Obviously there's a lot of disgust and sorrow going around, which I fully share.
Just one of the dimensions of this is what it means for this forum. I was asking myself questions that Rosso has just answered for himself in his post this morning. If the ESL robs us of a reason to care about our clubs, it also takes away the impetus to talk about them. Hopefully we all lead fairly full lives outside of our JA606 experience (!) but I for one will feel a bit of a hole if I no longer care enough about football to log in and argue about it. Obviously other things will come along to replace it but in the meantime this forum could easily fragment and dwindle.
So my question is whether we should evolve the forum, create new spaces where we can continue to chat while we figure out what happens next.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts, admins.
@Admins - what does it mean for JA606?
posted on 19/4/21
comment by Vidicschin (U3584)
posted 4 minutes ago
I would imagine the a admins are delighted. There hasn’t been so much traffic on here since the site started.
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It got fairly busy after The Racist abused Evra
posted on 19/4/21
Fans will still continue to support their clubs beyond this, I doubt we will all switch our Tele's off forever now because clubs have made an ethically poor decision with financial benefits. That's the modern day in many cases.
posted on 19/4/21
comment by JustYourAverageFan (U21016)
posted 28 seconds ago
Fans will still continue to support their clubs beyond this, I doubt we will all switch our Tele's off forever now because clubs have made an ethically poor decision with financial benefits. That's the modern day in many cases.
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I'm really not sure I will. I want to care about Man Utd, but if they're no longer part of a structure that involves promotion and relegation, that sees the possibility of meticulously building towards the hope of glory, I just don't think it will mean anything anymore.
I know that's the reality of sports in the US. I know their fans care about their teams. But ultimately it's more entertainment and less sport if you do it that way, and you can't do away with a century of tradition and community without breaking something.
posted on 19/4/21
I think we could all just migrate to the Squash boards.
posted on 19/4/21
comment by Admin1 (U1)
posted 5 minutes ago
I think we could all just migrate to the Squash boards.
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The bankers and club execs who thought up the ESL are all more into squash than football.
posted on 19/4/21
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 38 minutes ago
comment by JustYourAverageFan (U21016)
posted 28 seconds ago
Fans will still continue to support their clubs beyond this, I doubt we will all switch our Tele's off forever now because clubs have made an ethically poor decision with financial benefits. That's the modern day in many cases.
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I'm really not sure I will. I want to care about Man Utd, but if they're no longer part of a structure that involves promotion and relegation, that sees the possibility of meticulously building towards the hope of glory, I just don't think it will mean anything anymore.
I know that's the reality of sports in the US. I know their fans care about their teams. But ultimately it's more entertainment and less sport if you do it that way, and you can't do away with a century of tradition and community without breaking something.
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It is basically the clubs' version of the Champions League, that's ultimately what they want. UEFA won't do it that way so they've said they will set up on their own. You still win something come the end of it and they can't relegate themselves otherwise who comes in to keep the league going because there are not many clubs who have the same finances as those 12 founding clubs for instance.
Morally it is wrong for the heritage of the sport, but that's the direction the sport has been moving in for 30 years. There is no loyalty now unless you get paid for it in a loyalty bonus these days, so this isn't really a surprise. There is still a competitive factor, there's no relegation in World Cup qualifying groups for instance in Europe, you just finish bottom or qualify at the top, that's essentially all this is. The World Cup qualifiers don't make football any less of a sport that way.
posted on 19/4/21
I don't get your analogy, JustYourAverageFan.
This would be like having a World Cup in which the richest 12 countries participate in the finals every time without needing to qualify. It's true that most of them qualify most of the time as it is, but there have been very few WCs where one of the big football nations hasn't been absent.
posted on 19/4/21
My point was in the principle of it doesn't make it less competitive or less of a sport just because some clubs, who basically own the league, can't get relegated as they are still battling to win something at the end of the day.
Admittedly, for those who enter the league through 5 spots may feel aggrieved depending on how the relegation works.
posted on 19/4/21
Of course it's less competitive if you can't be relegated. United have underperformed over the last few years and rightly been punished in the meritocracy of sport by failing to qualify for the CL on several occasions. We'll now have a situation where challenging clubs like Leicester that (overcoming the structural commercial advantages the big clubs already possess) manage to outperform us either don't have an opportunity to compete at all or are invited to do so on an unequal basis, because they will be relegated from the ESL if they don't achieve success, while we can't be, and of course the financial gulf between us and non-members only grows. There's an element of competition within ESL but there's no way a closed shop presents a sporting ecosystem that's anything other than less competitive.
posted on 19/4/21
There are other sports
basketball
baseball
american football
boxing
mma
pro wrestling
lots to discuss