He wouldn't have a scooby that there's dissent in the fan base because he won't read this message board and it represents a minuscule proportion of the support. If he did realise I'm sure he wouldn't give a single toss.
Sorry, incorrect. Slater & Jimenez are extremely aware of what is said on here.
Specifically, Slater has mentioned it on every occasion he's spoken in public, that I've attended.
Agree, have heard Slater say the same.
I'm told comments on CL have led to finger pointing at board level as well.
Also don't think CL is a miniscule proportion of the support.
Charlton Life has consistently polled around 30-33% of the fanbase using it in the Trust surveys throughout 2013. Certain other sites that will not be named(!) poll significantly less - below 5% AFKA or LookOut might give accurate stats on active users/posters. Perhaps there are 5-700? I do recall that LookOut suggested 2,000,000 hits per month when celebrating 1,000 pages I am sure CAFC staff and directors take a look at Charlton Life. I expect that they would be interested in fans views of the football side and the club in general.
I would say that was definitely written by a professional writer. It is quite polished but doesn't really say anything. The thank you for your support stuff that it may be seen as be sarcastic is co incendental and don't think is intentional. It would not be in Tjs future interest to inject that kind of bitterness or subtle humour in his statement. TJ is not that subtle. This is a PR piece to gloss over any problems relating to his time at the club.
I’d probably be among the last to defend Jimenez normally – but I think it’s worth reviewing one of his overlooked other recent Huffingtonpost blogs on Spanish football (almost certainly not written by Slater or an anonymous professional scribbler) for the insight it gives into the old regime’s support for the academy (and a possible approach of the mathematical Mr. Duchatelet? - whether it proves to be successful or not):
Ignoring his characteristic ‘creative’ self-puffing:
“As the owner of Charlton Athletic, and having advised and owned a host of football clubs across the continent over the last 20 years….”
He goes on to say:
“In 'tiki-taka', the Spanish have developed a methodical and mathematical approach of football, a calculated playing style which relies as much on graft and geometry as it does grace and genius.
But the mastering of such technique requires as much meticulous preparation off the pitch as on it - and it is no coincidence that the nurturing process begins early for the La Roja youngsters.
It is a unique system known as categorías inferiors, and it is key to Spain's domination of the game over the last decade.
Every summer, the best 55 talents in each age group - from Under-14, right up to Senior level - are selected by regional scouts, and invited to a training camp just outside of Madrid. For three days every month, the players return to the base, to be educated in the art of 'tiki-taka', to undertake training - and, importantly, to build relationships with their teammates”.
But also interestingly (whether accurately I don’t know):
“At Charlton Athletic, our Academy Director and Manager, Paul Hart and Steve Avory, have produced excellent results by leaning heavily on the Spanish blueprint - and that has seen the already excellent reputation of our youth setup enhanced even further”.
Charlton Life has consistently polled around 30-33% of the fanbase using it in the Trust surveys throughout 2013. Certain other sites that will not be named(!) poll significantly less - below 5% AFKA or LookOut might give accurate stats on active users/posters. Perhaps there are 5-700? I do recall that LookOut suggested 2,000,000 hits per month when celebrating 1,000 pages I am sure CAFC staff and directors take a look at Charlton Life. I expect that they would be interested in fans views of the football side and the club in general.
However those polled represent what, 3/4% of our support base?
I would say that was definitely written by a professional writer. It is quite polished but doesn't really say anything. The thank you for your support stuff that it may be seen as be sarcastic is co incendental and don't think is intentional. It would not be in Tjs future interest to inject that kind of bitterness or subtle humour in his statement. TJ is not that subtle. This is a PR piece to gloss over any problems relating to his time at the club.
I’d probably be among the last to defend Jimenez normally – but I think it’s worth reviewing one of his overlooked other recent Huffingtonpost blogs on Spanish football (almost certainly not written by Slater or an anonymous professional scribbler) for the insight it gives into the old regime’s support for the academy (and a possible approach of the mathematical Mr. Duchatelet? - whether it proves to be successful or not):
Ignoring his characteristic ‘creative’ self-puffing:
“As the owner of Charlton Athletic, and having advised and owned a host of football clubs across the continent over the last 20 years….”
He goes on to say:
“In 'tiki-taka', the Spanish have developed a methodical and mathematical approach of football, a calculated playing style which relies as much on graft and geometry as it does grace and genius.
