I don't know about any of that - well actually yes I do, it's all crazy; but is £250k a week really any more grotesque than, say, £80k a week? They're both ridiculous, unimaginable sums of money to the average punter. The bubble will surely burst one day - but as a Gooner can I just say thanks for taking the idle one off our hands...?

You are basically in the position that you always wanted to be and you have sort of realised that it buggers up the premise of sport being an even(ish) battle between teams. Not having a pop, its just that its the natural impact of pure competition based upon buying the best players.

Sport, at that level, is now a rich persons play thing. Horse racing has been like it for years (as has polo) and it will have an ultimately detrimental effect but not for a while yet.

And apart from the fact that John Terry isn't worth £50m and £250k a week, it is fantastic that someone is doing to Chelsea what Chelsea have been doing to everyone else. And with the last player Chelsea have managed to get through their youth system (well, theirs and West Ham's).

Now it is a business, pure and simple, and as such its now about money before ANYTHING else.

With memories of us getting thumped by QPR in the Championship in the mid-nineties...the current situation, although utter madness, is hardly one we could feel bad about. When compared with the drug-dealer executing and state-funding siphoning Shinawat it's like being bought out by the co-op. It is a shame that Academy players will find it virtually impossible to come through, as we have had such a great record in recent years with young players.

Between what is good for City and what is good for football as a whole.

If we win The Premier League maybe I won't give a stuff, but lets face it it's not like when Cloughie won the championship and European Cup is it ?

I always use the example of the team I follow: Everton. On a limited budget, Moyes has, over several years, built the Blue boys into a decent team, who consistently finish in the top 5 or 6. Without a huge kick of finance, however, there's only one way we're heading, and it's not the bloody Champions League.

It's massively annoying that a team that's underachieved for years can suddenly start spending a fortune; City will finish ahead of Everton next season, without any incremental rise year on year.

It's difficult to know what the solution is. Should clubs be limited to spending only a percentage of their turnover? In that case, Man Utd can still spend a fortune and Wigan could just about buy me, probably. With a salary cap, wouldn't signing-on fees just balloon? Should clubs not be allowed to run with debts over a certain amount? Should there be an imposed spending limit, or a cap on the number of players you can bring in during the Summer?

The day I fear is when English clubs are free to negotiate their own TV deals. Liverpool, Man Utd and Chelsea will get a fortune, while Everton home matches will be shown on Living TV, hosted by Davina MacCall.

... to watching League One football. It's gone past the stage of shock at what teams will pay for players & the wages they get paid.

If proof were needed that players are bigger than clubs - the transfer fees for Terry & Kaka combined are worth more than Newcastle United. Go figure...

Yes, the amounts of money being thrown around are obscene, but the sad reality is that football is big business. To take the line from Jerry Maguire, "it's not called show-friends, it's show-business". That's exactly what it is. Real Madrid will pay £80m for Ronaldo and £56m for Kaka, but won't pay £30m for Alonso because 'he won't sell shirts' even though, in footballing terms, he'll arguably be more valuable to the team.

And now, of course, Beckham can positively smell the money at City and has announced that he is open to coming back to England. Get Abu Dhabi United on speed-dial.

It's the job of the old order to demonise the new. So, Liverpool fans criticise Manchester United for buying success (true). Manchester fans criticise Chelsea and Abramovic for doing the same (also true). Now, they're both turning on City. Same as it ever was.

What I cannot understand is this. The old cliche is that there are three qualities you need to play in the Premiership - pace, pace and pace. City are paying close to £80m for a forward line of Tevez, Santa Cruz and Adebayor. Surely, if you are investing that kind of money, your first step - before you do anything else - is to recruit a top class manager to make the buying decisions?

I am not totally convinced by Tevez,Santa Cruz or Adebayor problem is if you are not playing champions league football you are not going to attract top notch players catch 22.

How to get into the top four when the champions league revenue streams are open to only the big four ? what does it do for football as a competitive sport not much I am afraid.

