Football has gone mad and this week, it got a little madder ! Portsmouth have just got their fourth owner of the season and still do not pay salaries ! Celtic are paying Robbie Keane £10,000 per day (!) to play in the SPL, where even giants Glasgow Rangers are having huge financial problems and I have not even mentioned John Terry !
Football was so much simpler when I was a lad, teams had 16-18 players in the squad, often using just 15 in the course of a year and this at a time when there was limited protection from match officials. I knew every player in the Football League and could probably identify 90% on sight and that was common place, at least amongst fellow geeks ! Now, anyone outside of the EPL is a nobody, in my youth any professional footballer was a hero. Of course, I realise that the game has moved on and is played at a pace the old guard could not live with, at least not without changing some very bad habits ! I also have no desire to go back to the early sixties or before, when footballers were in virtually slavery, but now they have too much power , are taking too much money out of the game at the top level (with too little finding it's way down the pyramid)and there has to be a balance. Clubs selling training grounds and even stadiums to play huge salary bills in a gamble to get into, or remain in the EPL is simply crazy and feels morally wrong.
A salary cap would be fantastic in some ways , but the players and top clubs would not stand for it, all the overseas stars would be off, unless the cap was worldwide and even then clubs would find ways to abuse the system. I do not have the answer, but something has to change, or maybe I am just getting old !
Don't get me wrong, I still love the game, especially a certain team that plays in TW8, but it is the game I love and not all the crap that comes with it at present. Anyway, a huge weekend ahead, I have some very solid ideas for the domestic action and will be covering several on the blog in the next couple of days, along with a preview of the Superbowl, where some of us already have a huge position , having backed the Saints at massive odds.
Good Luck.
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