Would you be ok if this was our team?

[Daggers]

A stain on the game

[taupe]

6 hours ago, MPH said:

Imagine Leicester fans turning their nose up at this level of investment!

Make little difference if they did. Despite what we might think, we are only bums on seats. The rest is lip service, and promo to get you in. 

 

The answer (as @Jattdoggsuggests above) is broader.; spending caps, salary caps, etc. Clubs outside the mega-backed cannot compete, it's a financial reality (as Rodgers has remarked on). If we want to compete, without that same level of backing, then either we get subsidised or they get curbed. OR....  we let this super league thing happen and let them get on with it. 

[Scotch]

In terns of salary cap, I quite like the idea of having 20 players in your squad who's combined wages can't be over a designated amount but having 5 spaces in your squad who can be payed whatever. 

 

It means the league could still offer big wages that attract the best players in the world but any one team couldn't have 25 of them...

[Grebfromgrebland]

The super League has already happened within the premier league structure with legacy clubs getting preferential treatment when qualifying for Europe.

 

We're not in that club. The championship is effectively the third tier now.

 

And yes I would turn my nose up at qatari investment. The world is a cess put at the moment let's not jump on the bandwagon.

Edited 10 January 2023 by Grebfromgrebland

[bovril]

There are many things I enjoy more about going to see non-league or lower league games than going to watch Leicester (especially at the KP), so if this happened I'd almost certainly give it up. 

[taupe]

5 minutes ago, Grebfromgrebland said:

The super League has already happened within the premier league structure with legacy clubs getting preferential treatment when qualifying for Europe.

Yep, effectively. It's part of the everyday narrative too, 'big 6' etc. Tbh, I can see pluses to a super league happening. Let Super League and Champions League exist in their own world paid for by ludicrously high TV subscription packages (or PPV), advertising, global brand association, etc etc etc and the rest of football can return to some kind of normality, free from the obsession of trying to compete within a system that simply arguably does not allow for it. Where rainy Tuesday evenings away are part-and-parcel.... well, perhaps not! There may even be a financing model that allows such a thing to happen. TV companies are being priced out of bidding for big matches too, Non super league matches can picked up for a lesser fee... it could happen. It won't but it could!

[Guest Mickyblueeyes]

Yes please. 

[SkidsFox]

Going to be Spurs. Can't see the Qataris going for an Everton or Leeds. 

[goose2010]

Its a no from me, would rather go and watch a local team. 

 

One of the best things about us winning the league was how we did it with a squad of rejects, has-beens and good scouting. 

 

Where is the fun in just chucking money at players and basically buying the league. I imagine it makes the loses (which you still would get every now and then) against the "normal" teams more painful. 

 

 

[Munshi]

Amount of people saying they’d ‘give it up’ haha stop lying to yourselves. Our fans can just about give up a plastic seat to move 30 yards away.

Edited 10 January 2023 by Munshi

[Mark_w]

I imagine the FA would start cracking down on it if it helped a club like us so maybe it’d be for the good of the game 

[The whole world smiles]

I'm incredibly proud of our success in the last 8 years. The great escape, winning the league, the FA cup, charity shield and huge European nights. 

 

I'm even prouder that we achieved it without selling our souls to a Russian gangster or a murderous, oil-rich, backwards gulf state. 

 

We never out spent our rivals we out thought them, out fought them and beat them all time and again. 

 

If we ended up in the hands of the Qatar state like psg it would piss on everything we achieved and needless to say I would be handing my season ticket in, off to get behind a lower league side. 

[sacreblueits442]

9 hours ago, MPH said:

 

imagine Leicester fans turning their nose up at this level of investment!

.. have you seen  the state of PSG, they are under achievers!!!

  They spend a fortune to achieve very little. Do not forget recently beaten by Lille to the title, they need to take a long term view on what the want to develop and build slowly. This is not what we need or should be looking for.

 The state of football is in the balance and all we are doing is looking for a seat at the pigs table.

[grobyfox1990]

1 hour ago, Munshi said:

Amount of people saying they’d ‘give it up’ haha stop lying to yourselves. Our fans can just about give up a plastic seat to move 30 yards away.

It's a common theme and an indictment on human behaviour. Amount of posts I see here when asked to do something out of a tight routine like turn up 3.75 minutes earlier to the ground 'clubs a shambles mate its gone that's me done going to support Harborough FC it's sooo much better' etc is very funny. Granted they may all be different posters who possess a backbone and they do actually all stop going but I highly doubt that.

 

Anyway in answer to the main question, probably would keep going yeh. Football, and actually the whole Western world, is over commercialised and covered in blood. If I had serious misgivings about that I would have given up a long time ago.