1 Keith DUBBIN
2 Billy BOVRIL
3 Brian DRIPPING-SPONGE
4 Gordon WAGONWHEEL
5 Ned RATTLE (Capt.)
6 Colin TANNOY
7 Terry CARCOATES
8 Dave MUDD
9 "Big" Jim SLYFAG
10 Frank TERRACE
11 Kenny BOUTIQUE*

(* The flash one with the Rivelino tash and pigeon chest.)

is Footballers haircuts can anyone post a picture of a footballer with a ridiculous haircut like Chris Waddle or Carlos Valderama

...I wish City all the best with their good fortune - it's about time certain teams were brought down a peg or two.*

* Or 'knocked off their f*cking perch', even...

will fall even further down the pecking order now.

There is actually little or no point to supporting teams like Spurs and Villa and Everton anymore. A tussle for 7th and a Cup quarter-final? Oh be still my beating heart.

Wot's ver bleedin' point, eh?

I don't know how I'd feel if Spurs suddenly was bought as an inordinately rich man's plaything - but I'd like to find out.

Just to see, like...

It's 1979 and Malcolm Allison all over-a-bloody-gain. The wheels will have come off by Christmas and we'll be a sodding laughing stock once more. If we keep buying tossers like Adebayor, Bellamy etc., we're making a rod for our own backs. I hope Garry Cook has ordered plenty of mirrors for the changing room.

It was mentioned above that football was now a business. NO IT ISN'T......not a proper business anyway where you're supposed to do things like pay your bills, make a profit etc. Would a manufacturing business go out and spend over the odds, obscene amounts on a piece of kit that might break down and never work properly before it had produced it's first widget? Don't think so. Would a real business get such a comparatively easy ride from HMRC? Don't think so.

I love football, it's in my DNA, and as a Crewe fan I can't even dream what it must be like to support a big Prem league team. But a business? Pull the other one. It's just a bunch of egotistical over-rich idiots bankrolling another bunch of egotistical, soon-to-be over-rich idiots.

May the bubble soon burst.......

Do you remember the 81 cup final ?

I was there at both matches and felt we were unlucky with Tommy Hutches own goal.

But the second match was incredible with Steve Mckenzies wonder goal and then of course there was Ricky Villas unforgettable winner.

Watching it on tele I still think someones going to get a tackle in to this day.

So Spurs fans do you have any memories of that cup final the100th and one of the best in my opinion.

in that citadel of capitalism, yooessay, the NFL has an almost communist system of a draft, where the rubbish teams get the first pick of the best new players - could it catch on here?

The draft system is a good idea but can't see it ever catching on in the Premiership the big clubs have too much to lose

Too many posts banging on about Glastonbury, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, and the like. Also, some team called The Beetles ... I've not heard of them, but they must play in the Bundesliga.

Can we, please please please, get back to discussing Premiership football?

the thing is, despite all the misgivings expressed above, football these days is just better isn't it? Come on, have you actually watched some of the so-called 'classic' footage from the 60s, 70s and even 80s recently?

Top footballers are routinely denigrated for their 'bad example' but I'd argue the influence of the likes of Beckham and Ronaldo on someone like Rooney is more positive than that of, say, Bryan Robson's on Gazza from a previous generation.

I also have to disagree with the OP's point about the transfer fee for John Terry being 'obscene', as this implies there is some kind of 'non-obscene' limit, which begs the question of how this could be determined. We can debate whether it is a good move for Man City and Terry, but that's really as far as you can take it.

like the oft-seen footage of George Best, highly impressive in isolation, but (adopts Alan Hansen voice) where were the defenders? Seriously, there is no way Best or Gray would be allowed to do now what they did then, not because things are less dirty now (which they obviously are) but because defenders are much quicker and more skilful than they were.

I support my hometown team (Ipswich) and they're in the Championship for about the 7th consecutive year. Arguably, they're the last team to really make something of themselves in their first year after promotion to the Premiership (finishing 5th - above Chelsea! - in 2000/1) but then it all went horribly wrong.

Basically, Ipswich have new finance and are probably the envy of several Championship clubs. They'd probably be more hated if it wasn't for a certain team beginning with Q. There's a decent chance of promotion this year, but I don't know if I want my team to get promoted.

