Look man I am not trying to ruin MJ's thread but fans, provided they don't have deep seated hate for a club already, like to see galacticos. They want to watch teams like the invincibles, real a la beckham and zizou, and modern barca where they can see the best play together. Those kinds of teams, with a slight exception of arsenal who got henry for like 11 million, don't come together without a lot of cash. People want to act like spending money is anti-football, but the truth is that no one is going to remember who finished fourth in the league no matter how fiscally responsible they were. Now if a team wins a championship on a budget then they deserve a lot of credit, but we know that that doesn't happen.

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Posted by xavierTIGER

Black Pearl

Member since Jan 2007

2203 posts

Posted on 11/18/11 at 5:39 pm to puffulufogous

I kind of figured he started a new thread about this (instead of posting it on the City thread) to spark a debate on the evils of excessive spending...if not, he can come in and politely tell us to shut the frick up and I'll happily oblige.

When I said that the game suffers, I wasn't referring solely to the creation of superpowers. It's a given that some clubs are going to be larger, generally more successful over time. I don't think what United, Barca, Real, even Chelsea, and perhaps one or two of the German or Italian clubs have done with spending is good for the game as a whole. I think it's a little presumptuous to say that all fans want to see superpowers collect all of the talent and destroy the rest of the competition. But, perhaps even worse, as the article points out, by spending so much these clubs drive up the costs for players and price mid and small clubs out of the market thereby increasing the gulf between the top several clubs in the world and everyone else. Of course I like watching City toy with the competition and then score with one of their half dozen world class strikers...but not at the expense of parity.

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Posted by crazy4lsu

Member since May 2005

36537 posts

Posted on 11/18/11 at 11:14 pm to puffulufogous

quote:
provided they don't have deep seated hate for a club already, like to see galacticos

What you mean to say is that these types of teams attract more attention they wouldn't otherwise get. These teams will sell shirts, make fans of impressionable kids, but don't pretend like it's universal. I can guarantee that most people didn't like it, and complained about Real's spending this last decade like they complain about Man City's spending this decade.

quote:
They want to watch teams like the invincibles

The Invicibles cost about £100 mil spread out over 7 years. Man City's forward line costs about £105 mil spread over 3. There isn't a comparison.

quote:
Those kinds of teams don't come together without a lot of cash.

While I agree in general, the most successful of the modern teams have been teams with great managers and extremely strong youth systems that were augmented by world-class players. Chelsea and Man City have been thrown together with very little help from their youth systems and a lot of cash thrown around. It's worked, but it isn't a sustainable model, even for the biggest clubs in the world.

And that's the point that City fans, and Chelsea fans before them miss. It's not a sustainable model for the sport as a whole to have an owner who doesn't care if he loses money. I don't see what is so controversial about stating that.

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