But the mastering of such technique requires as much meticulous preparation off the pitch as on it - and it is no coincidence that the nurturing process begins early for the La Roja youngsters.
It is a unique system known as categorías inferiors, and it is key to Spain's domination of the game over the last decade.
Every summer, the best 55 talents in each age group - from Under-14, right up to Senior level - are selected by regional scouts, and invited to a training camp just outside of Madrid. For three days every month, the players return to the base, to be educated in the art of 'tiki-taka', to undertake training - and, importantly, to build relationships with their teammates”.
But also interestingly (whether accurately I don’t know):
“At Charlton Athletic, our Academy Director and Manager, Paul Hart and Steve Avory, have produced excellent results by leaning heavily on the Spanish blueprint - and that has seen the already excellent reputation of our youth setup enhanced even further”.
I read this too and thought it potentially very significant. Jimenez is right. We've clearly been left behind in England and if the development of Charlton's academy has been influenced by what's been achieved in Spain, then that has to be good news.
I'm not defending Jimenez either, but I do believe that he knew something about Football.
Yes, it sounds promising, but you are swimming against the tide trying to do something in this country. The academy seems to have 7 & 8 year olds playing competetive games judging by posts on here, so I believe it when I see the results!
Charlton Life has consistently polled around 30-33% of the fanbase using it in the Trust surveys throughout 2013. Certain other sites that will not be named(!) poll significantly less - below 5% AFKA or LookOut might give accurate stats on active users/posters. Perhaps there are 5-700? I do recall that LookOut suggested 2,000,000 hits per month when celebrating 1,000 pages I am sure CAFC staff and directors take a look at Charlton Life. I expect that they would be interested in fans views of the football side and the club in general.
However those polled represent what, 3/4% of our support base?
Some of them were based on random samples at games, so in research terms those polls represent all fans who attend matches
Charlton Life has consistently polled around 30-33% of the fanbase using it in the Trust surveys throughout 2013. Certain other sites that will not be named(!) poll significantly less - below 5% AFKA or LookOut might give accurate stats on active users/posters. Perhaps there are 5-700? I do recall that LookOut suggested 2,000,000 hits per month when celebrating 1,000 pages I am sure CAFC staff and directors take a look at Charlton Life. I expect that they would be interested in fans views of the football side and the club in general.
However those polled represent what, 3/4% of our support base?
Some of them were based on random samples at games, so in research terms those polls represent all fans who attend matches
Yes indeed Prague.
We have taken professional advice from the very start from experts in order to be sure that both stats released and campaigns/assumptins based on those raw stats are reliable. They have suggested that a sample as low as 300 gives 95% confidence - as long as it is random. In this case the stats calibrate with Charlton Life's own claims so it makes sense - at least to me.
Ten trust volunteers went out in all weathers last year to gather the first sets of data - well some went into the Liberal club!
Charlton Life's share is consistent throughout last year and with it's own claims of 5,000 unique ISP addresses per day...while the Trust share of fan internet use has grown as the numbers and activity has grown.
Incidentally one poll had well over 2,200 respondents. Depending upon your estimate of the active fanbase that might be anything up to 10% of CAFC fans.
Clearly if the surveys were only ever promoted here on Charlton Life and via the Trust contact list then CL would poll higher. But only 7/800 come through these channels online.
What is surely of more interest is how these numbers develop over time with the same methodology. Not just about Charlton Life but attitudes to Chris Powell, the clubs future goals and coming next, what beer products should be available at games, whether the club should develop wi-fi and what people think about the programme, stewarding - so basically all aspects of the matchday experience.
Ironically I notice that many of these are mentioned on the Duchatelet wish list thread so all very timely.
I would believe it slightly more if the bloke had just once in those wonderful three years had the good grace and courtesy to address the fans or shown us anything other than contempt. Bye Tony I'm glad you've gone.
Do you believe we will get more correspondence from the Belgian??
Some people would moan because TJ and MS wouldn't be at the games. The new guy owns about 6 clubs, he can't be at them all.
Can see there being plenty of double standards.
I think it's more likely we'll see the chairman in attendance more often though...
