Compettive Football is dying as we watch it!

[davieG]

Promotion to the Premiership is becoming ever more pointless from a footballing perspective, for many clubs it's now just a means of making some money before the inevitable relegation back to the Championship - Is it worth the hazzle?

Addicks chief admits massive gulf

Charlton Athletic chief executive Peter Varney believes it is becoming impossible for newly-promoted teams to compete in the Premier League.

The Addicks were relegated from the top-flight last season, and have failed in their bid to win promotion from the Championship at the first attempt.

Varney told BBC London 94.9: "Derby County made no attempt to compete, they've got 11 points.

"You will see that as a feature increasingly of clubs who go up."

Two of the three promoted sides last season, Derby and Birmingham, are currently in the Premier League's bottom three, with only Sunderland seemingly safe having spent over £40m on new players.

Varney added: "With due respect, if clubs like Bristol City or Hull made it, they will give it a go. But they will not spend huge amounts of money to do it. The gap is so big you'll see increasingly that happen.

"If we played Manchester United at the Valley on a Wednesday and Wigan Athletic on a Saturday, we would now in the future play a weakened side against Manchester United because we would see the Wigan game as being the vital game in terms of the league that we are really playing in."

Varney steps down from his post as chief executive in the summer after 11 years in the role.

[Manwell Pablo]

Promotion to the Premiership is becoming ever more pointless from a footballing perspective, for many clubs it's now just a means of making some money before the inevitable relegation back to the Championship - Is it worth the hazzle?

Addicks chief admits massive gulf

Charlton Athletic chief executive Peter Varney believes it is becoming impossible for newly-promoted teams to compete in the Premier League.

The Addicks were relegated from the top-flight last season, and have failed in their bid to win promotion from the Championship at the first attempt.

Varney told BBC London 94.9: "Derby County made no attempt to compete, they've got 11 points.

"You will see that as a feature increasingly of clubs who go up."

Two of the three promoted sides last season, Derby and Birmingham, are currently in the Premier League's bottom three, with only Sunderland seemingly safe having spent over £40m on new players.

Varney added: "With due respect, if clubs like Bristol City or Hull made it, they will give it a go. But they will not spend huge amounts of money to do it. The gap is so big you'll see increasingly that happen.

"If we played Manchester United at the Valley on a Wednesday and Wigan Athletic on a Saturday, we would now in the future play a weakened side against Manchester United because we would see the Wigan game as being the vital game in terms of the league that we are really playing in."

Varney steps down from his post as chief executive in the summer after 11 years in the role.

Totally right football is nowhere near as competitive as it used to be.

Although all he is actually doing in that article is moaning without offering a soloution.

[Fat Ron]

Look out for a programme on Bravo called 'Footballs gone soft'

Absolutly brilliant!! It points out exactly what Varney is saying, Money rules the game now and the man for man battle rarley appears now.

[davieG]

Totally right football is nowhere near as competitive as it used to be.

Although all he is actually doing in that article is moaning without offering a soloution.

To be fair to him the only solutions are money based and it's up to those with the money to resolve it because football League Chairmen have little or now power.

The riches teams wont do anything - turkeys voting for Christmas, so it requires the also rans in the Premier League to out vote the big 4/5/6 clubs but they seem reluctant to upset the status quo partly because once they've been in the Premier League for a year or two they seem to think they've made it.

I really can't see FIFA or UEFA doing anything either.

[Ric Flair]

I don't know why we are bothered, we're shit so it doesn't concern us, we can have all the battles we like as it's a hard task just for us to stay in this arsehole of a division.

[davieG]

I don't know why we are bothered, we're shit so it doesn't concern us, we can have all the battles we like as it's a hard task just for us to stay in this arsehole of a division.

I did think but imagine how much worse it's going to be in 5 years or more

[Thracian]

There are so many things that could be done to make the game properly competitive again if only all the parties put the game first and had the will to make the necessary changes.

However, lesser clubs don't always help themselves as we have demonstrated ourselves this season and in seasons previously.

We waste so much time and money because we don't commit to proper research by people who can properly identify players.

By that I don't mean watching the clips of young internationals having the odd good game. I mean people who can recognise players in a schools match or playing beach football and who see exactly why they are good and exactly what needs to be done to develop them.

Then a club needs to be structured so that development programme is completed as rapidly and effectively as possible and is never interrupted by the need to waste time on poorly researched and imported players who, it is plain, are never going to make it.

Assembling loanees who serve no purpose is another waste of time and money and it is all down to having people with good judgement.

Hendrie, Bell, Alnwick, Fulop all wonderful. No problem within the camp because everyone can see what they are around for.

