Timsup2nothin
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Watching Americans prattle on about how unbelievable it is that Blatter could be reelected by FIFA amidst this scandal is hilarious. We reelected a president who defrauded us into a war!
football thread No11
- Thread starter Carras Dad
- Start date
Pangur Bán
Deconstructed
The re-election is not exactly saying anything. Many if not most of the guys electing him have their own scams or are intimidated for other reasons. This is like being surprised that the New Jersey mafia retain Tony Soprano as leader.
FIFA is not actually abnormal. Exploiting Third World corruption and the West's shadow banking system to steal money and exchange favours is the modus operandi of the West's ruling class. FIFA are only different because the Anglo elites don't benefit from it very much. I would hope that the attention FIFA get would open peoples eyes to how their world works, but sadly I recognize that this won't happen and this will be seen as some unique incidence rather than what it is, one of the pillars of the economic-political order that we all live in. When there is a revolving door between FIFA and the likes of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and the same stuff happening, that will be all nice and fine, just how an orderly cosmos works and ought to work.
FIFA is not actually abnormal. Exploiting Third World corruption and the West's shadow banking system to steal money and exchange favours is the modus operandi of the West's ruling class. FIFA are only different because the Anglo elites don't benefit from it very much. I would hope that the attention FIFA get would open peoples eyes to how their world works, but sadly I recognize that this won't happen and this will be seen as some unique incidence rather than what it is, one of the pillars of the economic-political order that we all live in. When there is a revolving door between FIFA and the likes of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and the same stuff happening, that will be all nice and fine, just how an orderly cosmos works and ought to work.
Marla_Singer
United in diversity
Qualifying the NFL winning team as "world champions" is about giving to the sport a global dimension it simply doesn't have. As for MLB and NBA, let's organize competitions involving clubs from all over the world and then the title could be earned. You just can't give any legitimacy to a sport title on a simple assumption which hasn't been proven on the field.
It's not just implicit, the premiership is at the top of a promotion and relegation system which involves all the clubs in England and Wales, both professional and amateur. Playing in the English Premier League is earned, and winning it makes you the deserved champion of all clubs in the country.
As a matter of fact, I've been recently involved in a discussion about closed or open leagues with American people on another forum. This opened my eyes about how radically different is the US approach of team sport compared to what I've seen in the rest of the world.
A US franchise cannot be compared to what we call a club in most other countries. The very nature is not the same, and this generates totally different views on what a sport competition is. The thing is we use the same words but with different concepts behind them.
Marla_Singer
United in diversity
Your analysis may sound cynical but I agree in a large part.Pangur Bán;13843218 said:
Personally, I consider all this FIFA story to be largely a power struggle. From Blatter of course, but also from Platini and UEFA and even from the US through its department of justice. Honnestly, who would believe there would have been a US investigation if the country had been awarded of the 2022 world cup?
When thinking about it, it's kind of amazing how football has grown in the last 20 years. The power of FIFA has only grown accordingly. There's no doubt FIFA is the subject of intense pressure, both from the inside and from the outside. And as much as I believe Jack Warner and Chuck Bazer are real crooks (and probably others), I do believe Blatter is more of the power thirsty kind, ensuring his support among the voters.
Interestingly, the alliance of Europeans and Americans has been widely exploited by Blatter as the alliance of the established and powerful West against the poor rest of the world. But the motives aren't necessarily the same. I don't doubt Michel Platini did see the US prosecution as bad for the image of the sport, but he has also seen it as an opportunity to strengthen his power on Blatter. It's a political game. And for the matter, Platini also voted for Qatar, because he wanted the world cup to come in new territories.
BirraImperial
Pura Vida!
Pangur Bán;13843218 said:
I have to agree here with you...Had the US or England been awarded the WC's of 2018 or 2022, we wouldn't even be having this argument...It's only coming to light because the US feels cheated out of the whole system...
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
Oy, could you enlighten the likes of me, who are not familiar with these franchises thing?
Marla_Singer
United in diversity
The MLS, the US major soccer league, operates as a single entity in which teams and player contracts are centrally owned by the league.
Team owners actually pay a franchise to the MLS in order to be allowed to join the league and benefit from its revenues, but the business is centralized by the league. Of course, such a system could only work if the league is closed... which means with teams ensured to still play at the top division in the decades to come, with no fear of relegation as in Europe or in South America.