I'm certainly no apologist for Tony Jiminez, but I've enjoyed his blog posts, whoever wrote them, and I enjoyed reading the last one. Yes, of course they're spun to suit his own ends but, begrudgingly, it's hard to ignore that the club needed new money when these guys arrived and they brought it. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that we're better placed than we were when they took over, whether we agree with every change or not. New money is needed now too, of course, but it is a fact that we're a League above, have a manager to be proud of, and whilst they've not met their own ambition re the academy, that's certainly in a much much better state than it was.
I'm also strangely proud of the fact we've still not done a Leicester or Southampton and cynically exploited administration.
I suspect time will be kinder on this regime than our insight into their behaviours permits so proximate to their reign. Hopefully we'll see it as a stepping stone to a brighter future, rather than the devil we knew being better than the one who succeeded them..
It was Varney that brought in Powell and it was Powell, his management team and his players that got us promoted.
Jiminez bit off more than he could chew and Slater was solely around to protect his master's investment and keep a leash on Big Tone. They couldn't care less about the Club and its staff (its supporters for that matter) and showed that through neglect at the highest management level. Good riddance.
I'm not a fan of theirs at all but they did sanction those signings if we're being fair.
On double standards. I know that TJ and MS were businessmen who because of their investment couldn't attend every game but I would have expected them to attend more given their predominantly UK based investment. Duchatelet will attend very few no doubt and given his interests are continental based I don't blame him for that.
I am sure you are right that Roland will not be seen very often, but I guarantee that this successful man will have his finger on the pulse wherever he is. I am very happy to look forward to his future plans for us, and for himself of course.
To be honest - what he did or didn't do for Charlton is another story. The points he makes in the blog entry on why England didn't do it in the WC are pretty good though...
There were plenty of head-scratching moments during that ownership spell, but the fact the silent, non-communitive elusive owner ends up writing a blog for the Huff Post is right at the very top.
He is spot on in that piece. Hodgson is one of the highest paid managers in the World game! Who decides to re-appoint a failure and not even cut his money! Greg the idiot lacky Dyke that's who. He criticises FIFA, but they are an easy target when the FA is just as corrupt, but in a different way. It is an old boys network that sucks up to the Premiership - pats the failures on the back and comes out with stupid schemes because 'we have to do something' - but we can't do what we really need to do - but something has to be better than nothing - doesn't it? No it doesn't you complete fool - you have to do what will work!
But Football fans don't care - all Arsenal and Man Utd fans care about is Arsenal and Man Utd. We should be at the FA throwing eggs at Dyke and his fellow idiots/cronies every day and try to force change - but do we care if our club sides do well with a team of foreign stars? Probably not enough!
He is spot on in that piece. Hodgson is one of the highest paid managers in the World game! Who decides to re-appoint a failure and not even cut his money! Greg the idiot lacky Dyke that's who. He criticises FIFA, but they are an easy target when the FA is just as corrupt, but in a different way. It is an old boys network that sucks up to the Premiership - pats the failures on the back and comes out with stupid schemes because 'we have to do something' - but we can't do what we really need to do - but something has to be better than nothing - doesn't it? No it doesn't you complete fool - you have to do what will work!
But Football fans don't care - all Arsenal and Man Utd fans care about is Arsenal and Man Utd. We should be at the FA throwing eggs at Dyke and his fellow idiots/cronies every day and try to force change - but do we care if our club sides do well with a team of foreign stars? Probably not enough!
He's dead wrong. Even after allegedly owning a club on the wrong end of the ludicrous allocation of TV money, he fails to see that the real problem is the FAPL as separate entity which siphons off all the money which in countries like Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium goes into child and academy football development.
That is why all those countries have better players than us, who also really want to play for their country, and will be doing so in the next 48 hours, long after everyone has forgotten that England were even there.
An interesting perspective @PragueAddick but you ignore a few key factors: Spain and Italy also departed; the FAPL deal is not just another TV deal, it is one of the top three global sports media deals along with NFL and formula 1. [quite simply it dwarfs the other European football TV deals] It was the FA tradition and history + archaic structure + shambolic negotiations and decision making in the 80s which created the opportunity for the FAPL. I would suggest that the Championship and FAPL sit down and cut a deal for the top 40 clubs and then propose a new arrangement for the England team if this is a priority? We have more in common with the bottom half of the FAPL than any other part of the football world. Personally not that fussed as I'm a Londoner and European. The concepts of England, UK and nation states slightly scary!
