2012/13 Soccer Thread

Terry case started. He had all the time in the world to flex his brain muscle and come up with a plausible lie, so of course he goes with "IT WAS JUST A REPORTED SPEECH". As in "In response to your query, no, I did not call you a f*cking black {sexist slur}".

“@DavidGubala: #Adidas to become the new kit supplier of #Arsenal Football Club as early as 2013/14.”

Were soon coming to the point where Arsenal will be free of all of its stadium related deals.

I'm not sure exactly when the Emirates deal runs out but it is a fraction of what other clubs are getting for their shirt deals now.

Just so long as you ain't expecting anything like City's with Etihad.

Found a fun article.

Surprised Ronaldo missed out as a selection.

My three favorites:

IMAGE(http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/10outof10dive3bf8pu2ug3be9qw3x.gif?w=276&h=208)

IMAGE(http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/1240308743_soccer-wtf.gif?w=272&h=217)

And finally the **** that I am sure even some Barcelona diehards are sometimes disgusted by (like I used to be with Ronaldo... though he makes Busquets look like the hulk).
IMAGE(http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/soccer_peekaboo.gif?w=404&h=241)

This is by far my favorite:

IMAGE(http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/soccer_doubledive.gif?w=324&h=244)

You say bad dive, I think http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8o...

That Gamst Pedersen one made Steven Segal look like Sir Laurence Olivier. His game has really deteriorated in the last few years, though I guess having BFS then Steve Kean is not going to bring the best out of you, unless you are a skill-less clogger.

I must admit, though, that I find Busquets particularly odious. He gets away with loads of snide little niggling fouls because referees are seemingly unable to believe that anyone wearing the sacred blaugrana could have perpetrated such crimes. Can dish it out but goes down like he's been shot with a bazooka if you were to brush up against him - I could imagine brushing past him on may way to the bar and him hitting the deck as in Pikey's video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_KgV...

Some old school diving accusations for you - at about 36 seconds in. Do watch the full thing though, it's a classic early 70's derby.

(Apologies for the link, but I can never seem to be able to embed Youtube properly).

YT embeds don't work if there are underscores involved.

Re: Busquets. Pepe drives me mad in similar way. He's one of those supposed tough guys who you can't really tackle without him spending half and hour wallowing in the grass, trying to earn opponent a yellow. He did that a bit in Euro semis, if memory serves me right.

UCRC wrote:

YT embeds don't work if there are underscores involved.

Re: Busquets. Pepe drives me mad in similar way. He's one of those supposed tough guys who you can't really tackle without him spending half and hour wallowing in the grass, trying to earn opponent a yellow. He did that a bit in Euro semis, if memory serves me right.

its the patented Pepe move. He gets into the better position on a free ball, boxes off the attacking player and waits for them to ride into his back for the Pepe flop automatic foul.

and I love it.

To be fair it usually is a foul he just goes the extra mile to force the ref into calling it.

For me the worst is obviously the 0 contact swan dives, face grabbing 'I'm dying so you have to stop play'. I have no idea how its 2012 and there hasn't been a league that retro suspends/fines guys like Rivaldo 2002 WC with video proof.

Pepe is another arsehole - kicking seven bells out of a player who was facedown on the ground, real classy. The guy is a gutless chump.

Talking of getting things you don't deserve...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/footbal...

And there was only 2 of them involved. And Blatter didn't know about it.

Yeahhhhh, right.

Anyone else spot the discrepancy between this

"The decision of the Swiss Federal Court also confirms that only two foreign officials will be named as part of the process and that the Fifa president is not involved in the case."

and this

The documents concerning Havelange also revealed that officials repaid 5.5m Swiss francs (£3.6m) to end the prosecution office's investigation on condition their identities remain secret.

The Swiss court seems awfully keen to stress that only 'foreigners' were involved...but who's names were covered up ?

How have you all forgotten my all-time favorite?

It's the attempt to sell it with the flailing hands that makes it Oscar-worthy.

Hey, I remember that Gilardino dive. It's from round of 16 CL phase circa 2007 when Celtic somehow held Milan until extra time. Boruc gave MOM match performance but they still lost thanks to a nice Kaka goal in ET.

Fortunately, I believe that's the last game invloving Scottish team that I've seen

Christ, I've been to a Scottish Cup game more recently than that.

Pollok FC vs Montrose, to save you guessing

More bribes bullsh*t from Blatter..

On Fifa's website, Blatter says he knew about the payments but that they were legal at the time.
He said: "Back then, such payments could even be deducted from tax as a business expense. Today, that would be punishable under law.
"You can't judge the past on the basis of today's standards. Otherwise it would end up with moral justice. I can't have known about an offence that wasn't even one."

