Bolton have 14 days. I don't get that. What difference will a further 2 weeks make when the same situation's been going on for months? I guess Bolton's games have actually been going ahead.
Bolton have 14 days. I don't get that. What difference will a further 2 weeks make when the same situation's been going on for months? I guess Bolton's games have actually been going ahead.
Bury and Bolton should do a merger. How many shit teams does the outskirts of Manchester need? They could be called Burton (fuck Burton Albion we force them to merge with Derby).
No room for all this grass roots shit in the BT Sports Era.
Southend having to merge with West Ham though
Football lives and dies on money-grabbing immorality, if people really think clubs are community clubs then why do they burn all their money paying passers-by to play football for the first team.
Clubs fall into the hands of people like Steve Dale et al because no sensible businessman would ever, ever buy a football club. They are just money-burning pits.
A lad in the office asked why governments are so ready to bail out banks but not football clubs. I felt too dumbfounded to respond.
As most times when these sort of things come around I have little sympathy. You know your gate receipts, therefore you know what you have to play with. Don’t fill your squad with overpaid (presumably shit in these cases) and you won’t go under.
At the end of the day the system is still the issue. He was allowed to buy a club Known to be in trouble for a pound while having to offer no proof that he had money that would actually solve those issues.
He didn’t overspend on players he just didn’t do anything.
Whoever it was (Wilson, maybe) on Football Weekly the other day was saying that the EFL's checks for Dale when he bought Bury were essentially, "You got money then, yeah?" "Well I've got a line of credit." "Bangin', job done."
If that's the case then maybe they should bail the club out for letting them be bought by a disinterested charlatan.
Responded to a facebook post about it that basically said "Why doesn't United/City bail them out?!" with "Well beyond it being illegal I mean imagine if that became the norm, almost every lower league club would go tits up trying to cheat the system and get up the pyramid."
To which he responded "Yea but Bayern bailed out Dortmund once."
Aye, a club that has claimed to have the highest attendance average in world football vs. the 13th most important football club in the greater Manchester county area with a capacity of approx 11,000.
Mind you I don't know the details of the Bayern Dortmund thing very much but it just seemed like such an odd response I had no idea how to even respond.
It was all down to Day, the chairman before Dale. His 'businesses' basically lived on the spend big now, hope it pays off later kinda bulllshit that drives most things into the ground. He leveraged multiple loans against the club (with particular, fairly large sums of it going to a dodgy as fuck account for 'leveraging fees') to help his other business, then used whatever the fuck was left over to go batshit on wages. Leon fucking Clarke on about 9 grand a week in League Two, along with renting City's old training ground for no apparent reason. Then, obviously, Bury get about 7-10k max per match, unless its a rival. £20-25 a ticket. Running costs, wages, maintenance etc means they were fucked from the second he appeared.
His businesses collapsed, surprisingly, and he fucked off leaving the club with a fair few million of debt. Dale came in, lolled to fuck at the state of it, appointed Ryan Lowe (club legend) as manager who turned out to be actually fucking good at lower league management and got them promoted. Sold a couple of youngsters for decent sums to PL clubs, sold off Clarke to Sunderland for about 500k, and the debt just hoovered it all up. Dale himself is a shit tier businessman, 42 of his 51 companies have been lioquidated. He had fuck all in cash, and it crashed and burned.
The EFL has to be held accountable for their process of determining owners, which is basically 'do you have money matey?' - 'aye sure defo pal' - 'its yours lol', but the club has been fucked ever since Day took over. It was inevitable.
I read that the "42 of his 51 companies have been liquidated" stat is a bit misleading since his whole thing is buying companies on their last legs and trying to turn them round, and it's expected you'd only be successful every now and then.
I don't know if that's true, obviously
Most companies are liquidated for thoroughly normal/mundane reasons - ie they are short-term vehicles for achieving some purpose or other.
Hooray for Bolton.
I'm a twit
I'm not sure how you would even craft a 'fit and proper person' test that didn't just limit takeovers to people with an actual pile of cash waiting. And they tend to be people who aren't fit and proper at all beyond their ability to pay.
Would have been fun to see Bolton go too but one out of two isn't bad.
Champions League draw shaping up nicely.
Madrid v PSG
Spurs v Bayern
Barca v Dortmund.
Barca, Dortmund and Inter
There are so many preconditions in this draw. Country clash protection, day of the week protection, blue/red protection (side of the draw), conflict protection... Probably more.
Some of these groups are great on paper.
Porto being out has meant that Man City slot into the boring group that no one cares about.
Are both Red Bull teams allowed in one group?
I see both RB Leipzig and RB Salzburg are in the draw. Wasn't there a UEFA rule about clubs with the same owners not being allowed to compete in the same competition?
They could have gone into the same group. I don't think that should really be allowed.
1. Messi
2. Van Dijk
3. Ronaldo
According to the leaks.
Considering the possibilities there were before the draw, that's gone quite well for all English teams I think.
Group A: PSG, Real Madrid, Brugge, Galatasaray
Group B: Bayern, Tottenham, Olympiakos, Red Star Belgrade
Group C: Man City, Shakhtar Donetsk, Zagreb, Atalanta
Group D: Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Lokomotiv
Group E: Liverpool, Napoli, Salzburg, Genk
Group F: Barcelona, Dortmund, Inter Milan, Slavia Prague
Group G: Zenit, Benfica, Lyon, Leipzig
Group H: Chelsea, Ajax, Valencia, Lille
The teams seriously need to be cut back in that.
Barring the last 3 groups that's a complete waste of everyone's time.
Yes Virgil!
Ballon d'Or next.
Big Virgil
Lads
I fully agree Eric.
Edit: Lol
He's like an old computer attempting to write poetry.
It probably sounds much nicer in French.
I wouldn't chuck out Chelsea, Leverkusen or Benfica that easily.
Think we'll get out of that personally. Ajax won't be the same now and Valencia are dogshit. We did need to avoid the bigger teams who would have us for lunch, so a good draw.
Yeah, I was going to say the same. Everyone thinking that's a tough group are basing that on Ajax last season, rather than Ajax of the last 20 years, and without their two best players they're more likely to be the latter. Lille have sold their best player and are Lille, and Valencia are perennially shit (look at the way Arsenal dispatched them last season). All nice, Western European trips as well. Spurs, followed by, probably City are the toughest groups (for English teams), even though City's is a bit of a joke. I have no idea what Genk or Salzburg are like, but I tend to think they'll probably be not that good - haven't Genk lost a few players to the Premier League (Trossard and Wesley?) - I suppose Salzburg could be a banana skin if their Red Bull money has snaffled them a couple of unknown Manés, but that seems unlikely.
how is Tottenham’s group the hardest? It’s got 2 complete walkover teams in it
Red Star had a decent record in the group at home last year, even if they aren't that good. Most of the groups are packed with shite so Spurs having a 'giant' in there with them makes it hardest by default - they'll probably come second in it whereas all the others could/should win theirs. It's a fairly favourable draw for all the English teams.
Unless Chelsea are bobbins.
Seeds
Toggle Spoiler
Europa League draw is at midday. The perfect draw im looking for travelling purposes.
Roma/Lazio
APOEL (Cyrprus)
Wolves
Trabzonspor (TUR)
Potential for...
Wolfsburg
Wolves
Wolfsberger
I would like to avoid Kazakstan, Russia and Romania.
I've never been for football, but as a general holiday destination Cyprus is crap for anything but a romantic week away. One of the Germans from that pot over Cyprus all day if you're looking at it purely for the trip. Obviously for qualification purposes you take the Cypriots and put nine past them.
You've clearly never done Napa fam.