An interesting perspective @PragueAddick but you ignore a few key factors: Spain and Italy also departed; the FAPL deal is not just another TV deal, it is one of the top three global sports media deals along with NFL and formula 1. [quite simply it dwarfs the other European football TV deals] It was the FA tradition and history + archaic structure + shambolic negotiations and decision making in the 80s which created the opportunity for the FAPL. I would suggest that the Championship and FAPL sit down and cut a deal for the top 40 clubs and then propose a new arrangement for the England team if this is a priority? We have more in common with the bottom half of the FAPL than any other part of the football world. Personally not that fussed as I'm a Londoner and European. The concepts of England, UK and nation states slightly scary!
Yes Spain and Italy. Two stupid countries who allow clubs to negotiate individual TV deals which has resulted in the decline of the Italian league in particular.
So what if the FAPL deal is big? The money still rightly belongs to English football, not to the chairmen of twenty clubs, most of whom are not themselves British citizens (and in some cases don't pay any UK tax)
Look the Championship cannot "cut a deal" with the FAPL, can it? What bargaining chips does it have? And what about the clubs in Leagues One and Two? They are left to rot while this deal is cut? That could have been us in that last hapless group! The whole ridiculous edifice needs to be pulled down and run by a new FA , and regulated by an Off -Foot. Otherwise you can have anyone from Mourinho to Big Phil as national coach and we will still not get beyond the Q-Fs of either the WC or the Euros.
Agree with your final line but South Africa 2010 killed my interest and national teams...Hmmm the likes of Gérard on £5m a year finishing bottom of the group. Like the reshaping of the Middle East you have to look at the forces at play and the fact (not theory) that FAPL is top box office shaped by shrewd operators who have pissed all over the FA! It is why Duchatelet has arrived in SE7 (and why Udinese bought Watford) so as to buy a ticket in the raffle which @Mundell Fleming described 12 months back. Not sure I was clear... Swansea and Palace and Burnley are repeating the model we built and delivered in the 90s so we need to repeat not bleat! The real issue are clubs/owners like Cardiff and QPR but they are so flakey that they have no shelf life. We compete over a 10/20 year period with West Bromwich etc but we have a common interest in that we are all local clubs with 20-30,000 fans based in our local community. I'm aware Richard Murray promoted a Premier League 2 idea... If we can climb and grab just one year in the premier league then we join the ten clubs in the Championship with parachute payments... Like FFP which has resisted amendments, it is possible to cut a deal that suits the majority of clubs in our bracket. But not with fighting and blaming just looking for common ground. The fact that a candidate for the next sports minister is a local Mp suggests that it won't be hard to push a case for change? PS your ideas of regulators and giving power to those in the lower leagues simply recreates the conditions of the 80s where the strong clubs and commercial interests can break away again - you're going back to the 70s! It's up to clubs to climb through the leagues... As an arbitrary limit I'd suggest that any club with an average gate of 15,000+ should be part of the bigger picture. You are completely ignoring the fact that the FAPL deal is a global phenomena and only by CAFC winning and joining the club can we contribute to change...anything else is noise and sour grapes!
If you are not interested in your national team, that's your problem. I find this World Cup the most richly satisfying tournament I have witnessed for years and if you don't find it so I can only feel sorry for you.
Not only did Richard Murray promote Prem 2, but he never thought a separate FAPL entity was a good idea in the first place. What he has always backed is what the Germans have actually done, and furthermore they have recently extended it so that there is now a Bundesliga 3. And, as I have to keep repeating until you finally get it, the Bundesliga reports to the DFA.
So the FAPL TV deal is Big Money? So what? Are you always going to be in uncritical dazzled thrall to Big Money? So the Bundesliga TV deal is nowhere near as big as the FAPL's (although it is rapidly catching up) So why don't you then ask yourself why on almost every parameter German football is in better health, and gives its customers more satisfaction, that the English one does?
Your "arbitrary limit of 15,000" is just plain silly. Not least because we are in severe danger of falling below it, to be replaced by Portsmouth.
If you are not interested in your national team, that's your problem. I find this World Cup the most richly satisfying tournament I have witnessed for years and if you don't find it so I can only feel sorry for you.
Not only did Richard Murray promote Prem 2, but he never thought a separate FAPL entity was a good idea in the first place. What he has always backed is what the Germans have actually done, and furthermore they have recently extended it so that there is now a Bundesliga 3. And, as I have to keep repeating until you finally get it, the Bundesliga reports to the DFA.
