Overdue For An Examination

[amms 0]

You surprise me Zappa. A more equitable distribution of money leading to an increased level of competition is surely in Rangers interests? There comes a point when knowing you simply can't compete becomes soul destroying. I long ago stopped blaming supporters of other clubs for their attendance, or lack of, at Ibrox. You need hope, the belief you have a chance to win, however small, but most clubs simply don't have that that, or didn't. There are only so many times you can watch your side beaten by the big 'bully' before you give up.

Every club in the league should be given the same amount, rules on youth development and player recruitment introduced and power should be removed from the major clubs as Andy says.

[Mountain Bear 0]

Why should hard working Rangers fans be forced to fund a more competitive league though Crawford?

 

Then there's the factor of what the 10 SPL clubs did to us last year and the fact that a fair number of our fans will never forgive those clubs & the SFA for the way we were treated and cast out from a league our club has been helping to keep afloat for decades.

 

Sorry, but all things considered, I just don't see how league gate sharing could possibly work. Are there current working examples in European football?

 

Fundamentally, i think we should consider this because you need tension about the outcome of a sports competition to get people interested. Without it the quality of the product suffers and eventually, even the powerful start to diminish.

 

I'm not aware of any European Leagues who still use gate sharing, but many North American sports do (the NFL being the most obvious). Remember there are other ways in which the principle of competitive balance is or can be furthered; collective sales of media rights, salary caps, or even the US college draft system. Unfortunately, there's some kind of "cost" to each of these options as far as the powerful clubs are concerned - that's their purpose.

 

However we do it, I think sooner or later we'll end up having to come up with ways of enhancing the competitiveness of the top league in Scotland (irrespective of our feelings towards individual clubs) or watch the game as a whole wither. It's something I've felt strongly about ever since the 9 in a row days. It's never likely to be popular, but it I think something along those lines needs to happen soon.

[Zappa 0]

It's not that I'm completely against the idea guys, it's just that I don't think it's a workable solution. You're basically talking about the footballing authorities neutering Rangers and Celtic and feeding their genitals to the rest of the pack for survival sustenance. It would certainly increase the competitiveness of the top league, but the main clubs in the top league don't want more competition or they would have increased the premier league size up to 18 or 20 teams. Having said that, I'm sure they wouldn't turn their noses up at massive cash handouts from the OF if they got the chance.

 

It'll take more than what I'm reading here to convince me it would even be workable, never mind a good idea. I get the ideology and the principal of it from certain points of view, but I also think there would be serious implications and downsides to it which tend to get glossed over in the quest for the greater good and Scottish football's holy grail if you like. I mean, if you turn round to our fans tell them 40% of their ticket cash is going to be shared out amongst our opponents and it'll mean the quality of our own team will be likely to drop, you're going to get a lot of fans walking away from the game in disgust IMO.

[Mountain Bear 0]

Fair enough Zappa, I acknowledge that most of our fans would take a lot of persuasion, especially as we're not on the best of terms with the ex SPL teams at the moment.

 

But I'm 100% convinced that we need to do something to reduce imbalance in the game, in OUR long term interests as much as everyone else's.

 

Hopefully we won't have to wait for Celtic to win 10 in a row before it starts to look like a better idea...

[Zappa 0]

Fair enough Zappa, I acknowledge that most of our fans would take a lot of persuasion, especially as we're not on the best of terms with the ex SPL teams at the moment.

 

But I'm 100% convinced that we need to do something to reduce imbalance in the game, in OUR long term interests as much as everyone else's.

 

Hopefully we won't have to wait for Celtic to win 10 in a row before it starts to look like a better idea...

 

Personally, I'm of the belief that bringing atmosphere back into our stadiums could play a significant part in starting to rejuvenate the game, but the authorities appear to want to go the opposite way and force fans to sit on their hands in silence. They could reintroduce standing areas, lower ticket prices and do as much as they can to help fans get the atmosphere back into our game, but there's no quick fix and robbing Peter to feed Paul is always a questionable path to take.

[Mountain Bear 0]

Personally, I'm of the belief that bringing atmosphere back into our stadiums could play a significant part in starting to rejuvenate the game, but the authorities appear to want to go the opposite way and force fans to sit on their hands in silence. They could reintroduce standing areas, lower ticket prices and do as much as they can to help fans get the atmosphere back into our game, but there's no quick fix and robbing Peter to feed Paul is always a questionable path to take.

 

I agree that there's no magic bullet for rejuvenating the game, but I end up back at the same place; you'll get a better atmosphere where the outcome of individual matches and competitions are in doubt more often. The other aspects you mention would certainly help though.

 

I think we're starting to see signs that the football authorities are waking up to the issue of imbalance (UEFA's financial fair play rules for example). I just hope things don't have to get worse before we start to explore the more difficult options like salary caps and gate sharing.

[andy steel 0]

It wouldn't be so much an emasculation of the big two clubs as much as a transfusion of some of their resources into the moribund clubs, Zappa.

 

Like in the old 'Mummy' movies, when the professor unwisely injects said bandaged cadavar with a vital essence, giving him renewed vigour.

[The Real PapaBear 0]

It's not that I'm completely against the idea guys, it's just that I don't think it's a workable solution. You're basically talking about the footballing authorities neutering Rangers and Celtic and feeding their genitals to the rest of the pack for survival sustenance.

 

Well, we know for sure that the present solution ain't working, so continuing to do what we're doing isn't an option.

 

Some back of the fag packet maths:

Say, the OF have an attendance of 40k at £20 a head = £800,000 gate receipts per game x 36 = £29m gate receipts for the OF per season

the league average is 7k at £20 = £140,000 x 36 =£5m

 

As it currently stands, we earn 6 times as much as the average every season

 

With gate sharing, even at the maximum split of 50% each we would have an income of £15m and they would have a £5.1m income.

 

I don't know if I'd describe having our advantage reduced to only three times theirs instead of 6 as being neutered.

 

Also, if they have more income, they can invest in youth development which results in better players for us to buy, better competition, more interest in the league and general all round goodness.

 

And the final point is that it's just natural justice to split the gate fairly - perhaps not 50-50, given the size of the overheads we have at Ibrox compared to Fir Park, say, but certainly more equitably.

 

You can't have a game of football without two teams and if two teams turn up to play both should be treated equally. Or is that too utopian?

[Ser Barristan Selmy 222]

Gate sharing is an appalling, laughable idea. It would basically be the equivalent of a hard working man working all week then handing out half his wallet to some homeless, idiot junkie.

 

Also, the old firm should be getting a far greater slice of money in the Scottish game. In other countries the bigger clubs get all the money and it makes them stronger for Europe.

 

Here we can either have no decent sides for Europe or we can have potentially two. Out with the old firm, every team is atrocious and the best success any of them can ever hope for is getting past Barry Town in the first europa league qualifier.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Ser Barristan Selmy

[Ser Barristan Selmy 222]

Every club in the league should be given the same amount, rules on youth development and player recruitment introduced and power should be removed from the major clubs as Andy says.

Not sure if serious.