MLS also enforces a salary cap with a system of priority draft choices for the teams which ended at the bottom of the league. So the poorer your side was, the better will be its opportunities to get a good player.
To me, it looks quite strange as it seems to prevent team building, which actually takes several years in football. Clubs aren't really the masters of their own fate, it's more the league which orchestrates things. I have no doubt this can bring more suspense for the next season, but I'm not convinced it's that good to devellop the quality of the football played.
There is also no bridge between professional teams and amateur teams. A good amateur or semi-pro side has absolutely no hope to join the MLS one day, unless it spends millions as entering fees. Similarly, if a professional team fails, it is forced to shut down, there's just no way to continue at the amateur level. That protective system of closed league is probably good to ensure long term revenues of MLS member teams, but it's heavily detrimental to the development of the sport at the semi-pro and amateur level.
SamSniped
DJ Goodboye
True, but is that a bad thing? Yes, we were likely cheated out of the Cup. But does Qatar deserve it? Is it right for the corruption to continue within FIFA? I honestly don't care if we end up with the cup when everything's said and done; I sure as hell don't support the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, nor do I support Sepp Blatter.
Completely unrelated note - anyone else find it amusingly appropriate that we stuck with number 11 for the football/soccer thread?
The Australian Football League operates sort of as a hybrid of these things. Old and mostly member controlled clubs in a closed cap and draft league. Revenue sharing based on the TV deal like the EPL.
The current peak national league, the AFL, developed out of a state league in one city (Melbourne), by sending two teams interstate and admitting 6 more expansion teams so that 10 of 18 sides are in and around Melbourne. I think we are probably unique in world sport in having half a national competition based in the second biggest city.
Nine of the current 18 clubs were established before 1880, and the Melbourne Demons are likely the oldest professional football team in the world (founded 1858).
Most clubs (eleven of 18) are member-run, but it's a cap and draft league to promote equalisation.
Of the other teams some were established by local leagues in Perth and Adelaide to represent them in the new national competition. We also had one case of a club from a lower league (the South Australian league) being admitted to the top flight based on how dominant it was.
Even the two newest two expansion franchises are set up in their constitution to be controlled by members in future.
So yeah I'd suggest a football club and member ownership ethos isn't really incompatible with a cap and draft league.
On the other hand our A-league soccer comp operates pretty much identically to tge MLS.
I would also suggest that in situations like America's or Australia's, being geographically big countries where soccer is a niche sport overshadowed by several others, a relegation and promotion system is unviably unstable. What do you do when there's just no team in Sydney or Los Angeles and the competition's revenue goes through the floor?
warpus
In pork I trust
Pro/rel in North American football/soccer is not going to be viable for many decades at least. To add to what you have said, the 2nd tier of footie here just doesn't have a good enough level of infrastructure for most teams to be able to jump ship and play in the MLS. The stadiums are too small, the standards are not there, and that's not to mention the single entity structure MLS has set up that would make such a thing unworkable to begin with.
Ownership groups are now paying $100+ million to join the MLS - league owners are just never going to agree to a scheme under which their teams could drop out of the league. Not anytime soon.
The only way I can see pro/rel working in North American footie in the next 20-40 years is when the MLS grows to 40 teams and ends up being split up into MLS Premier and MLS 2. Or whatever. It's far more likely for MLS to then break up into MLS east and MLS west, a la conferences (this approach works well due to north american geography/distances), instead of a pro/rel model, but it's the most realistic model that would make pro/rel possible. Otherwise we are still many decades for pro/rel to be viable.
Pangur Bán
Deconstructed
A 'cynic' is just what an idealist calls a realist.
Indeed, and it could never be anything else. In this case the US is doing the world a favour. I am in little doubt that this is a good use of US power.
I'm sure Jack Warner et al gave similar reasons. Just because someone says something, doesn't make it true. I'd be willing to bet Platini took some petrodollars some way or another. Voting for Qatar is strong prima facie evidence that he did. If he is willing to make public the details of all the companies, trusts, tax haven bank accounts, all their transactions, and so forth, he can prove me wrong. Our elites don't think twice about taking bribes, so long as they don't do it in the way 'scum' Third Worlders do (passing envelopes full of dollars under toilets=bad thing brown people do; overpaying people for services (e.g. 'consultation', speeches), having your company overpay someone else's=WASP approval). Even the Clintons in the US were almost openly accepting bribes for favours despite intending to run for President again, such is the certainty of the lack of scrutiny such people expect to receive from the dopey media and public.