So the FAPL TV deal is Big Money? So what? Are you always going to be in uncritical dazzled thrall to Big Money? So the Bundesliga TV deal is nowhere near as big as the FAPL's (although it is rapidly catching up) So why don't you then ask yourself why on almost every parameter German football is in better health, and gives its customers more satisfaction, that the English one does?
Your "arbitrary limit of 15,000" is just plain silly. Not least because we are in severe danger of falling below it, to be replaced by Portsmouth.
Quite. In many many ways I wish we had the German model here.
What's happening in English football is the needs of the few being outweighed by the needs of the many, and it's quite simply destroyed the competition we once knew, where the likes of West Ham, Ipswich, Coventry and Norwich could challenge at the top without needing to be financial equals with the big boys; and where the likes of Wimbledon can rise up from the lower leagues through effective football rather than splashing out on footballers they can't afford. The idea that it's "up to clubs to climb the league" would be fine if there was a level playing field, but when Cardiff City receive a level of reward for finishing last of which Championship clubs can't even scratch the surface - well, it's not quite as straightforward as that is it, thanks to the FAPL.
Back to TJ's latest post, personally I enjoyed watching England considerably more than I have done at the previous 3 tournaments despite the results. It was frustrating, but for once you could begin to see something taking shape that will hopefully see a little more progress in the Euros in 2 years time. To interrupt that by replacing yet another England manager describes to me all that is wrong with those people in the hiring/firing positions. A little longevity and commitment to a longer term vision is absolutely what we need - feck me, even Greg Dyke gets that (even if he is FAPL myopic).
If you are not interested in your national team, that's your problem. I find this World Cup the most richly satisfying tournament I have witnessed for years and if you don't find it so I can only feel sorry for you.
Not only did Richard Murray promote Prem 2, but he never thought a separate FAPL entity was a good idea in the first place. What he has always backed is what the Germans have actually done, and furthermore they have recently extended it so that there is now a Bundesliga 3. And, as I have to keep repeating until you finally get it, the Bundesliga reports to the DFA.
So the FAPL TV deal is Big Money? So what? Are you always going to be in uncritical dazzled thrall to Big Money? So the Bundesliga TV deal is nowhere near as big as the FAPL's (although it is rapidly catching up) So why don't you then ask yourself why on almost every parameter German football is in better health, and gives its customers more satisfaction, that the English one does?
Your "arbitrary limit of 15,000" is just plain silly. Not least because we are in severe danger of falling below it, to be replaced by Portsmouth.
Who said anything about not being into the world cup?! Looking forward to a bash after work watching France vs Germany and thoroughly enjoyed the games I've watched to date... Reza, Belgium vs Howard etc. But there is nothing to watch with the England team and hasn't been for a long time. The US showed us what high tempo footy with quality limitations looks like ffs. At least expectations were sane this time. In all the rhetoric I think you are missing the point. I object to state regulation to put an ineffective grouping like the FA in charge just because the flow chart looks right and it works somewhere else. Sure there could be changes but one should show some understanding of the current set up instead of bleating from a have not position "no fair". Over time there could be as many as 12 clubs in the Championship with parachute payments, the beginnings of a premier 2. Perhaps CAFC should focus on what is within its own power to achieve and obtain membership of that group by winning promotion?! Makes a lot more sense to me than trying to nationalise one of the biggest sports media deals on the planet and destroy value because you simply don't get it and are very jealous of those with access to a share of the cash.
Comments
I'm told comments on CL have led to finger pointing at board level as well.
Also don't think CL is a miniscule proportion of the support.
AFKA or LookOut might give accurate stats on active users/posters. Perhaps there are 5-700?
I do recall that LookOut suggested 2,000,000 hits per month when celebrating 1,000 pages
I am sure CAFC staff and directors take a look at Charlton Life. I expect that they would be interested in fans views of the football side and the club in general.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tony-jimenez/spanish-football-tiki-taka_b_4343704.html
Ignoring his characteristic ‘creative’ self-puffing:
“As the owner of Charlton Athletic, and having advised and owned a host of football clubs across the continent over the last 20 years….”
He goes on to say:
“In 'tiki-taka', the Spanish have developed a methodical and mathematical approach of football, a calculated playing style which relies as much on graft and geometry as it does grace and genius.
