The Future of Pro. Football in Europe.

I was watching The Overlap with their guest J.J.Watt - NFL Superstar now a (small) part owner of Burnley FC.
He found our system of relegation and free movement of players surprising because he is used to NFL with no relegation and the distribution of the top players throughout the league with the bottom finishing club getting first pick. The point being to give ALL clubs in the league a chance to be the best.
He argues that clubs that finish towards the bottom of the PL have no real chance of ever winning the league.

Interesting, so he views our system as unfair to smaller clubs. We, on the other hand, are fiercely protective of promotion and relegation, as we showed when (The 6) tried to join a breakaway league as a closed shop.

One thing that is obvious is FIFA, UEFA and the national leagues PL etc are constantly tinkering and looking for ways to (improve) the sport. We now have many American owners in England. Do you think they are going to influence the future changes. Will we adopt a hybrid form of both America and Europe?

Where are we going? Where do you think we should go?

 

The American franchise model is a disgrace to sport.
I don't think that there's much, if anything, that we can take from their approach.

 

Can you explain why you think that. I don't follow NFL so have no idea how it works.

 

I think the system of US sports is interesting. Obviously the draft system reflects the fact that the leagues are a closed shop in terms of promotion and relegation, and that the main path to professional sports is through the college sports system - and college sports is a massive thing in and of itself over here.

It does raise some interesting conundrums with teams especially when combined with the salary caps. If a star player (say a quarterback of the quality of Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes, who get huge salaries) is paid too much then you won’t be able to afford other players to support them unless you’re really clever with the draft. The salary cap system combined with the draft makes it impressive when teams manage to assert long-term dominance in the leagues.

I don’t think I’d want to see it in English/European football. The depth of the professional system in English and UK football and the long traditions of promotion and relegation and inter-league play in the cups is something fans of all teams cherish and is a key part of the identity of the game.

If we were to make wholesale changes to European football governance I’d far rather see a system which encourages teams to develop young players themselves. Think stricter mandates around home grown or club grown talent. But then you have to have guardrails in place about the movement of U21 players that are much stricter than they are now, and I’m not sure what the legality or practicality of those would be.

 

I'll offer one example, which should probably be enough.

The Las Vegas Raiders started life in Oakland, California in 1960.
They moved to Los Angeles in 1982 and then moved back in 1995.
Then they moved to Las Vegas in 2020, which is where they currently play.
They're a team named after pirates, who now play in the desert.

The latest move involved building a stadium that cost around $1.9 billion.
It's the 2nd most expensive stadium in the world.
American taxpayers put up $750m of that figure, for some reason.

 

Apart from our tradition do you think the fact that Americans effectively have no other countries to play against is a factor. Do they have leagues outside the NFL?

Slowly UEFA in particular, is having more and more influence on the game in Europe I just wonder where this will all end up.

 

So like Wimbledon and Milton Keynes? Is that the norm in the States? Do teams just follow the money rather than the fans? Hopefully other posters who know something about the NFL will contribute.

 

I like the idea of the NFL "draft" system being applied to academy kids.
So the specifics would be :

1. a player must be offered to the PL draft first before overseas suitors
(no antics like when Citeh offloaded Sancho to Dortmund rather
than have Spurs possibly take him etc)

2. strictly enforced definitions of academy players (no attempts to
give N 5 min sub appearances in senior games etc)

3. the PL club that finishes 16th gets first pick on one from the pool,
15th after them etc.

 

So if Spurs develop a player in their academy and wanted to offload him/her the 16th club in the PL would have first dibs? They would presumably have to pay a transfer fee?

 

It's not that unusual for NFL teams to move and/or change names.

The Baltimore Colts (1953-1983) are now the Indianapolis Colts.
The Houston Oilers (1960-1996) are now the Tennessee Titans.
The Charges moved from LA to San Diego and back again.
The Rams moved from Cleveland to LA to St Louis and back to LA.

 

Correct.
The player would go into the pool, and the 16th club
that season gets first dibs on any one player in the pool.

Transfer fees AFAIK still have some form of arbitration.

 

I will say that to PNP’s point, while I think the draft and salary cap stuff works for sports in the US context and keeps them interesting, I don’t like the movement of teams and changing names. Doesn’t feel right to me.

 

We can cherry pick we don't have to accept any or all of what NFL does. I am just presuming that the football powers will look for, indeed, are looking for, ways to enlarge competition between clubs. FFP is a step rather than an end game IMO. Total dominance of clubs like City, Real Madrid, Bayern, is not good for the game as a whole. The media likes to big up City and tell us how lucky we are to see such a team but most supporters don't buy this at all. There was huge delight (apart from us at Spurs) when Leicester won the league. It was a much bigger story for football than City winning it again. With Newcastle you can see how pleased the media are to have a new story. They don't care how Newcastle are getting there.

IMO the media will sell football to the highest bidder always. They don't care about the long term health of the game, just the product they sell to their customers. If the football authorities do not retain control and find new ways to even out the game we will end up with a super league.

 

Actually enforcing a fit and proper persons test for owners would do this.
Abramovich? Nope. City's various dictators? Nope. Newcastle's child murderers? Nope.
Clubs like Utd would still have a massive advantage, but they've mismanaged their way out of it.

 

I have no confidence in authorities deciding who is fit and proper. Only rules of some kind can change things IMO leaving it to a body to decide on merit? What's merit? What's proper? Whose fit?

 

The same would apply to any rule changes, though.
The financial rules that they introduced were gamed and fiddled by the richer clubs instantly.
City are sponsored by a bunch of their own owners' companies, for example.
The same applies to the Geordie/Saudis.

 

After the pain withered, I was delighted that so many
of the usual suspects failed so badly in 2015-16.


"IMO the media will sell football to the highest bidder always.
They don't care about the long term health of the game, just the product they sell to their customers.
If the football authorities do not retain control and find new ways to even out the game we will end up with a super league."

Even the govt could exert influence.
For example, PL club profits could be given lower tax %
depending on the degree of HG/CG players used over a season.

 

They can't get around basic simple rules like 3 points for a win 1 for a draw. I don't know what, but the rules have to be simple and not open to interpretation like FFP.

 

Unless they're match-fixing.
That's the other problem with allowing unethical billionaire dictators to run clubs...

 

You can set GAAP for football in the UK
(player amortisation over 5 yrs max - not the
8 yr hack that vermin FC have tried etc) .