Qatar FC

Also, you continue to evade points and trying to make new arguments not related to what I said. It's extremely disingenuous. You know the individual TV deals is a perfect point that you cannot argue against, hence you constantly ignoring it and trying to deflect to other aspects.

serghei said:

Yeah, it's not based on immoral earnings.

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If you say so. I consider the individual TV deal immoral or at least morally grey, in a sporting capacity. If you don't then there's something wrong with you.

Other stuff like attracting glory hunters and fleecing the working classes for tickets and subscriptions is morally grey too. But I do find it funny that traditional clubs call PSG and City fans 'plastic' when most Barca and Real Madrid and United fans couldn't point out the cities on a map.

Ultimately, it's a food chain that you've been at the top of for so long, the apex predator. You and other clubs like United and Liverpool just don't like that there's a new evolution and a new apex predator. You can still feed on 99.9 percent of animals, but there's two or three who can devour you now.

Those further down the chain aren't too fond of you either though, tbh. Betis fans think you're cunts in the same way you think PSG are. But I guess Betis fans' opinions on football don't count as theyre not an 'elite club'.

serghei said:

It's mainly based on achieving important things consistently through time.

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Yeah, originally based on a leg up (in the case of United, Liverpool, moreso than Barca). And now because of that and the glory hunters and hence revenue streams it attracts, it creates a compounding effect - winning stuff leads to more money, which leads to winning stuff, which leads to more money. You are essentially arguing for football to be a closed shop. How else can other clubs compete with you when you have by far the most fans, revenue streams etc? Without outside investment and fair TV deals it cannot happen. Look at how Liverpool just rip away clubs like Southampton's or Brightons's best players. or how those clubs in turn often took them from smaller clubs.

Football is a food chain and you're just raging that Barca and other history clubs are no longer at the top. Even though I hate the human rights abuses and immoral money, I welcome a shape up of the established order.

One can very easily and successfully argue that the individual tv rights Barca and Madrid enjoy, they have done so because they earned it over decade's of building a brand.

Man Utd, could do the same in England.

McLaren and Ferrari get the same deal in F1 for the same reasons, years of success and building the F1 brand.


What did PSG do? 😂.

How many people to this day watch the French league or PSG outside a few CL games.

TV rights deal is easy to argue for, when you're arguing against a team that was nothing a decade ago and was bought by a state with unlimited capital.

It's a totally different thing to argue for essentially an American style system in football (salary cap) than saying we'll leganes doesn't make as much as Barca, so you have no moral grands to stand on when a country owns a club.

FC Barcelona that's own by Fans, yea okay 😂 😂 ?.

Do you see the shit show we are now financially because fans VOTED in a idiot as president.

If PSG has similar issues, here comes another 200m from Qatar lol

If anything your priorities are deeply fucked up - you care far more about the fact that Newcastle's owners want to deprive Barca of trophies in a game of football than you do the fact those same owners are taking political prisoners and executing gay people.

jamrock said:

One can very easily and successfully argue that the individual tv rights Barca and Madrid enjoy, they have done so because they earned it over decade's of building a brand.

Man Utd, could do the same in England.

McLaren and Ferrari get the same deal in F1 for the same reasons, years of success and building the F1 brand.


What did PSG do? 😂.

How many people to this day watch the French league or PSG outside a few CL games.

TV rights deal is easy to argue for, when you're arguing against a team that was nothing a decade ago and was bought by a state with unlimited capital.

It's a totally different thing to argue for essentially an American style system in football (salary cap) than saying we'll leganes doesn't make as much as Barca, so you have no moral grands to stand on when a country owns a club.

FC Barcelona that's own by Fans, yea okay 😂 😂 ?.

Do you see the shit show we are now financially because fans VOTED in a idiot as president.

If PSG has similar issues, here comes another 200m from Qatar lol

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Real Madrid 'earned' it through Franco's nonsense in the 50s? That corruption still benefits them now in Europe through an affinity and belief that dates back to those 5 European cups.

I already told you about Man United getting a leg up from Davies and Gibson, and floating on the stock exchange, getting in bed to create the PL and keep down other clubs. As well as selling their soul by cashing in on the Munich air disaster - that's what REALLY made them a top club. No, it isn't fair or organic in their case, they're an immoral club who held many down, and you show your cluelessness of English football by mentioning them. They went from struggling in the league pre PL to suddenly winning it a lot as soon as PL was created - you don't view that as suspicious? They were terrible in the 70s and 80s so no brand being created.

