How to fix football?

[Medway Blue]

I don’t think anybody can be any doubt whatsoever that the COVID-19 situation has shown how utterly broken and in crisis Football is.

I think it’s also clear that out of this horrible situation could come the greatest opportunity that football, both in this country and at large, has ever been given to conduct a deep and urgent review and rebuild. An opportunity that if squandered, should lead to the sacking and public flogging of all top decision-makers across the sport. Perhaps at some point soon those decision-makers will realise how important an opportunity this is and switch their full attention and energy to it instead of wasting time trying to find a way to complete this tainted joke of a season, but we live in hope.

The question is - what would you do to fix it?

I’ve seen some good points and ideas put forward on several different threads, so this might cover some ground that has already been gone over but good to have it in one thread maybe.

A lot of the points and ideas that I have seen mentioned have related to changes to league structures and season calendars. I expect that to be part of the discussion but I think we can all agree that issues run deeper than that.

So what needs to be fixed and how should it be approached?

 

[camden shrimper]

Ability to opt out of cup tournaments without penalty, yes, I know some clubs would take advantage of this for the wrong reasons but it'll help clubs who need a bigger audience to make the match financially viable. Side note - yes it may deny blooding in some of the youngsters but it could equally end up with them playing league games.

Midweek games limited to a geographical distance away.

Fans expectations being lowered, only one team can win the league so fans shouldn't think their team is an abject failure if they don't.

League Cup semi finals one legged

FA cup games if either team opt for a replay then the option is there for a draw so smaller teams get their big day out

Those teams who come out of the champions league don't go into the europa, cheapens it

Get rid of VAR unless you are going to change the offside rule

For new owners coming in they have to have collateral to the value of at least half a season

 

[OldBlueLady]

Salary caps for me, across the divisions. The amount of money paid at the top is obscene. Also a cap of some kind on prices paid for youngsters, the £15 million Man U paid for a 16 year old from Birmingham is ridiculous.

I'd also like to see a limit on the number of overseas players, nothing too small, but 50% of your team to be UK born to help nurture our home grown talent more.

Absolutely agree with @camden shrimper about midweek games, wherever possible, these should be within 2 hours travelling time, 3 maybe, at a push for those geographically challenged clubs.

I think clubs should be able to appeal blatantly offside goals and poor challenges by way of a video replay if there is no VAR, which the ref must view if there is an appeal - maximum of two appeals per game. Clubs all video games now, so there must be a way to right some of the terrible wrongs that seem to happen regularly.

VAR needs a lot of work, some of the decisions given have been a travesty. It should be used only to confirm if the ball goes over the goal line, bad challenges and to determine genuine offside.

 

[Somerset Ex-TTB]

Salary caps all the way. VAR is ok, it’s the way it’s been implemented that’s wrong.

Scrap parachute payments. Rewarding failure.

 

[Mad Cyril]

Football is a short career and most players in the bottom two divisions don't get paid huge salaries anyway.

 

[camden shrimper]

Salary caps for me, across the divisions. The amount of money paid at the top is obscene. Also a cap of some kind on prices paid for youngsters, the £15 million Man U paid for a 16 year old from Birmingham is ridiculous.

I'd also like to see a limit on the number of overseas players, nothing too small, but 50% of your team to be UK born to help nurture our home grown talent more.

Absolutely agree with @camden shrimper about midweek games, wherever possible, these should be within 2 hours travelling time, 3 maybe, at a push for those geographically challenged clubs.

I think clubs should be able to appeal blatantly offside goals and poor challenges by way of a video replay if there is no VAR, which the ref must view if there is an appeal - maximum of two appeals per game. Clubs all video games now, so there must be a way to right some of the terrible wrongs that seem to happen regularly.

VAR needs a lot of work, some of the decisions given have been a travesty. It should be used only to confirm if the ball goes over the goal line, bad challenges and to determine genuine offside.

There's something about salary caps that I'm yet to be convinced about, I think tighter restrictions on it being a percentage of genuine profit rather than a uniform figure across the league works though.

Equally Birmingham shouldn't be denied a pay day off that magnitude, that's open to bigger clubs taking advantage. I already feel the divide between big and small clubs will widen post pandemic as the smaller clubs will be desperate for income and will under value to make sales.

Midweek exceptions for the cup, might even add back in some of the magic that the TV companies insist hasn't dissipated over the years.

 

[ESG]

Salary caps for me, across the divisions. The amount of money paid at the top is obscene. Also a cap of some kind on prices paid for youngsters, the £15 million Man U paid for a 16 year old from Birmingham is ridiculous.

I'd also like to see a limit on the number of overseas players, nothing too small, but 50% of your team to be UK born to help nurture our home grown talent more.

Absolutely agree with @camden shrimper about midweek games, wherever possible, these should be within 2 hours travelling time, 3 maybe, at a push for those geographically challenged clubs.