In that case, why did the Swiss prosecutor get involved, and why did FIFA make the two Brazilian crooks give the money back ?

And was receiving large payments from partners for unspecified 'services' really not against FIFA's own regulations in 2001 ? REALLY ??

Actually, I'm guessing it probably was, as threatening to expose these sort of antics was what cost Blatter's ex deputy Michael Zen-Ruffinen his job. Bit too honest for an organisation whose practices make the Mafia look transparent and honourable.

FFP, dead in the water.

Paris St-Germain (from FRANCE) have today agreed to buy both Thiago Silva and Ibra from Milan for a combined €69m. Let us look at the facts for a moment (God, I had a Rafa flashback then...)

- They have already spent €26m this summer on Lavezzi from Napoli.
- Their net transfer expenditure last season was €96m (City's was €65m)
- They haven't sold anyone this summer, so their wage bill will be last seasons PLUS the three new bods - let's say €25m all in.
- Next year City will get about €64m from TV, I doubt the Ligue 1 deal is a quarter the size. Plus there's an even bigger Prem pot from 2013/14 onwards.
- Their average attendance is only 42,000.

They've got about as much chance as meeting FFP as Chelsea, ie none. It is interesting to note though that GG's rhetoric about the consequences of failing to meet his ludicrous conditions have been scaled back from the original expulsion from European competition - last time he mentioned anything about it, he was mentioning 'fines'.

Can't wait to see how this one works.

On another note, I think PSG were in pot 4 of the CL groupings. I wouldn't fancy drawing them with that sort of team (but then I wouldn't have been that upset if City had done €40m plus Tevez for them two).

davet010 wrote:

PSG and FFP

yikes.

The crazy rich spending owner in the Prem always made some sense to me because at the very least they had the Prem TV deal to fall back on.

But using the same logic I guess the crazy rich spending owner in Lique 1 can always count on falling back on CL money. Its not really that much of a stretch to assume that PSG will be qualifying for the CL for a very long time. All these teams go through the same cycle.

1. Get a rich owner
2. No history? not the best league? not the best weather? etc No worries, start throwing money around.
3. Don't blink when the transfer busts start piling up and keep throwing money around. Some of these guys must be good.
4. Keep throwing money around. If you haven't already get a world class manager.
5. Come out the otherside with a championship and a solid team finally in place. Forget about all the money spent between 2 and 4.

as for FFP. f*ck it. I was never for trying to restrict the money coming in. If gazzilion aires have so much money that they want a toy let them. Its probably the only trickle down economics that might actually work for the rest of us

jowner wrote:

as for FFP. f*ck it. I was never for trying to restrict the money coming in. If gazzilion aires have so much money that they want a toy let them. Its probably the only trickle down economics that might actually work for the rest of us :D

Agreed. Financial Fair Play is all about allowing the big clubs to maintain their position rather than the financial health of the football clubs. If protecting clubs from obliterating themselves was important it makes a lot more sense to put limits on debts football clubs can accumulate and let the owners pump in as much money as equity as they want.

Speaking of clubs obliterating themselves, following what's going on with Rangers in Scotland has been interesting. Scottish Premier League clubs barred the new company from entering the league straight away, they now have to get good with the Scottish Football League to get right into the first-division of that (2nd-tier of Scottish football I believe). Knowing me I could have every single fact wrong.

Jowner - your points 1-5 also apply to teams who aren't of this ilk. You could easily apply them to Man U and Liverpool, for example, with the exception of no 4 and 5 for Liverpool.

And Roke, you are pretty much spot on with Rangers. As I've been posting for a few weeks, there is a groundswell of feeling that Rangers haven't been punished enough, and that they won't be granted entry into tier 2, but will have to start at tier 4 (Division 3). Now there are a lot of Rangers fans (and the manager) who think this won't necessarily be a bad thing, given that they have lost almost all of their first team players, but it does seem like a recipe for carnage. The bulk of teams down there are small village teams where attendances are around 200 - and Rangers have a travelling support that numbers in the thousands. Drunken rabble, mostly, but there you go.

Now there are all sorts of reorganisational proposals being floated (a 16 team SPL, for example), but I think Rangers will end up in tier 4 and a couple of SPL teams will go into administration this season.

I cannot avoid the sensation that, at some point in the near future, football's going to have a crash similar to the one that kicked off the global recession. It just seems like, at every turn, it becomes more and more clear that the current business models simply Are. Not. Sustainable.

Why not ? These clubs are not taking on masses of debt to buy players, as teams have in the past (Leeds, for example). Football has always run like this, just on a smaller scale.