But look at some of the others we've had and they are people who keep the likes of Gradel, King, Beswick out of not only the first teams but also, sometimes, the reserves and therefore stall their development and their opportunity to gain valuable experience. This creates disharmony within the club which is a cancer that can so affect your chances of success.

Another thing concerns approach. You will never collect enough points by sitting back and trying to stem the tide of an accomplished Premiership attack more than occasionally. But there are alternatives and you have to sign specific players to that end, then weld them into a unit that operates rather like an SAS squad in its instinct for unity and collective achievement or preservation.

Managers need to be accomplished psychologists. People who know how to get into different minds, people who can naturally persuade sometimes laid back individuals to get fitter than they've ever been in their lives and to forever demand more of themselves.

They need to develop a collective attitude to winning. Not just the match but every contest within the match, every tackle, every throw-in, every free-kick. Nothing should be willingly conceded but even then there's more.

The manager or his help must attend to details, each and every little thing that might be used to advantage against the opposition. It's like researching stats really, it's a case of doing every little thing to win the argument or, in this instance, the football match.

A match may be 90 minutes but if it can be over in 20 so much the better. Times I watched Mickey Adams get a goal or even two goals ahead then wondered why did he ever allow us to stop what we were doing so right. We didn't lose those matches we surrendered them. Freely, voluntarily and it cost us our Premiership status - by default.

Of course little clubs are up against it. Soldiers are up against it all the time because there's not a governing body in warfare to ensure that both sides are always evenly matched even numerically. But history is full of heroes who used their brains and determination to overcome odds and that is what little clubs have to do. Think and work. As one and with one spirit.

[Webbo]

The only realistic solution to this is to let the big clubs leave and form a European superleague, they're not going to cut their own throats by spreading the money more widely and reduce their advantage.

Once they're gone we should return to splitting the gate money with the away side like we used to, that way no team can have too much of an advantage.

[dandannieldanok]

Varney told BBC London 94.9: "Derby County made no attempt to compete, they've got 11 points.

I'm not sure what others think but in my eyes this statement is massively disrespectful. Derby simply haven't been good enough and there crapness hasn't been due not trying.

[WetFlannel]

I'm not sure what others think but in my eyes this statement is massively disrespectful. Derby simply haven't been good enough and there crapness hasn't been due not trying.

I'd like to see you be so understanding if we were in their position.

[davieG]

I'm not sure what others think but in my eyes this statement is massively disrespectful. Derby simply haven't been good enough and there crapness hasn't been due not trying.

i think he means by investing in sufficiently better players, not on the pitch because he then goes on to say that Sunderland spent £40 mill in an attempt to survive.

[dandannieldanok]

i think he means by investing in sufficiently better players, not on the pitch because he then goes on to say that Sunderland spent £40 mill in an attempt to survive.

Ah right , but to be fair to Derby they must have spent money on something because they don't have any parachute cash left. It just seems to me that this Varney guy is making a bit of a tw*t of himself, especially considering his mistakes in Charlton's relegation season.

[davieG]

Ah right , but to be fair to Derby they must have spent money on something because they don't have any parachute cash left. It just seems to me that this Varney guy is making a bit of a tw*t of himself, especially considering his mistakes in Charlton's relegation season.

I presume Derby used there cash to payoff debts whereas I think Sunderland have probably gone into more debt or have richer benefactors. Twat or not I don't think what he is saying is far off the mark.

It's very disturbing to read that as a Chairman of football club he would resort to this:

"If we played Manchester United at the Valley on a Wednesday and Wigan Athletic on a Saturday, we would now in the future play a weakened side against Manchester United because we would see the Wigan game as being the vital game in terms of the league that we are really playing in."

That tells me that competitive football is dead and buried and confirms the power of the big 4 and reinforces their position, why bother to turn up and play

[dandannieldanok]

It's very disturbing to read that as a Chairman of football club he would resort to this:

That tells me that competitive football is dead and buried and confirms the power of the big 4 and reinforces their position, why bother to turn up and play

That is a ridiculous comment (from Varney) and if Mandaric ever said that I'd be tempted to slit my wrists. I wouldn't go as far as saying competitive football is dead...................well it is for Charlton

[davieG]

That is a ridiculous comment (from Varney) and if Mandaric ever said that I'd be tempted to slit my wrists. I wouldn't go as far as saying competitive football is dead...................well it is for Charlton

I suspect that other teams have the same mind set, in reality it's just the ying to the yang of big teams fielding weaker teams against the likes of us, Charlton and Wigan.

And in truth Premier League has been uncompetitive and hence been dead for most teams for a number of years when you consider who can realistically win the Premiership.

I find it very disheartening and somewhat ironic that American Football go out of their way to make their game competitive, this in the land of winner takes all yet in England where we are supposed to be for fairness, equality and sportsmanship the Premier League is a case of I'm all right Jack so sod the rest of you.