I think clubs should be able to appeal blatantly offside goals and poor challenges by way of a video replay if there is no VAR, which the ref must view if there is an appeal - maximum of two appeals per game. Clubs all video games now, so there must be a way to right some of the terrible wrongs that seem to happen regularly.

VAR needs a lot of work, some of the decisions given have been a travesty. It should be used only to confirm if the ball goes over the goal line, bad challenges and to determine genuine offside.

Well said OBL.

Especially agree on the obscenity of Premiership wages, a reduction of Jonny foreigner and midweek games more travel freindly.

I did note that Harry Kane is going to sponsor all of Leyton Orient kits next season with local charities on the shirts. Small change for him but at least he has made a gesture.

 

[Mad Cyril]

I did note that Harry Kane is going to sponsor all of Leyton Orient kits next season with local charities on the shirts. Small change for him but at least he has made a gesture.

I am sure many SZoners have also made gestures towards Leyton Orient but they don't make a big deal about it.

 

[Lambs Beret]

I'd have an American style team wage system, so capped as a total but wages to individual people would not be capped. The caps run across the entire organisation and for football in this country I'd tier it so you you get more cap space in the Premier League than you would in League 2 etc..

League Cup can go, Football League Trophy can go, FA Cup semi finals back to neutral venues. I'd massively up the prize money in the FA Cup and scrap replays at every round.

The other thing I'd do is disband the EFL, totally get rid of it. I'd give the Championship to the Premier League and make it a 20 team division. League 1 and 2 would come under the remit of the National League and we could have a 4 division system with them. Time and time again the National League have shown how they are actually willing to regulate the divisions and clubs under their control.
You could also have a trophy, be it the FA Trophy or a competition to replace the Football League Trophy (checkatrade) across the 4 divisions.

The obvious problem with my last suggestion is Southend, would, under the current running of the club never be allowed in the National League! There'd be others as well that would have to shape up pretty quick or find themselves in county divisions.

 

[RobM]

On a relatively trivial note, my ideas.

1. Change the penalty law so it's the same as in a shoot-out with regard to the kick itself i.e. score it - goal, miss it (however) then restart with a goal kick. It'd stop all the encroaching which is never enforced anyway.

2. Salary cap I agree with, put excess money into a fund for re-educating/training players for a new career when football ends for them, and into a pension fund for their later years. I can't imagine a Macclesfield player (for example) having much financial security to look forward to.

3. Sort the fixtures out! Carlisle away on a Tuesday night, Orient on a Saturday is daft! Swap them round!

4. You'll like this, read out the away team so we can actually hear it! It's always triple speed and mumbled! In fact - treat away supporters better, full stop.

There! Sorted!

 

[JIMSDAD]

I would cut the Premiership loose. Let them go play in Europe with their teams made up mostly of imports.
Of the remaining leagues, go back to calling them Div.1-4, with the inclusion of the National Premier. Cap the salaries and put a limit of 4 on the number of foreign players allowed in match day squads.
I know the above is nothing but a naive dream, but it would certainly help with producing some real home grown talent.

 

[southendkid]

Whilst I think we need more domestic talent in the premier league I'm not sure a 50% cap on foreign players is the way to go, I can see that just resulting in the big 6 buying all the best English players and then sticking them on the bench when they could have been playing for a mid-table side every week. If you look at Spain's La Liga the big clubs are just as adverse to playing domestic talent as our big sides are, the difference is the smaller clubs don't have the resources to do that in Spain whilst even the relegation candidates in the Premier League are loaded.

LaLiga - Used foreign players

This statistic shows the amount of different goal scorers per team in the LaLiga in season 23/24.

www.transfermarkt.co.uk

I'm not sure what the solution is though, ideally it would be to reduce the prize and TV money clubs get so that it's more in line with the money Spanish clubs typically earn, but I'm not sure companies like Sky would allow that to happen.

 

[camden shrimper]

I'm not sure why people want a capping on the number of non English people in a team, can someone explain their rationale to me?

 

[fbm]

Salary caps for me, across the divisions. The amount of money paid at the top is obscene. Also a cap of some kind on prices paid for youngsters, the £15 million Man U paid for a 16 year old from Birmingham is ridiculous.

I'd also like to see a limit on the number of overseas players, nothing too small, but 50% of your team to be UK born to help nurture our home grown talent more.

Absolutely agree with @camden shrimper about midweek games, wherever possible, these should be within 2 hours travelling time, 3 maybe, at a push for those geographically challenged clubs.

I think clubs should be able to appeal blatantly offside goals and poor challenges by way of a video replay if there is no VAR, which the ref must view if there is an appeal - maximum of two appeals per game. Clubs all video games now, so there must be a way to right some of the terrible wrongs that seem to happen regularly.

VAR needs a lot of work, some of the decisions given have been a travesty. It should be used only to confirm if the ball goes over the goal line, bad challenges and to determine genuine offside.