MacAttack
Just the tip
Believe it or not, the FBI and the DOJ ran into the FIFA corruption ring because they were investigating a Russian Mob ring in the US. I have no doubt that the arrests were done to coincide with the election but ultimately didn't sway the Third World to not vote for Sepp.
Have y'all seen Sepp's speech? It makes me want to drive off a cliff it is so ridiculous, slapstick comedy couldn't have come up with anything better.
On the MLS structure discussion, I want to first preface that I do not like it at all, but it follows the other American sports leagues and appeals to the average American sports fan. The big marketed reason for the structure is for competitive balance. The salary cap is there to prevent the big clubs to turn into the Chelsea's, Real Madrid's and Barcelona's of the world. Many hate what the Yankees are doing since MLB does not have a salary cap. There is also a salary floor to prevent small market teams to become part of the corporate welfare this system could become. Americans also like drafting college and amateur players. This is to give the weaker teams a chance to build around young talent to help them go from worst to first quicker. And that works if you have excellent an scouting department. Makes the off season exciting as well. The worst team gets the first pick, and the league champion gets the last pick in the round. Teams can also trade these picks for players and other picks if they want to. Parity is a buzz word thrown around a lot. Looking at the list of recent champions, it definitely is more diverse than most European leagues. LA Galaxy are the closest that have come to consistently winning the league, they are of course a Playoff mainstay contender, even on "down" years.
The one thing that MLS does not have is Free Agency and instead you have an allocation pool. So if you are a foreigner or an American returning from playing in some other league, you may not have the opportunity to go to the team you want. Lets say you want to play for the Houston Dynamo, because you like warm weather, but through the allocation process, your rights end up with the newly minted Minnesota United. Now if you are big enough name, Kaka, David Villa, Gerrard, Clint Dempsey, they will bend the rules to make your desired destination happen. That is how Jozy Altidore and Michael Bradley ended up in Toronto, Canada.
The league is also organized into two conferences (western and eastern conferences) who send their top teams each to the MLS playoffs. The league champion is then decided through the playoff process.
No pro/rel and no free agency is not good for the sport and that needs to change, but the owners are dead set against it for mainly financial and other reasons. The players union almost went on strike this year over that. Things were going to be invariably different since the league came into being in the mass media age, while most European and Latin American leagues were created nearly and over a century ago, when TV viewership was non existent. Also geography plays a major part. Seattle has to travel through four time zones to play New England and New York City. The only way to efficiently travel is by plane. They may take a team bus to Portland and Vancouver, but they certainly aren't crossing the Rockies and the Great Plains and the Mid West to face Columbus in Ohio.
The United States also has a long track record of having unstable lower divisions, which does not help at all. NASL and USL are still struggling, but things are getting better.
The US Open Cup allows amateur and semi pro teams to get a shot at USL, NASL and MLS teams, but just like the FA Cup and the Copa do Brasil, the top tier teams will be facing each other in the final on a yearly basis.
Have y'all seen Sepp's speech? It makes me want to drive off a cliff it is so ridiculous, slapstick comedy couldn't have come up with anything better.
On the MLS structure discussion, I want to first preface that I do not like it at all, but it follows the other American sports leagues and appeals to the average American sports fan. The big marketed reason for the structure is for competitive balance. The salary cap is there to prevent the big clubs to turn into the Chelsea's, Real Madrid's and Barcelona's of the world. Many hate what the Yankees are doing since MLB does not have a salary cap. There is also a salary floor to prevent small market teams to become part of the corporate welfare this system could become. Americans also like drafting college and amateur players. This is to give the weaker teams a chance to build around young talent to help them go from worst to first quicker. And that works if you have excellent an scouting department. Makes the off season exciting as well. The worst team gets the first pick, and the league champion gets the last pick in the round. Teams can also trade these picks for players and other picks if they want to. Parity is a buzz word thrown around a lot. Looking at the list of recent champions, it definitely is more diverse than most European leagues. LA Galaxy are the closest that have come to consistently winning the league, they are of course a Playoff mainstay contender, even on "down" years.