But the mastering of such technique requires as much meticulous preparation off the pitch as on it - and it is no coincidence that the nurturing process begins early for the La Roja youngsters.
It is a unique system known as categorías inferiors, and it is key to Spain's domination of the game over the last decade.
Every summer, the best 55 talents in each age group - from Under-14, right up to Senior level - are selected by regional scouts, and invited to a training camp just outside of Madrid. For three days every month, the players return to the base, to be educated in the art of 'tiki-taka', to undertake training - and, importantly, to build relationships with their teammates”.
But also interestingly (whether accurately I don’t know):
“At Charlton Athletic, our Academy Director and Manager, Paul Hart and Steve Avory, have produced excellent results by leaning heavily on the Spanish blueprint - and that has seen the already excellent reputation of our youth setup enhanced even further”.
However those polled represent what, 3/4% of our support base?
I'm not defending Jimenez either, but I do believe that he knew something about Football.
We have taken professional advice from the very start from experts in order to be sure that both stats released and campaigns/assumptins based on those raw stats are reliable. They have suggested that a sample as low as 300 gives 95% confidence - as long as it is random. In this case the stats calibrate with Charlton Life's own claims so it makes sense - at least to me.
Ten trust volunteers went out in all weathers last year to gather the first sets of data - well some went into the Liberal club!
Charlton Life's share is consistent throughout last year and with it's own claims of 5,000 unique ISP addresses per day...while the Trust share of fan internet use has grown as the numbers and activity has grown.
Incidentally one poll had well over 2,200 respondents. Depending upon your estimate of the active fanbase that might be anything up to 10% of CAFC fans.
Clearly if the surveys were only ever promoted here on Charlton Life and via the Trust contact list then CL would poll higher. But only 7/800 come through these channels online.
What is surely of more interest is how these numbers develop over time with the same methodology. Not just about Charlton Life but attitudes to Chris Powell, the clubs future goals and coming next, what beer products should be available at games, whether the club should develop wi-fi and what people think about the programme, stewarding - so basically all aspects of the matchday experience.
Ironically I notice that many of these are mentioned on the Duchatelet wish list thread so all very timely.
I'm also strangely proud of the fact we've still not done a Leicester or Southampton and cynically exploited administration.
I suspect time will be kinder on this regime than our insight into their behaviours permits so proximate to their reign. Hopefully we'll see it as a stepping stone to a brighter future, rather than the devil we knew being better than the one who succeeded them..
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tony-jimenez/
On double standards. I know that TJ and MS were businessmen who because of their investment couldn't attend every game but I would have expected them to attend more given their predominantly UK based investment. Duchatelet will attend very few no doubt and given his interests are continental based I don't blame him for that.
I am sure you are right that Roland will not be seen very often, but I guarantee that this successful man will have his finger on the pulse wherever he is. I am very happy to look forward to his future plans for us, and for himself of course.
But Football fans don't care - all Arsenal and Man Utd fans care about is Arsenal and Man Utd. We should be at the FA throwing eggs at Dyke and his fellow idiots/cronies every day and try to force change - but do we care if our club sides do well with a team of foreign stars? Probably not enough!
But Football fans don't care - all Arsenal and Man Utd fans care about is Arsenal and Man Utd. We should be at the FA throwing eggs at Dyke and his fellow idiots/cronies every day and try to force change - but do we care if our club sides do well with a team of foreign stars? Probably not enough!
That is why all those countries have better players than us, who also really want to play for their country, and will be doing so in the next 48 hours, long after everyone has forgotten that England were even there.
I would suggest that the Championship and FAPL sit down and cut a deal for the top 40 clubs and then propose a new arrangement for the England team if this is a priority? We have more in common with the bottom half of the FAPL than any other part of the football world.
Personally not that fussed as I'm a Londoner and European. The concepts of England, UK and nation states slightly scary!
So what if the FAPL deal is big? The money still rightly belongs to English football, not to the chairmen of twenty clubs, most of whom are not themselves British citizens (and in some cases don't pay any UK tax)
Look the Championship cannot "cut a deal" with the FAPL, can it? What bargaining chips does it have? And what about the clubs in Leagues One and Two? They are left to rot while this deal is cut? That could have been us in that last hapless group! The whole ridiculous edifice needs to be pulled down and run by a new FA , and regulated by an Off -Foot. Otherwise you can have anyone from Mourinho to Big Phil as national coach and we will still not get beyond the Q-Fs of either the WC or the Euros.