[Floating Fox]

Does anyone read "ThefootballSupporter" Magazine?

Great article by Burnleys Chairmen in their about parachute payments and issues like them. Shame their aren't more people like him.

[davieG]

Does anyone read "ThefootballSupporter" Magazine?

Great article by Burnleys Chairmen in their about parachute payments and issues like them. Shame their aren't more people like him.

This:

Burnley Supremo Barry Kilby talks free footy and the perils of parachute payments

Burnley Chairman Barry Kilby talks over-paid players, parachute payments and fans watching football free of charge. And Turf Moor’s top man tells tfs’ Jez Robinson precisely why, like the majority of his Championship counterparts, he wants Watford and Charlton Athletic to win promotion back into the Premiership this season.

Being Chairman of a football club in the cash-strapped Championship can prove a pretty unenviable task. Especially when the majority of your local rivals are reaping the rewards of the Premiership and you have to put your hand in your own pocket just to make ends meet. After too long spent watching your neighbours’ exploits in the manner of a kid peering through the window of a sweet shop which is displaying a “Closed” sign, you’re beginning to wonder exactly when the doors of wonderland will be opened.

To wonder, in truth, just whether or not they’ll ever be opened to you at all. The passing of each year renders both you and a committed, passionate support – the legacy of the club’s long and proud history rather than a productive recent past – increasingly desperate to join your near neighbours in the Premiership. As they’ve frolicked amid the plentiful revenue streams of the Promised Land, your frustrations have been compounded further by the knowledge that you’re barely even competing with them on a level playing field anymore.

But try telling that to those success-starved supporters, who it is imperative you keep attracting through the gates, despite the wall-to-wall live football on the pub telly. And the fact some of the top flight clubs on your doorstep can sometimes afford to provide their fans with Premiership football at prices lower than those you are charging your own supporters to watch second-flight games……

Fortunately though, Burnley Chairman Barry Kilby isn’t the sort of bloke to shirk a challenge. Kilby admits the financial obstacles between the Turf Moor outfit and the top division get more significant with every passing season and concedes that competing for custom with Lancashire’s five Premiership sides certainly doesn’t make life any easier for the Clarets. Luckily, Burnley isn’t the type of town where people support other teams. Manchester United may play a mere matter of miles down the road, but they don’t sell many replica shirts in the town centre of Burnley. You won’t see many Liverpool, Everton or Manchester City shirts either, not to mention Blackburn Rovers. But that doesn’t mean having successful neighbours can’t cast your own perceived shortcomings in a particularly harsh light.

As life-long, die-hard Burnley fan himself, local-lad-made-good Kilby understands that all too well. And the multi-millionaire media games mogul won’t feel he’s properly completed his task as Chairman until Burnley have emerged from the shadows and taken to the Premiership stage themselves. With Turf Moor’s loyal regulars looking on – free of charge.

“To be honest, I got a bit fed up reading about Premiership clubs in our region offering cheap tickets for their matches” Kilby told tfs. “People thought I was daft, talking about free Premiership football for the fans, but I really think it is something not beyond the realms of possibility in the future. Not just at Burnley, either. We’re in an area densely populated with football clubs, and competition is fierce for us. There are some Premiership clubs now where the money they get through the gate is less then twenty percent of their net revenues and that tells you something. To a club in the Premiership, I don’t think it’s a massive thing to be able to keep prices affordable, to be able to keep them low.”

“Whereas to us, and other clubs in the vicinity, the gate receipts are an absolutely massive factor in keeping Burnley football club alive. The situation is the same for a lot of clubs at our level. So what I said was ‘Listen, if we can get Burnley FC into the Premiership then we will be able to afford to keep prices down, and that if we do win promotion next season, then I would let our season ticket holders watch Premiership football for free.”

“For many Premiership clubs, the money which comes through in terms of gate receipts is now dwarfed by the TV money, plus all of the other financial spin-offs. So that was my pledge, and I stand by it. If we get up there, our season ticket holders can have a free season, on us. You can do these things when you have massive amounts of TV money being ploughed into the club regularly.”

Part 2 of this article will appear on our website next week

Reproduced with kind permission from: The Football Supporters’ Federation

On the Foxes Trust Website

[Floating Fox]

Thats the one Davie...Great read.

[Ultra]

Listen, if we can get Burnley FC into the Premiership then we will be able to afford to keep prices down, and that if we do win promotion next season, then I would let our season ticket holders watch Premiership football for free

A brave promise...

I wonder if he'll have to stick to it any time soon?

[Tomassi]

Money ruined the game. There is no way back now. Watch Sunday League Football :-D