Where's the fun in a season where the best you can hope is to finish somewhere near mid-table and you go to away games at The Big 4 playing for a 0-0. Newly promoted teams either stick to their guns (which usually means going down) or try and play the game and splash the cash (which also usually means going down).

Also, I think David Moyes is a good manager but where's this idea he built the team on a shoestring come from? £12m for Yakubu and £15m for Fellaini if I remember rightly...

The average match ticket now costs about 10 times what it did 30 years ago. Yet the average transfer fee for a top player is about 100 times what it was 30 years ago.

Buying - "investing in", they'd probably say - Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaká and Benzema has cost Real Madrid £183 million. And to this we must add the salaries of just these three members of a squad of 25 players, which will total a further £35 million every year.

In terms of revenue, Real Madrid are no richer than Manchester United. Having sold off their old training facilities during Florentino Pérez's first term as chairman, they no longer have any major assets to sell to offset the massive liabilities that they have just taken on. (They are not shedding many players, and it looks as though the most valuable who were already on the books - Robben and Sneijder - are going to stay put.)

I don't get it. For all the shirts that they flog and the TV and image rights that they license, something, somewhere, doesn't add up.

Can anyone among the Massive's several accountants and business whizzes explain to me why, in the depths of a recession, banks are prepared to lend these insane sums to football clubs? Unless Pérez has put up the Bernabeu itself as collateral - and he may be reckless, but he's not that stupid - it makes no sense at all to me.

___

EDIT: After a bit of netsmooting, I may have stumbled on at least a partial answer to my own question. Florentino Pérez is chairman of Real Madrid pretty much in his spare time. His day job is being chairman of Spain's biggest (and Europe's second biggest) construction and infra-structure concessions group. A group that currently in the process of refinancing 2.5 billion euros (with a "b") of debt - a refinancing process that competing banks are falling over themselves to be the ones to provide. They want to keep Florentino Pérez sweet.

Still, any other explanations suggested will be very gratefully received.

The fact that, like music, it can still provoke passion and heated debate. We might not like what's happening in the Premier League, but the sport is changing just like the music industry. Because there is an emotional attachment to a team, in the same way that we love a song or a band, we don't actually care what goes on off the pitch so long as our team is doing well. I notice that all the doom and gloom is coming from fans of clubs who anticipate that they might be losing out this season (Spurs, Everton, Villa etc ) - I bet fans of Burnley, Stoke, Birmingham, Wolves have a different perspective

will have another different perspective come next April. The novelty of getting humped every week tends to wear off by Christmas.

There’s one thing that has always driven developments in audio/visual technology: pornography. It brought us the polaroid camera, the video recorder and so on.
And there‘s one thing that has always been behind sport and how it is followed and broadcast: gambling.
Premier League football in 2009 is something completely different from British league football in 1969 or 1979. It’s a massive global entertainment franchise paid for officially by satellite TV, its main purpose being something to have a punt on and underpin a massive worldwide betting industry.
We’ve always known that that’s why horse racing happens. It‘s obvious that that’s why 20 20 cricket was invented. And it’s what football is now about too. Though I think the owners of Man City will soon discover that football isn’t like horse racing: you can’t just assemble livestock of the correct pedigree and produce surefire winners. I think Man City will come 7th.

... often creates part of the image problem with the Premier League / football.

It's constant thirst for news often means that non-stories get great prominence; every word uttered often gets exagerated; and papers seem to 'create' stories (Daily Mail trumpeting Joe Kinnears return to Toon - onlt to be officially denied via a club statement, which is a rare thing for Newcastle).

It's this sort of guff that sours my taste - and Money-chester City is quenching the thirst right now.

that is what is important, a collection of good individuals just isn't enough, Mark Hughes will be judged by results can he produce a good team ? City will have to improve their away results.

That is what Fergie is good at producing good teams.

I think it is interesting the way players communicate I noticed Tevez doesn't speak very good English.

But look at Spurs after Redknapp took over, was it just a coincidence that Spurs had an English speaking manager ?

the language of Football, Brian.

After all this "Everton don't have much money" stuff and "£1,000 for a season ticket at Spurs", I just thought I'd chip in tuppence' worth...

