39th Game Abroad

[Steve Hunt]

Back on the agenda: http://api.viglink.com/api/click?format ... aised.html

[Sadact7]

I feared this would rear it's ugly head again when this happened during pre-season:



Manchester United vs Real Madrid in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Attendance 109,000.

Obviously you wouldn't get that sort of attendance for Sunderland vs QPR in the States but I knew there was no way the greedy pigs with their snouts firmly in the Premier League trough could fail to notice that game and not have the pound/dollar/yen signs flashing in the porcine slots they call eyes.

[Thursty]

Interesting. Biggest ever attendance at a Liverpool game was here last year, huge Chinese fanbase.

[Reg]

Interesting. Biggest ever attendance at a Liverpool game was here last year, huge Chinese fanbase.

The expression on the face of the lone Victory fan @ 6.05 is priceless. Like Sadact only more in sorrow than anger.

phpBB [video]

[Sadact7]

Says it all about that disgusting, mawkish fucking dirge

[Petingo]

I am not surprised thus 39th game nonsense is back on the agenda.

If there is one thing I have learned about administrators in any walk of life it is that they never take "No" for an answer and every cock eyed idea they come up with is never jettisoned, no matter how ludicrous or unpopular, merely tucked away and brought out on another day

This bollox was stopped in its tracks by the reaction of the fans in this country the last time it reared its ugly head.

Let's hope it is met with the same resistance this time.

The other thing that concerns me in that article, because this does appear inevitable at some stage, is this "winter break" business.

We are now in the midst of yet another international break and it is fucking boring...imagine it happening in mid January.

The one redeeming feature of the bleak midwinter is the football.....it lifts the gloom of it all.

For me anyway.

Natural breaks occur in winter.....a team eliminated from the F.A. Cup in the third round for example will have at least two free weekends and maybe even more if they are scheduled to play one of the 6th Round or semi final teams.

Then there is the possibility of a match or two being postponed due to the weather.

You could then face the possibility of your team going out the Cup in January......the next league game being postponed.... two week shutdown for the winter break.....another round of Cup matches in which your team isn't involved.

You could be going for six weeks or more from the start of January to the end of February without your club having a game.

Then after they do start again, an international break is foisted upon us.

They keep telling us football is "part of the entertainment" industry.

I cannot think of any other branch of the "entertainment" industry which expects its "customers" to dance to its tune rather than build its "brand" round the wishes and desires of the people without whom it couldn't exist.

And all this without the looming chaos to the football calendar due to Qatar buying the World Cup off've the most corrupt administrative sports governing body of them all.

[Reg]

As far as I understand it, they have ditched the 39th game - this proposal is for one of the usual 38 league fixtures to be played abroad.

Which still raises the same problem of unfairness, of course.

[Petingo]

As far as I understand it, they have ditched the 39th game - this proposal is for one of the usual 38 league fixtures to be played abroad.

Which still raises the same problem of unfairness, of course.

What that would mean is that a club, say Stoke City playing at home to United for example, would lose home advantage to all intents and purposes.

The stadium in New York would be full of a United fans.

It would have even less Stoke fans than there would be at an away trip to OT.

This would in turn hand United an advantage if they were locked in a battle for the Title or a CL place with several other teams.....it gives United an extra home game.

Stoke won't care, of course, as they get to keep the gate receipts and their share of the TV revenue.

Unless of course they are in a relegation struggle and need every point they can muster......giving away home advantage won't seem so clever then, will it?

Sod them....Stoke deserve to be relegated if the support this crap.

[henrycrs]

What a load of bollocks. Footballs well and truly fucked, with money the no 1 objective of all the clubs. It's no longer about the fans

[Reg]

If clubs like Liverpool and United played an away fixture as their foreign game it would be ridiculous. It would be even better than a normal home game for them, as the crowd would be 99.9 percent their own fans.

I doubt Palace would have drawn the 3-3 home game against Liverpool last season without the crowd getting behind us - it definitely put pressure on Liverpool as well as lifting the home side.

[Sadact7]

If clubs like Liverpool and United played an away fixture as their foreign game it would be ridiculous. It would be even better than a normal home game for them, as the crowd would be 99.9 percent their own fans.

No, the crowd would be 99.9% people wearing official club merchandise

[Reg]

If clubs like Liverpool and United played an away fixture as their foreign game it would be ridiculous. It would be even better than a normal home game for them, as the crowd would be 99.9 percent their own fans.

No, the crowd would be 99.9% people wearing official club merchandise

[Sadact7]

If clubs like Liverpool and United played an away fixture as their foreign game it would be ridiculous. It would be even better than a normal home game for them, as the crowd would be 99.9 percent their own fans.

No, the crowd would be 99.9% people wearing official club merchandise

Wansum? Bald Reg, infuriating the masses as per

[Reg]

Bald?

[Sadact7]

Your alter-ego

[Reg]

Outside. Now!

[Sadact7]

Who's that monochramatic blob of cock snot?

[Reg]

My next avatar.

http://www.talkforum.co.uk/viewtopic.ph ... start=1155

[Sadact7]

I resent that...

[Reg]

Take it as a compliment.

[Sadact7]

[shabbado]

Palace vs Burnley at the MCG

It'll sell like hotcakes.

Premier League no doubt looking at the success of the NFL games at Wembley and thinking they fancy some of that.

Be in no doubt that this will only take place if Sky are in agreement.

[Reg]

Palace vs Burnley at the MCG

It'll sell like hotcakes.

Reported for goading.

[Thursty]

Interesting. Biggest ever attendance at a Liverpool game was here last year, huge Chinese fanbase.

The expression on the face of the lone Victory fan @ 6.05 is priceless. Like Sadact only more in sorrow than anger.

phpBB [video]

Thinking about it, now we have a City franchise team here, perhaps this has legs?

[tennisman]

Outside. Now!

Raymond Glendinning, I reckon.

For all we argue about the clubs not being bothered about the fans anymore, that's not strictly true; they are but increasingly, it's the overseas fans taking gradual priority over the domestic ones.

I think it's the ultimate irony that the huge interest our football has created overseas through the 20th century has now been tapped into by the PL TV rights model, a supporting trend has been created where new overseas fans piggy-back onto the existing ones and create a massive pool of people and this has lead to vast revenue injections which have quite casued such massive impact in shifting and re-shaping the original offering.

In the business culture of the modern game, that pool or market is too big and impossible to ignore.

What's the answer to the question, 'Who are our football clubs for?'.

In the past, the answer would have been things like, the town, or the local people / fans. But there has never been a strict criteria for who can support any given team, and now, instead of a few people from outside any particular town or city supporting a team because they saw them in the Cup Final when they were a kid or their dad supported them and moved away etc etc, there are thousands, if not for the big clubs, hundreds of thousands supporting them from afar.

Much though many domestic fans, won't like it, the administrators of the clubs and league would argue that they are giving the overseas fans a chance to see their team.

I think this should be done on tours etc but the NFL's games at Wembley may well have provided the hard example that such a practice can happen and the clubs back home survive while the marketeers sit back happy that they are 'taking the league to the fans'.

I think taking a team away from it's home stadium for a 'home' game abroad is screwing with the intrinsic product and is bad marketing, not good.

But what do I know?