Soccer Fans: Is the transfer system flawed?

[Worthingtons]

The Transfer system is the essence of what football is about - tweaking with it is ruining the game.
Football is not something where logic is applicable - those who try and apply logic to football fail.
And Sheffield Wednesday- what a joke, i've enjoyed going to Hillsborough to see the MILLERS beat them the last two years in a row!! - there is another example of a club who tries to spend to do well, and fails!!

[Imran Siddiqui]

You can't compare the big US sports to Football (nearly typed Soccer!) when assesing (sp) why teams are dominant, we have no changing draft pick to compensate the losing teams, so the successful clubs tend to stay that way.

I think you can most of the time compare sports in terms of finance. I think all sports can learn from each other in that regard. Draft picks don't matter that much, as the finances. One thing that I have seen is that teams that don't have the money tend to be resentful of those that do. One can easily see that in what happened with the Scottish League, relating to Celtic and Glasgow Rangers.

The Transfer system is the essence of what football is about

I thought the essense was kicking a ball on a pitch and trying to score as many goals as possible while denying it to the other side .

How can a financial system be the essense of a sport? Financial systems can always change the sport remain the same, so that argument is silly.

[reds4ever]

Imran,

but at least the side that finishes bottom in NFL (or whatever) has some leverage against the top teams, they can trade draft picks for players, one good pick for a couple of lesser picks etc. The bottom clubs in Football have no backup like that

[Imran Siddiqui]

but at least the side that finishes bottom in NFL (or whatever) has some leverage against the top teams, they can trade draft picks for players, one good pick for a couple of lesser picks etc. The bottom clubs in Football have no backup like that

No, I agree. Totally... however, these smaller clubs can develop local talent, and do do so a lot of times. I have this strange feeling that the transfer system contributes to robbing these teams blind of their young talent, and they basically become farm teams to big moneyied teams while supposedly 'competing' against them.

[reds4ever]

To be honest Imran all the smaller clubs can hope for is to be well paid for their local talent. Even that is diminishing though, most of the big clubs have set up massive youth academies (to save on future transfer fees), thats where the kids want to go. Whereas a big club can take on 100 kids in the hope that 1 makes it, the little clubs can't gamble like that.

In an effort to help the small clubs,Theres a rule that any schoolboy on a clubs books must live within 50 miles (i think) of the clubs ground, it supposed to keep the young talent at their local clubs. Can you guess what the big clubs do to get around this.....? Yep, they buy the family a new house near their ground!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yikes... see, I think that is a big problem. The smaller clubs haven't a chance. While before they did, nowadays, there is too much money involved. I mean, really is there any hope that a D3 team today will be in the Premiership in 50 years? Not with the youth camps, and the smaller teams having to sell their best players.

I just think its a bloody shame is all.

It reminds me (a bit) of baseball in the 1890s. In that case, it was different. You didn't have one big league structure, but rather many different minor leagues. First it was major league teams (which at the beginning weren't that much better than some of the best minor league teams) buying up talent from the smaller minor league clubs. Later it came to those teams buying up the minor teams... and now today, every major league team owns at least 3 other teams, and minor leagues are basically slaves to the majors.

And now the major leagues are turning their attention to Japan!

I fear that with the importance of money, it may not be too long before Europe heads this way. Hopefully, for the moment, there are rules that prevent multiple ownership of teams.

[Alvaro]

Originally posted by Azazel
In spain you have strong teams in cities such as La Coruna, and Vigo, cities with much less than a million inhabitants.

I am saying that you won't expect a team from ****sfordshire to win the Premier League title.

Madrid and Barcelona are the only two cities in Spain whose population is above one million which makes your statement kind of funny.

Historically the big trio of the La Liga is Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid with the occasional Valencia (country's 3rd largest city) good season.

Celta Vigo have never qualified for the Champions League and I don't remember them ever winning the championship which, until the Depor win, has been in Madrid/Barcelona for 10 years.

In England you've had Leeds Utd, Blackburn, Norwich & Newcastle going for it before the London comeback of Arsenal. Mind you - Birmingham's Aston Villa/Birmingham City have achieved exactly feck all inspite of the grim city's massive population, double than that of Liverpool & Manchester, the football capitals of England.


As for the transfer system - it was alright. New stuff is dodgy.

[reds4ever]

Yep, we have them, they're called 'feeder clubs' the big club gets first refusal on all the smaller clubs talent, right?

The youth camps are here to stay, if you can take on 100 kids a year for 5 years, and if during those years you get 1 kid that makes it and you can sell, the academy pays for itself until it produces a true superstar.

Thats all Liverpools (I'm a fan) is doing, Owen didn't go there but Steven Gerrard did, in the mean time it just keeps churning out players in their late-teens that arn't good enough to play for Liverpool but are good enough to sell to the lower teams for enough money to keep the academy going until the next Owen or Gerrard come along....it's a risk free venture!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yep, we have them, they're called 'feeder clubs' the big club gets first refusal on all the smaller clubs talent, right?

Sounds similar enough.. and very ominious for those feeder clubs.

The youth camps are here to stay, if you can take on 100 kids a year for 5 years, and if during those years you get 1 kid that makes it and you can sell, the academy pays for itself until it produces a true superstar.

I'm not saying it isn't smart! I'm saying it might be bad for the game in the long run. How to curtail it... ehh... I'm not sure you can.

[reds4ever]

At the risk of sounding cynical, money talks, more so than ever in Football. the problem is (I think) where, years ago kids used to aspire (sp) to play for their local club, theres that much Football on TV these days, they want to play for a 'glamour' club, so they sign as schoolboys, even if they don't make it they can still be sold (maybe back to their local club!!) so the big club can poach some more youth.

[alva]

The 2 things I would like to see is
1. Using more local/national players (to make sure of the continuity of the game (and local support and interest)

2. Players staying longer with any given club instead of changing 6 times a season.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by alva
The 2 things I would like to see is
1. Using more local/national players (to make sure of the continuity of the game (and local support and interest)

We used to have a system to enforce this in England, but it was ruled illegal under European employment law. Blame Brussels.

[MikeH]

"I mean, really is there any hope that a D3 team today will be in the Premiership in 50 years?"

Yes. Fulham moved from D3 to Premiership in less than 10 years. Man City were in the second division 3 or 4 seasons ago. Brighton moved from D3 to D1 in 2 seasons (although they then struggled). Plenty of examples of that.

[FrustratedPoet]

Reading also moved from D2 to the brink of promotion to the Premiership in 2 years.

Although you can't expect a team like Hull or Carlisle to ever make it to the Premier League, it is still conceivable for many lower division clubs to work their way up over the course of a decade. It helps if they are from a big city: it wouldn't surprise me if Cardiff make the PL in the not-too-distant future, for example, and they've been knocking around the lower divisions for a long time.

[MikeH]

Yeah, I know. I didn't want to mention Reading though.