Don't we all make comparisons with what's around us and what we aspire to? (Which is why MPs on £65k a year feel hard done by when sitting in a select committee with a chief exec from a bank who could buy and sell them several times over. Oddly they don't feel fantastically privileged in comparison to someone on a headset in a call centre, trying to stay sane and afloat on £13k a year.)

In Scotland, the Old Firm aspire towards the piles of cash in the English Premier League because they have the stadiums, the fan base and the annual crack at European football already so they think they could break into the top four with more TV money. Meanwhile Liverpool are probably casting envious glances at Madrid at the moment since Benitez is vulnerable to their spending power. And so on down the tree.

Aberdeen average around 12,000-13,000 fans, have pretty much acknowledged that winning the league is beyond us (because we can't match the Old Firm's spending power). The amounts of money discussed above as "not that much" would utterly transform Aberdeen FC. Meanwhile we look around and in a 'peer envy' sense think, "Hmm, Hearts. They overspent in the early to mid Noughties and nearly killed the club in the process while their current owner allows them to run an overdraft at his own bank that should really be driving them into adminstration. Meh." And so it goes on.

The reason that the bubble might continue? For one thing, clubs can go into administration, slough off their debts and keep going. Secondly, a major club (Man City, Newcastle, even Real Madrid) wouldn't just die, financially - someone would have to call in the debt and start the ball rolling. Who has the nads to do that?

City have been poor for so long can you not enjoy the fact that we're building a decent team? ALL successful clubs have spent lots of money over the years, certainly since the Premiership started.

Look at Manchester United (if you really have to). Veron, Rooney, Ferdinand, Berbatov all cost huge dosh - not all of them were successful. And United are £700m in debt. That doesn't seem to be mentioned very often. Furthermore, Sheikh Mansour is pouring money into the British game that wouldn't otherwise be there. This money will filter down into the local economy through taxes and retail spending. Who could complain about this?

As for the furore about wages, this is just plain nonsense. Angelina Jolie earns a straight $15m a movie (not profit-related). Will Smith makes $17m. You don't hear people moaning about their inappropriate wages in a recession. Cameron Diaz made a reputed $14m for the atrocious What Happens In Vegas, fer crissakes.

People should be glad that City MIGHT break into the top echelon. It's long overdue.

The Man City situation is a reflection of the world we live in. Where the players are being paid grotesque sum's of money, whilst people are struggling to get along in the current economic climate, but whilst Murdoch and Sky chuck enormous sums of money at the game then this will continue. Newcastle though is the example of what happens' when it goes wrong.
And i'm not saying that Man city will get relegated. But i do think their prima-dona players won't gell next season, and the Europa league will be the best they can hope for. Can also see Hughes not being given long to get results either

Sven was/is lucky it's all about the players at your disposal and City have too many players who cannot handle the likes of Wigan Blackburn or Bolton Stoke away sometimes you have to deal with the physical teams in the premiership City can't do it they crumble you have to be able to mix it physically in the Premiership at times.

Most of Hughes's signings this summer are tough nuts, especially Barry, Santa Cruz and Tevez. These players are fighters and, add them to De Jong, Ireland and Zabaleta should make City more resilient away from home.

City, for being pretty inept, having the Kippax terrace and for not being Man. Utd., have always had quite a high standing among other supporters.
Now, I fear, that this goodwill will be in short supply in the future. You'll be hated like your neighbours.

My club, QPR, have opted to become a 'boutique' (their words) club and I, along with many, many others, have walked.
I simply don't want them to be like Chelsea.
I hate Chelsea.
I want to QPR be the polar opposite of Chelsea.

In order to replace the misery needed for a middle-aged male to function on a Saturday afternoon, I now go to Barnet.....and I find that more than does the trick.

I see City have been ruffling the feathers of the big four, Fergie pipes up saying City will not make the top 4 Ancellotti states Chelsea are bigger than City and Benitez says money is ruining football as if Benitez has not spent any money.

The only one of the top four who has nothing to say is Wenger maybe £25 million for Adebayor bought his silence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/8177945.stm