The parallel between global economy and football is flawed. Threre is no co-dependency between participators in football economy to the extent where one club going under would pull anyone after them. If Roman Abramovich decides he's bored with his old toys, we'll see small correction on prices of Eden Hazards, but that's all.

This bubble will get bigger as long as there are crooks wealthy men interested in buying clubs and willing to take losses. For the bubble to burst, it would take most of them to withdraw at the same time. And whereas in real economy we can see dependency of, say, French growth on Italy staying solvent, in sugar daddy economics no such links exist.

However, I think that we will see curtailment of some sort in the future, instead of the crash. At some point football can become expensive even to people with seemingly unlimited wealth at their disposal. New potential sugar daddies will be dettered from investing because market is already crowded -- try imagining someone trying to get into European football with aim of outspending City and PSG. That would require some serious ordnance. In one way or another we're bound to see investors get more cautious and pool of money get smaller. No problem, prices will adjust.

Arsenal's new away kit. Boy, it's horrid.

IMAGE(http://images.eurogamer.net/2012/articles//a/1/4/9/8/7/8/9/newarsenalawayshirt2012.jpg.jpg/EG11/resize/300x-1)

I'm not sure UCRC, it depends what the various governing bodies do when 4+ teams enter administration at the same time. Especially if 2 or 3 of them are some of the "big" clubs in the country.

Of course if Dave's prediction is correct, Scotland will be a nice test bed.

davet010 wrote:

Jowner - your points 1-5 also apply to teams who aren't of this ilk. You could easily apply them to Man U and Liverpool, for example, with the exception of no 4 and 5 for Liverpool.

My point more is that when these teams are purchased that the squads are so thin or poor that you have almost have to buy an entire first 11. So it really doesn't surprise me in the first couple of years where the money is just insane. Also some of the money is being spent just to prove that they are serious about their ambition.

City signed Robinho to put down a marker of how serious they were. PSG convincing Zlatan to come to the French Lique is their equivalent surprise 'look at us were serious' signing.

Also not sure if 1-2 apply to United as the Glazers have hardly been a rich sugar daddy owner. If anything United have been spending less then they potentially could because of them.

Prederick wrote:

I cannot avoid the sensation that, at some point in the near future, football's going to have a crash similar to the one that kicked off the global recession. It just seems like, at every turn, it becomes more and more clear that the current business models simply Are. Not. Sustainable.

UCRC is right but theres one thing that will make everyone dependable on each other that is dangerous. Building in crazy transfer fees into your expected revenue. Some liques and clubs already know that they are feeder teams to the larger leagues. For example its pretty clear Porto operates on flipping talent to the bigger teams. So far I'm assuming they keep the budget fairly under control because 1-2 dry years of not flipping their stars especially at silly prices would mean disaster if they spend like thats just expected money.

I'll try not to go on a rant now about on the other hand Arsenal is acting like a feeder club while also being rich. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop with them and that the books were cooked and they actually don't have a penny left.

But the Glazers have allowed SAF to spend at least £60m in each of the last few years, not all of whom have been successful by any means. What they haven't done is paid £30m for older, established players - I'm thinking the last one was Berbatov. Whether this is because Ferguson is trying to alter the club, or because they aren't paying the sort of wages that these players would want, is the question.

I don't think that clubs like Porto just rely on a conveyor belt of selling talent - they regularly get to the knockout stages of the CL, which shoves a fair chunk of change into their pockets.

As for Arsenal, I'm not sure where they are going. They aren't exactly selling 'home-grown' talent (the last player they sold who actually came through the ranks at Arsenal was Ashley Cole), they are essentially selling players who have developed their skills there. And it isn't like they aren't spending money - they've already spent more this summer than they will generate from selling RvP, if that does go ahead. What they are doing is buying a fair number of what might be considered 'good' players, who aren't going to require smashing the wage structure, but won't necessarily excite the fans or win you a title in a close race. Plus I'm guessing the flats cash has now run out.

Rangers - voted into Scottish League Division 3. Might be the best thing that could happen to them, 3 years of development time and a chance to get rid of a lot of deadwood. It's not like they are losing out on a lot of money - they were effectively banned from Europe for 3 years anyway.

John Terry found not guilty. Be interesting to see whether the FA restart their own investigation, which was put on hold.

davet010 wrote:

But the Glazers have allowed SAF to spend at least £60m in each of the last few years, not all of whom have been successful by any means. What they haven't done is paid £30m for older, established players - I'm thinking the last one was Berbatov. Whether this is because Ferguson is trying to alter the club, or because they aren't paying the sort of wages that these players would want, is the question.