Again, you are arguing for Barca to win in perpetuity. 'Building a brand' that nobody else can compete with. Same goes for McLaren and Ferrari in F1 - same principle.

Also, PSG weren't 'nothing'. This is big club arrogance. They weren't an elite club but they were a respectable European club who played in Europe. You talk like they're the local dog and duck team plucked from obscurity. Stop talking out of your arse. There's more to football than the elite clubs, but I know fans of elite cloubs think football begins and stops with Barca, United, Liverpool etc.

I don't disagree with you that their lack of financial responsibility (Qatar and PSG) is a bad thing. I AM NOT DISAGREEING WITH THAT, THINGS HAVE GONE TOO FAR THE OTHER WAY!. But something had to happen otherwise it would just be the same clubs winning everything all the time.

The irony is in 50 years Man City and PSG will be established clubs who have won loads and calling newly rich clubs 'upstarts'. The same as happened when United were gifted money. History repeats itself.

The overall point is you guys think Barca should rule football for eternity just because their money came earlier than others and they rode the wave (as did United) of the early satellite TV boom in football. How the fuck does that make any sense? Without foreign or outside investment, how do you expect other clubs to compete with United, Liverpool. Barca and their legions of glory hunters?

I'm on the phone now. Tomorrow I'm gonna answer more, but to me it's a bad sign already that you view meritocracy only as purely propagation of wealth. It's a somewhat viable argument up to a point. You can go back and back and back and you innevitably arrive at randomness of life and that's nobody's fault. Once you get to that point, you have to accept it and move on. 100% of great tennis champions for example were born into wealth. Why do you think there's no Kenyan or Somalian multi slam winner? This doesn't mean Federer is a fraud or doesn't deserve his success. Just because he had conditions others didn't. It's still meritocracy in an imperfect world.

Maradona37 said:

I already told you about Man United getting a leg up from Davies and Gibson, and floating on the stock exchange, getting in bed to create the PL and keep down other clubs. As well as selling their soul by cashing in on the Munich air disdaster - that's what REALLY made them a top club. No, it isn't fair or organic in their case, they're an immoral club who held many down, and you show your cluelessness of English football by mentioning them.

Again, you are arguing for Barca to win in perpetuity. 'Building a brand' that nobody else can compete with. Same goes for McLaren and Ferrari in F1 - same principle.

Also, PSG weren't 'nothing'. This is big club arrogance. They weren't an elite club but they were a respectable European club who played in Europe. You talk like they're the local dog and duck team plucked from obscurity. Stop talking out of your arse. There's more to football than the elite clubs, but I know fans of elite cloubs think football begins and stops with Barca, United, Liverpool etc.

I don't disagree with you that their lack of financial responsibility (Qatar and PSG) is a bad thing. I AM NOT DISAGREEING WITH THAT, THINGS HAVE GONE TOO FAR THE OTHER WAY!. But something had to happen otherwise it would just be the same clubs winning everything all the time.

The irony is in 50 years Man City and PSG will be established clubs and calling newly rich clubs 'upstarts'. The same as happened when United were gifted money.

The overall point is you guys think Barca should rule football for eternity just because their money came earlier than others. How the fuck does that make any sense? Without foreign or outside investment, how do you expect other clubs to compete with United, Liverpool. Barca and their legions of glory hunters?

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So you're saying man utd and other clubs made smart business decisions, so that deludes what they have achieved and is comparable to what is happening with PSG 😂 😂 😂.

By that logic no club or business will ever grow 😂.

Take a breather and put down the keyboard, you're unravelling and saying things that make 0 sense

jamrock said:

So you're saying man utd and other clubs made smart business decisions, so that deludes what they have achieved and is comparable to what is happening with PSG 😂 😂 😂.

By that logic no club or business will ever grow 😂.

Take a breather and put down the keyboard, you're unravelling and saying things that make 0 sense

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No, I am saying a lot of what they did was immoral and enabled by local benefactors too, even if you consider it 'smart'. Hence, they're no better than the plastic oil clubs that Barca and United and Liverpool fans like to claim are morally worse than them. 'Smart' doesn't mean 'moral'.

Man City got a leg up. But they have continually made smarter financial and sporting decisions than United since then. Those decisions were often unethical too.