The one thing that MLS does not have is Free Agency and instead you have an allocation pool. So if you are a foreigner or an American returning from playing in some other league, you may not have the opportunity to go to the team you want. Lets say you want to play for the Houston Dynamo, because you like warm weather, but through the allocation process, your rights end up with the newly minted Minnesota United. Now if you are big enough name, Kaka, David Villa, Gerrard, Clint Dempsey, they will bend the rules to make your desired destination happen. That is how Jozy Altidore and Michael Bradley ended up in Toronto, Canada.
The league is also organized into two conferences (western and eastern conferences) who send their top teams each to the MLS playoffs. The league champion is then decided through the playoff process.
No pro/rel and no free agency is not good for the sport and that needs to change, but the owners are dead set against it for mainly financial and other reasons. The players union almost went on strike this year over that. Things were going to be invariably different since the league came into being in the mass media age, while most European and Latin American leagues were created nearly and over a century ago, when TV viewership was non existent. Also geography plays a major part. Seattle has to travel through four time zones to play New England and New York City. The only way to efficiently travel is by plane. They may take a team bus to Portland and Vancouver, but they certainly aren't crossing the Rockies and the Great Plains and the Mid West to face Columbus in Ohio.
The United States also has a long track record of having unstable lower divisions, which does not help at all. NASL and USL are still struggling, but things are getting better.
The US Open Cup allows amateur and semi pro teams to get a shot at USL, NASL and MLS teams, but just like the FA Cup and the Copa do Brasil, the top tier teams will be facing each other in the final on a yearly basis.
Serutan
Eatibus Anythingibus
The salary cap IMO is what tends to kill the team building part for all US
pro sports that have it. If you pay big bucks to keep a star player, that means you
have that much less money for a strong supporting cast, which can mean a good
deal of roster churn. Pre salary cap, teams could be (and were) assembled that would
stay together a long time.
The FFP rules in Europe seem to be an indirect form of salary
cap in that they limit spending via a cap on financial losses if I understand it correctly.
Is that a valid analogy, and is there any fear that FFP will have the kind of long term
effect on teams that it has in America?
Marla_Singer
United in diversity
It's a vicious circle, the inability to join the major league also prevents minor leagues to develop... What is the incentive really if there's no real prize in winning the minor league trophy?
Promotion/relegation isn't restricted to football in Europe. It works in all sports: basketball, volleyball, handball, rugby, field hockey... So the size of the market isn't really what makes it valid or not. It's really a culture.
I do have the feeling though that the ability for clubs to evolve from amateur to semipro and from semipro to professional also secure their durability.
Marla_Singer
United in diversity
Financial fairplay cannot really be compared to the salary cap as the objective is not the same.
The idea of financial fairplay is to bring security to the system in preventing teams to endanger themselves in getting too heavily endebted. There's not really the idea to avoid having too heavily disbalanced teams in the league, as I feel there is in a closed league system.
Considering we have promotion and relegation (with at least 2 pro levels in big countries, and 1 semipro level afterward), there's a renewal of teams which guarantees the hierarchy remains respected over time in the level of play. So the idea isn't necessarily to spread out quality throughout the league, but rather to guarantee that the best teams continue to compete against the best teams.
That's no excuse, Brazil is bigger than the mainland 48 states and has had a tiered national league, with promotion and relegation included, since 1971 (although it only stopped being a huge cluster-
in 2006). The distance between Recife (where Sport plays) and Porto Alegre (where Internacional and Grêmio play) is nearly 3000km, which is roughly the distance between Detroit and LA.
MacAttack
Just the tip
Ex-FIFA Official Cites Satirical Article From The Onion in His Self-Defense
Oh Jack Warner, the gift that keeps on giving.
Oh Jack Warner, the gift that keeps on giving.
MacAttack
Just the tip
That's no excuse, Brazil is bigger than the mainland 48 states and has had a tiered national league, with promotion and relegation included, since 1971 (although it only stopped being a huge cluster-
Exhibit A:
Notice how far apart most teams are from each other.
Exhibit B:
Look how 90% of all teams are concentrated in southern Brasil.
PS It's not just 48 states, you forget 3 Canadian Provinces as well. Essentially international travel is involved in the domestic league.
Serutan
Eatibus Anythingibus
That makes sense from the descriptions I've read. It will be interesting to see
if there are unintended consequences like teams promoted to the upper tier
leagues having a harder time staying up due to the revenue disparity between
leagues (assuming the difference between EPL and Championship is typical for Europe).
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