They have allowed him to spend some money because hed probably be out the door otherwise and their ponzi scheme would become more apparent. 70k+ stadium, Prem tv deal and not only CL money but usually deep into the CL until last year. Before the Glazers showed up they paid 30m for Rio, Rooney and the last one was Berbs when 30m was a marquee # that only a few clubs could spend.

0 debt load and no Glazers and I'm pretty sure United would have the cash to splash around like Barca/Real etc and still be completely within their means which is unlike Barca/Real.

As for Porto they don't rely on it but my point was if they start paying over the top wages/transfer fees for their upcoming batch of resells they could be caught holding the bag when the money dries up. Even if you ignore the Uefa/CL Mourinho team and the money they got selling those guys, each year they sell off someone at a great price compared to what they put into them. Falcao would be the most recent. Moutinho and Hulk are the next they are going to cash in nicely on. Also without knowing their actual books I'm assuming nothing. If we woke up tomorrow and Porto are bankrupt from some ridiculous siphoning of funds out to agents/owners etc I wouldnt be shocked in the slightest.

As for Arsenal I've never seen a club talk out their asses at both ends. You have hill wood who makes statements like 'I'll never sell Cesc, what do I need another 30m+ in the bank for'. Then you have Gazidis saying they need a wage structure. I think its somewhere in the middle but I'm pretty sure they have a boatload of money but under Wenger we will never see it spent in kneejerk fashion. Even when he bought almost an entire team at the deadline last year it was at conservative prices and wages.

A quick look at Arsenal's 2011 accounts is instructive. The 'football segment' of the group only made a profit of £2m on turnover of £225m, and the 'property segment' turnover fell from £150m (2010) to £30m (2011) - so that's the end of the apartment sales, I presume. Including issued bonds they still have net debt of close to £100m.

My argument with regard to Arsenal's transfers was that they do spend the money that comes in for Cesc, Nasri etc, by buying £10m players, which neither replaces the calibre of players that are lost nor moves the club forward. Although it might not seem that way, a lot of times you do get what you pay for - and if you buy players like Gervinho, Chamakh, Mertesacker et al, you get to battle for the last CL place.

It's one way of running a club, and arguably a more sustainable way forward than the Liverpool formula, but it's a difficult sell to the fan who sees his gold standard players being sold off and silver ones coming in to replace them.

Pikey26 wrote:

Fair points

I would note, however, that City 'only' spent about £60-odd million last summer, and we didn't have a squad that had just won the Premiership. Anyways, it looks like Fergie has battered the lock off the War Hamper, as United seem to be hot favourites for the signatures of Leighton Baines and some Brazilian chap (Lucas Moura, £25m or so).

At least City got rid of one piece of Hughes' deadwood, sending Adebayor off to Spurs. His level of commitment and interest should now sink back to normal (ie, putting in a shift every 3rd game or so). Just a few more of these idiots to go.

Zaque wrote:

I'm not sure UCRC, it depends what the various governing bodies do when 4+ teams enter administration at the same time. Especially if 2 or 3 of them are some of the "big" clubs in the country.

Of course if Dave's prediction is correct, Scotland will be a nice test bed.

My point is that it's precisely what won't happen. (Save for some freak accident.) Scottish example is a good one: Rangers sinking means very little to Celtic's budgetary considerations. Their only rival is gone now, so they can maybe limit their spending on new players a little (which is analogous to local economy slowing down). But I don't see a plausible scenario where crash-type situation could develop here. Dave, why would other teams go to administration this season?

jowner wrote:

UCRC is right but theres one thing that will make everyone dependable on each other that is dangerous. Building in crazy transfer fees into your expected revenue. Some liques and clubs already know that they are feeder teams to the larger leagues. For example its pretty clear Porto operates on flipping talent to the bigger teams. So far I'm assuming they keep the budget fairly under control because 1-2 dry years of not flipping their stars especially at silly prices would mean disaster if they spend like thats just expected money.

If that's true (which, as Dave points out, it's probably not and I agree), that's just a suicidal stupidity and would kill them in the long run, no matter where football economy goes
But in any case that's not really good example of kind of dependability that would bring the system down. There will always be a market for talented players from smaller leagues, it's not like this source of income will dry up one day. Transfer fees might take a downturn, but that's not a huge danger, that's just market correcting for the amount of extra money floating around. But hey, that's just healthy behaviour and there is no compounded risk of the sorts that we see in real economy. Kind of risk that sinks everyone in domino fashion.

Hey, I think I'm repeating myself. But it's Saturday morning, so it's a miracle that I can type properly anyway.