I wouldn't even care if you admitted that Barca are an immoral club, like all elite clubs, including PSG. But you refuse to acknowledge that.

serghei said:

I'm on the phone now. Tomorrow I'm gonna answer more, but to me it's a bad sign already that you view meritocracy only as purely propagation of wealth. It's a somewhat viable argument up to a point. You can go back and back and back and you innevitably arrive at randomness of life and that's nobody's fault. Once you get to that point, you have to accept it and move on. 100% of great tennis champions for example were born into wealth. Why do you think there's no Kenyan or Somalian multi slam winner? This doesn't mean Federer is a fraud or doesn't deserve his success. Just because he had conditions others didn't. It's still meritocracy in an imperfect world.

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I don't view meritocracy only as propagation of wealth, that's too simplistic of my argument. And you made good points with tennis. Ultimately, no argument is perfect.

Fair enough. It's probably more of a difference in how we see the world.

Two things:

1) as stated, I do like and generally agree with you guys, so havem't enjoyed arguing with you on this debate. But I felt it needed to be said to a point;

2) I am definitely no liker of 'oil clubs' as you put it. I wish they didn't have to exist. But what you aren't accepting is that the greed and changing of the football landscape by the traditional clubs created the conditions that led to Man City etc. Without Man United playing a huge part in the creation of the PL, due to greed, the league would not have grown and Abu Dhabi wouldn't have shown interest. It's a domino effect. Now you can argue it was inevitable anyway with technology advancing, the world getting bigger, but the point is United still played their part. So a bit rich (no pun intended) to moan about it now.

Overall, we just disagree to a point.

'100% of great tennis champions for example were born into wealth. Why do you think there's no Kenyan or Somalian multi slam winner? This doesn't mean Federer is a fraud or doesn't deserve his success. Just because he had conditions others didn't. It's still meritocracy in an imperfect world.'

While I agree with this and wouldn't put down Federer for it, How is being born into wealth any better than being given it? It seems like you view having wealth from birth (often unethical wealth) as better than winning the lottery, or being given a gift or something.

I personally do not agree with that, and it seems that is where we differ. That's the ideological point that seperates us here. I don't view old money or traditional wealth as inherently superior. Often it was ill-gained anyway.

Anyway, I have had something of a meltdown (jamrock is right on that) and thrown out a few digs that were unnecessary and uncalled for. I got too heated as I sometimes do. So apologies for those.

I still maintain my general argument though about clubs not deserving to just rule forever because of the money and success domino effect and interaction. There has to be some way to challenge them, and outside investment is the only way (although it is very extreme and gross with Middle Eastern levels of money and corruption, on that you are right I think and I agree).

Also that plenty of those clubs have shadiness in their history (and present) that rivals the current shenanigans of the oil clubs anyway.

Also (sorry for the multi posts).

The Federer point is more like if the Middle East pumped a fortune into tennis in Africa, unearthed previously unfound talent, then all of a sudden Somalians started winning everything, destroying the grand slams, a few years down the road. And people were moaning because Europeans and Americans were no longer ruling the game and saying the Somalians had resource advantages. Calling the African dominance 'sports washing'.

It would be less intense though as people generally care less about individuals in sport than institutions (football clubs). And less about tennis than football.

I guess you can extend this to Bale getting more money than he deserved, for the Batman trilogy, compared to better Indie actors in smaller films, just because Warner Bros. are a much bigger, historical studio than others. Ultimately, we can take this to extremes to support either side of the debate we are on.

@serghei

What I am really arguing for is what you mentioned in passing before - a salary cap and more balance. And (rough) NFL style structure. The way I wanna see football is with wealth and player distribution, and where any (or most) of the 20 teams can go into a league and have a realistic hope of winning it at the start of the season. Obviously some teams will be better than others, that was always the case that football was about money, but post Bosman ruling we have seen superteams being created in football and it's very extreme now.

Now, in a sense that is good - if there were no really elite teams hoarding the best players, we wouldn't see all-time great level teams or great clashes between big, elite clubs in the latter stages of the CL, or El Clasico etc. But the trade off of that is that many games are simply a procession for these teams - see PSG in their run of the mill games in Ligue 1 where nobody has the resources they do. They are essentially guilty of what I moan about at their domestic level - lording it over smaller less wealthy teams. What has enabled them to achieve at least parity with the Barcas and Reals in talent has also made their league a complete washout.

To be fair, we have gone from Barca, Real, Milan, Liverpool, United, Bayern winning everything to just adding in Chelsea, PSG, Newcastle and Man City. It's not a big change in football like I wanna see. I also take a dim view of the Saudi league.

So, overall, what I am saying is I want a change to the established order, a more socialist change. But yeah, throwing my weight behind the nation states method of doing it was probably a mistake. It's simply the only way it can happen right now until there's more reform in football (which won't happen as the horse has bolted now, never to return).