Like the reshaping of the Middle East you have to look at the forces at play and the fact (not theory) that FAPL is top box office shaped by shrewd operators who have pissed all over the FA!
It is why Duchatelet has arrived in SE7 (and why Udinese bought Watford) so as to buy a ticket in the raffle which @Mundell Fleming described 12 months back.
Not sure I was clear... Swansea and Palace and Burnley are repeating the model we built and delivered in the 90s so we need to repeat not bleat! The real issue are clubs/owners like Cardiff and QPR but they are so flakey that they have no shelf life. We compete over a 10/20 year period with West Bromwich etc but we have a common interest in that we are all local clubs with 20-30,000 fans based in our local community.
I'm aware Richard Murray promoted a Premier League 2 idea... If we can climb and grab just one year in the premier league then we join the ten clubs in the Championship with parachute payments... Like FFP which has resisted amendments, it is possible to cut a deal that suits the majority of clubs in our bracket. But not with fighting and blaming just looking for common ground. The fact that a candidate for the next sports minister is a local Mp suggests that it won't be hard to push a case for change?
PS your ideas of regulators and giving power to those in the lower leagues simply recreates the conditions of the 80s where the strong clubs and commercial interests can break away again - you're going back to the 70s! It's up to clubs to climb through the leagues... As an arbitrary limit I'd suggest that any club with an average gate of 15,000+ should be part of the bigger picture. You are completely ignoring the fact that the FAPL deal is a global phenomena and only by CAFC winning and joining the club can we contribute to change...anything else is noise and sour grapes!
If you are not interested in your national team, that's your problem. I find this World Cup the most richly satisfying tournament I have witnessed for years and if you don't find it so I can only feel sorry for you.
Not only did Richard Murray promote Prem 2, but he never thought a separate FAPL entity was a good idea in the first place. What he has always backed is what the Germans have actually done, and furthermore they have recently extended it so that there is now a Bundesliga 3. And, as I have to keep repeating until you finally get it, the Bundesliga reports to the DFA.
So the FAPL TV deal is Big Money? So what? Are you always going to be in uncritical dazzled thrall to Big Money? So the Bundesliga TV deal is nowhere near as big as the FAPL's (although it is rapidly catching up) So why don't you then ask yourself why on almost every parameter German football is in better health, and gives its customers more satisfaction, that the English one does?
Your "arbitrary limit of 15,000" is just plain silly. Not least because we are in severe danger of falling below it, to be replaced by Portsmouth.
What's happening in English football is the needs of the few being outweighed by the needs of the many, and it's quite simply destroyed the competition we once knew, where the likes of West Ham, Ipswich, Coventry and Norwich could challenge at the top without needing to be financial equals with the big boys; and where the likes of Wimbledon can rise up from the lower leagues through effective football rather than splashing out on footballers they can't afford. The idea that it's "up to clubs to climb the league" would be fine if there was a level playing field, but when Cardiff City receive a level of reward for finishing last of which Championship clubs can't even scratch the surface - well, it's not quite as straightforward as that is it, thanks to the FAPL.
Back to TJ's latest post, personally I enjoyed watching England considerably more than I have done at the previous 3 tournaments despite the results. It was frustrating, but for once you could begin to see something taking shape that will hopefully see a little more progress in the Euros in 2 years time. To interrupt that by replacing yet another England manager describes to me all that is wrong with those people in the hiring/firing positions. A little longevity and commitment to a longer term vision is absolutely what we need - feck me, even Greg Dyke gets that (even if he is FAPL myopic).
In all the rhetoric I think you are missing the point. I object to state regulation to put an ineffective grouping like the FA in charge just because the flow chart looks right and it works somewhere else.
Sure there could be changes but one should show some understanding of the current set up instead of bleating from a have not position "no fair".
Over time there could be as many as 12 clubs in the Championship with parachute payments, the beginnings of a premier 2. Perhaps CAFC should focus on what is within its own power to achieve and obtain membership of that group by winning promotion?!
Makes a lot more sense to me than trying to nationalise one of the biggest sports media deals on the planet and destroy value because you simply don't get it and are very jealous of those with access to a share of the cash.