 

Edit - LGBTQ+ rights are horrendous in Thailand, same-sex couples are not given the same rights as opposite sex couples and are not recognised, same sex couples and are also routinely informally repressed. I do feel we missed an opportunity during the World Cup to raise this with our ownership (who are the de facto Thai state).

Edited 10 January 2023 by grobyfox1990

[Jakemoore]

The thought of relegation has been on my mind as I’m sure it has for us all. I have to admit, if we can’t compete with mid table premier league sides without having to get investment then we need to seriously consider that relegation is a very real possibility. 
 

And to add to that, I’d rather we go down than get investment from some dodgy consortium like Newcastle have had. 

Edited 10 January 2023 by Jakemoore

[taupe]

Just now, Jakemoore said:

if we can’t compete with mid table premier league sides without having to get investment then we need to seriously consider that relegation is a very real possibility. 

Yes, I see that very much the reality (we seemingly can't compete), and hence relegation is a valid consideration. Even if we avoid relegation this season then we'll need significant expenditure in the summer to build a team that can stay up next. Same sport different situation but we're approaching squeaky bum time. That's why I see the upcoming fixture against Forest as so important. It's the cliched 6 pointer.

[fox_up_north]

I don't like to see it and I've no interest in seeing "the best in the world" in my league. Leave that to the tourists and Chinese fans. I want a club that's unique to each town and city. 

 

If the money falls out the bottom, there will still be clubs and people wanting to see the game. Macclesfield, Bury, Aldershot have all shown it can happen. 

[taupe]

2 hours ago, SkidsFox said:

Going to be Spurs. Can't see the Qataris going for an Everton or Leeds. 

Weird thing is, I would have thought the opposite. Spurs is a more of an 'oven ready' product (sorry, that phrase is tarnished). I thought the investment required by either of the other clubs would appeal more.  Shows how wrong I can be.

[FoxinNotts]

Absolutely fine with it. Crack on.

[fox_up_north]

46 minutes ago, grobyfox1990 said:

Edit - LGBTQ+ rights are horrendous in Thailand, same-sex couples are not given the same rights as opposite sex couples and are not recognised, same sex couples and are also routinely informally repressed. I do feel we missed an opportunity during the World Cup to raise this with our ownership (who are the de facto Thai state).

I think, for me, I can justify it as the owners are clearly engaged with our community. It's not quite the same as Saudia Arabia buying a club and putting their flag's colours on the team shirt. 

 

However, you raise a valid point that we should be able to ask questions of our owners and expect them to meet certain standards. For example, if there was an awareness campaign for a gay issue or something else, which many clubs take part in, I would expect us to do the same.

 

Though I also take your point about KP's links to the Thai rulers but I feel comfortable enough that a duty free airport business is different to an oil state. 

[grobyfox1990]

Just now, fox_up_north said:

I think, for me, I can justify it as the owners are clearly engaged with our community. It's not quite the same as Saudia Arabia buying a club and putting their flag's colours on the team shirt. 

 

However, you raise a valid point that we should be able to ask questions of our owners and expect them to meet certain standards. For example, if there was an awareness campaign for a gay issue or something else, which many clubs take part in, I would expect us to do the same.

 

Though I also take your point about KP's links to the Thai rulers but I feel comfortable enough that a duty free airport business is different to an oil state. 

Oh yeh absolutely not saying Thailand is the same as the Middle Eastern regimes where being LGBTQ+ is far worse, but it was great to see an outrage at that issue during the World Cup and I would have liked to have seen similar at our lot, I did send an email that went unreplied too lol. It's still a big issue in Thailand that has a long long long LONG way to go.

 

Overall I like you am also comfortable with them, hence I keep giving them my money!

[Tommy G]

If you try and pocket the honesty flags you are as bad as these oil billionaires, no moral compass. 

[kingkisnorbo]

Heartening to see so many on this thread saying they’d bin it if we were to do similar. The continual mental gymnastics done by fans of the Newcastle’s of this world to justify their ownership is dreadful.

[HankMarvin]

1 minute ago, kingkisnorbo said:

Heartening to see so many on this thread saying they’d bin it if we were to do similar. The continual mental gymnastics done by fans of the Newcastle’s of this world to justify their ownership is dreadful.

Wonder if it’s because there is a air of optimism at the start of the window in the hope we get new players in. The same question asked at the end of a poor window and on the back of another dismal run might warrant a different response from some.

[kingkisnorbo]

Just now, HankMarvin said:

Wonder if it’s because there is a air of optimism at the start of the window in the hope we get new players in. The same question asked at the end of a poor window and on the back of another dismal run might warrant a different response from some.

Like others have said, I’d genuinely rather go down. The response or lack there of from Newcastle is based around that weird misnomer that they’re somehow deserving of success at any cost because of Ashley.