it will have too much of a detrimental impact on crowd sizes at smaller games.

I agree with most, if not all, of the previous suggestions and here are mine.

1. More respect between clubs and their managers. I'm tired of hearing and reading about hate between fans and how they abuse eachother and even kill other supporters. Football should be about love for a game and respect, not about kicking the s*it out of someone else just because they like another team.

2. Less money. Honestly when you hear about a player being bought for about £80.000.000 or so it really is ridiculous. And players earning enough to buy a couple of Ferraris every week is just plain wrong. I'm not against players earning money, but there has to be a limit. Time to model football after NHL?

3. Give the refs the opportunity to review incidents. Too many games have been decided on mistakes by the refs. If they can do it in hockey, they can do it in football.

Darn, it's hard to think of two more. But here goes.

4. Show more reserve/youth games and lower the ticket prices on those games, perhaps let people watch the games for free. I like seeing the young guys play, but it really is sad to see a 40.000+ stadium and three people spread out.

5. More of Football Icon (was it called that?). Give unknown youngsters a chance to come to a big club.

BONUS: Encourage kids to play sports. Might get more talents that way and that would make football better. I think -_-

Safe terracing areas so blokes / young lads can stand with their mates and get some atmosphere back in today's bloody boring stadiums.

Every side to have at least 5 home grown players in the team.

Celing on players salaries. Maximum basic should be no more than say £35k a week. Anything extra has to come by way of win bonus's.

With lower player salaries, hopefully the knock-on effect would mean cheaper tickets.

A ban on Peter Kenyon.

Better prawn sandwiches

Faster pizza deliveries

The whole row to stand up without moaning when I leave 10 minutes before the end of the game

No one singing

Everyone sits down even when we score

Response to Rub Buh Juh

I an sure Sky would love to do that but it is the FA that wouldn't allow it. They don't allow live games at 3pm in a Saturday as they say it will have too much of a detrimental impact on crowd sizes at smaller games.

Ahh. That sucks. Makes sense though.

Block the gates, even if theres a fire you cannot leave until the final whistle goes.

Let me have a season ticket in the Shed End, I don't want one in the MH or West so don't make me select 3 places I would "like" to sit.

10 outta 10 (or 9 if we must) games played at 3pm Saturday for a level playing field. One game can be 4pm Sunday as long as it's not us.

--

If all that happened, I'd love it... the fact is I do love football and it hasn't dipped not even for a second.

Being able to go to a game on the spur of the moment, or at least a day or two in advance without having to apply weeks in advance.

Being able to sit/ stand with people you want to rather than some Japanese tourists who don't know anything about Chelsea and who won't ever join in the singing 'cos they don't know the songs.

Football being affordable again.

Better prawn sandwiches

Faster pizza deliveries

The whole row to stand up without moaning when I leave 10 minutes before the end of the game

No one singing

Everyone sits down even when we score

Nice list Geezer. I think entry to the stadium should be means-tested with only ABC1s allowed to enter.

I agree with all of Loz's points on the referreeing.

Some good ones already, especially getting rid of players being booked for celebrating a goal. A particular bugbear of mine.

1. I'd like to see the players lighten up a bit and enjoy their football, I don't want to watch players sulk, it winds me up as they're getting paid shedloads.

2. Following on from point one, when there is a bit of aggro, don't book/send off players for namby pamby handbags, case in point Drogba's slap on Vidic, it was laughable, fair enough if someone throws a punch or headbutting.

3. I'd quite like to be able to hear what the ref's are saying regarding decisions (like in rugby), it would force the officials to consider their decsions as everyone would know what the decision is for and hopefully lead to less debatable ones. Also not that I mind it that much, it could reduce the amount of verbals that the ref suffers, although I wouldn't hold my breath on that.

4. Less protection for Ronaldo.

5. Saint Stevie G retiring.

Edited November 29, 200816 yr by sweet waffle

The "double jeopardy" rule. If you get carded for injuring someone, and they are clearly faking, then when they get up you can half them for the injury you got penalized for

The "double jeopardy" rule. If you get carded for injuring someone, and they are clearly faking, then when they get up you can half them for the injury you got penalized for

Excellent :)

1. Changing my residence

2. Stop discriminating foreign players, Sepp!

3. Chelsea stop to be forced to fight against the FA, the referees and similar muppets

4. Kick out every girlies. Stop Steffi!

5. Sack all commentators please

Edited November 30, 200816 yr by Kerry

1. Bring back Football Specials

2. Stop changing the kit

3. Get rid of Sky Sports

4. Numbers 1 to 11 and no squad no's

5. Man Utd being sh*t getting relagated and having no fans again.

oh and 5.1 make 99.9 percent of all games kick off at 3pm on a Saturday

Bring back the celery.

mine:

1) I think putting a cap on salaries is impossible given that leagues in Europe compete with each other for players/fans etc. So index player salaries to a certain percentage of total revenues for all professional English clubs *in the English competitions and only English competitions*, hierarchized according to which league they are competing in. I don't have the know-how to say exactly how this would be done (would player salaries fluctuate each year?, or determined by the year of entry); but I'm sure it could be worked out. I think this would deliver several good results. It would level the field within the league without diminishing the competitiveness of the league as a whole (that is, as against leagues in other countries). It would ensure that clubs would have a lot less chance of going into debt. It means that any extra resources coming to clubs from CL and other sources would have to either go towards developing youth players and club infrastructure (likely) or reducing ticket prices (unlikely). Pretty good idea, no?

AND...

2) less games in both PL and CL, and have a mid-season break

3) scrap the Carling Cup

4) Scrap pre-season intl tours

5) Cap number of French players ?

Edited December 1, 200816 yr by heckel

1 ~ chelsea play all there games away.

2 ~ John terry starts acting and playing like the old john terry.

3 ~ Petrescu, Zola, Wise, Di Matteo, Newton, Minto, Vialli and Hughes all come back as coaches.

4 ~ Malouda, Drogba and Mikel get dropped in the ocean.

5 ~ Ger 'National Traitor' rard and Ronaldo's sex tape is leaked to the press.

1. Chelsea winning a penatly shoot out

The only thing i'd change is getting, Peter Kenyon replaced with someone who, eats, sleeps, breaths and understands Chelsea Football club, the fans and what we want

1 Terraces

2 Terraces

3 Terraces

4 Terraces

5 Abolish corporate area's and replace with Terraces

Gobsmacked that I missed terraces of my list. That should be number one on everyone's list (except Mick who wouldn't see anything)