Certainly something needs to be done about the money all at the top... not sure that capping the transfer fees for the kids is the right thing though, that's a lifeline for the smaller clubs. Also, the rationale I think over the fixtures used to be that if it was a long way away, there wouldn't be appreciably more people there on a Saturday than on a Tuesday, whereas a local game on a Saturday would attract a lot more people than on a Tuesday.

But I think regionalisation again may be the way to go, certainly with the lower leagues. Re video replays, I've certainly been an advocate in the past of the "challenge" method.

However - and I really don't know how we get to this point - what I'd really like to see is two things - 1) a complete cessation of players trying to con the ref (the trouble is that it apparently only seems to be an issue here, not overseas, where it's seen as "part of the game", a bit like a winger selling a defender a glorious dummy and leaving him flat on his arse), and 2) referees communicating better and having additional assistants, mainly with the aim of getting the right decision rather than what appears to be the current emphasis that the referee must be right and they cannot be questioned.

Finally, VAR was brought in to help and it has generally done anything but. It only takes away, never gives. For instance, a player runs through, the ref blows for offside and the game stops. Where's his VAR? If he wasn't offside, he would have probably scored. That's just a casualty of this system.

 

[BriggBlue]

Football is a short career and most players in the bottom two divisions don't get paid huge salaries anyway.

I've never quite got this argument, all professional sports are short lived in fact many aspirational careers are look at the music industry or actors, only the best get well rewarded.

Why should a bang average L2 player get much more than the national average wage? if their career is that short then they can use their second career making more money. it would also cut down on the number of fading 'stars' out for one last payday.

 

[Zeuss]

I'm not sure why people want a capping on the number of non English people in a team, can someone explain their rationale to me?

I could but it’s better that I don’t.Suffice to say it has nothing to do with wishing to watch higher standard,more entertaining football .

 

[Special Blue]

I've never quite got this argument, all professional sports are short lived in fact many aspirational careers are look at the music industry or actors, only the best get well rewarded.

Why should a bang average L2 player get much more than the national average wage? if their career is that short then they can use their second career making more money. it would also cut down on the number of fading 'stars' out for one last payday.

You say that but a lot of footballers have been tapped up at a young age and have nothing to fall back on! I have worked with people doing trade apprenticeships from the bigger clubs but that is quite rare!

 

[Massimo Giovanni]

The problem is wider than football and stems from a number of things.
Tax, if an owner buys Manure, gets a huge debt, charges the club over the odds interest to guarantee a big yearly earner, then has the books show little profit (debt serviced!) and by doing so pays small tax, especially if the big clubs slosh the transfer fees around between them a d write that off against profit too. These rich big money owners know how to work it and have clever people cooking the books.
Oversees, non UK, players weaken the home nation's sides, especially Scotland, don't help the idea of Academies, limited loyalty in many cases, sell the huge clubs overseas widening the gaps, boost Sky TV money as wider audience interest growing the problem.
Massive inequality, as in general society, with rich getting richer etc and those clubs that reach and extend themselves can become financially devastated like Bolton and Pompey, or moribund with the parachute money like the Mackams.
Premiership needs to be apart from real football and EFL needs to look to it's own welfare with it's own measures like wage caps, midweek games to be local, better treatment of away fans, separate ground crowd regulations, more standing, better hospitality,
VAR use it, time limits on decisions, clear offsides only, mic up the refs, big screen re caps showing and explaining decisions with transparency so paying fans at match know what happened and why.
Use 4th official more, if he or she sees something then rules are rules.
Better pre match entertainment and even half time and post game entertainment such as Yanks do in Grid Iron.

 

[southendkid]

Finally, VAR was brought in to help and it has generally done anything but. It only takes away, never gives. For instance, a player runs through, the ref blows for offside and the game stops. Where's his VAR? If he wasn't offside, he would have probably scored. That's just a casualty of this system.

The premier league actually rules that if you score after the lino flags for offside then the goal still counts, Arsenal scored from a goal that was initially flagged for offside and the United defenders clearly stopped because of it, but the goal was given after a review. If a ref blows to stop play when a player is through on goal just because the flag is up then he's messed up, he's supposed to wait to see what happened in case the lino is wrong (you can see the ref is about to blow before the ball goes in the net before remembering the new rules).

 

[fbm]

The premier league actually rules that if you score after the lino flags for offside then the goal still counts, Arsenal scored from a goal that was initially flagged for offside and the United defenders clearly stopped because of it, but the goal was given after a review. If a ref blows to stop play when a player is through on goal just because the flag is up then he's messed up, he's supposed to wait to see what happened in case the lino is wrong (you can see the ref is about to blow before the ball goes in the net before remembering the new rules).

But what about where the game stops and it shouldn't have done? VAR retrospectively goes over everything and there have been plenty of goals disallowed because a ball has brushed a players sleeve or his little toe was offside.

My point is that if a wrong decision is made and it clearly stops the game before an obvious goalscoring opportunity arose, there's no VAR for that. It rules out more than it benefits.