36 years, how much longer?

[Monkey Tennis]

2 hours ago, G51 said:

 

Because this is at least the fourth or fifth time this topic has come up since then.

Next week, we’ll probably get the quarterly “Do the refs favour the Old Firm” thread. Week after, possibly the monthly “All these people I don’t like are bigots” thread. 

Yes, but your earlier post indicated that the imbalance did cause you concern.  You know that it's silly and does damage, and makes the thing we invest in each week less valid and meaningful.

Surely, that's not gone away, just because you think some subsequent threads have less of a basis?  

If too, you recognise the essential injustice in how things are currently organised, you must be sympathetic to the plight of the disenfranchised who keep retreading that same old path.  No wonder the topic keeps coming up.  What do you want people to do: walk away?

Edited August 11, 2022 by Monkey Tennis

[pozbaird]

How many more years? The 2012 AllStars 4 St Johnstone 0. Kilmarnock 0 Celtic 5. The answer is not ‘X’ amount of years, the answer is never.

Of course, if only everyone, including a disillusioned fan like me, stopped being so negative, it would change.

Congratulations The Tribute Act / Celtic on your latest title. Fcuking Zzzzzzzz.

[Monkey Tennis]

23 minutes ago, pozbaird said:

How many more years? The 2012 AllStars 4 St Johnstone 0. Kilmarnock 0 Celtic 5. The answer is not ‘X’ amount of years, the answer is never.

Of course, if only everyone, including a disillusioned fan like me, stopped being so negative, it would change.

Congratulations The Tribute Act / Celtic on your latest title. Fcuking Zzzzzzzz.

Yip, the duopoly is back in full unstoppable flow now.

It's our job to pretend to give a shit about the resulting 'competition '.  I'm not up to that task.

[Dons_1988]

Typical diddies complaining it’s unfair 

[pozbaird]

11 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Yip, the duopoly is back in full unstoppable flow now.

It's our job to pretend to give a shit about the resulting 'competition '.  I'm not up to that task.

I’m not up to it either. I buy my ST and support the team, but for me, the league begins with whoever is 3rd, and ends with whoever is 12th. The top two places do not concern me, nor do St Mirren’s results against either of them. I know, 99.9% of the time, they’ll beat us. Sometimes easily, sometimes narrowly, but we’ll most likely lose. I don’t care because the clubs I consider our rivals for success will also be getting pumped by them.

I want to see us compete against everyone outwith those two, and go on a decent cup run. My opinion is that in their hearts, the supporters of every other club feel exactly the same. Aim for 3rd, and a cup.

A truly tinpot league, tinpot competition, and a two-horse race, no exceptions. Doesn’t mean I should stop supporting St Mirren though.

[Monkey Tennis]

I'm telling you, it would be fairer to allow certain teams to field additional players, or to allow some of their outfielders to use their hands, than it is to tolerate this scale of financial imbalance.  

The top league is not a competition at all in terms of who can win it.  It's a contrived illusion of sporting competition.

 

The others should require huge structural changes, or refuse to continue 'competing' with them, breaking away to form something new.  It will never happen, but with collective will, it could be done.  The fact, however, that it would mean a reduction in gross income for the non-OF sides, probably makes it a non starter.  

Distorted thinking from the victims of the imbalance, has helped to cement it.  Fans and boards need to recognise that Rangers and Celtic need the other Scottish clubs far more than those sides need the OF.  

Only revolution can ever end this 37 year run.

[Dons_1988]

9 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

I'm telling you, it would be fairer to allow certain teams to field additional players, or to allow some of their outfielders to use their hands, than it is to tolerate this scale of financial imbalance.  

The top league is not a competition at all in terms of who can win it.  It's a contrived illusion of sporting competition.

 

The others should require huge structural changes, or refuse to continue 'competing' with them, breaking away to form something new.  It will never happen, but with collective will, it could be done.  The fact, however, that it would mean a reduction in gross income for the non-OF sides, probably makes it a non starter.  

Distorted thinking from the victims of the imbalance, has helped to cement it.  Fans and boards need to recognise that Rangers and Celtic need the other Scottish clubs far more than those sides need the OF.  

Only revolution can ever end this 37 year run.

It would require some self awareness from fans of the beneficiaries and a recognition of what a farce it is. 

A quick look at the killie match thread will tell you it ain’t happening. 

[Monkey Tennis]

14 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

It would require some self awareness from fans of the beneficiaries and a recognition of what a farce it is. 

A quick look at the killie match thread will tell you it ain’t happening. 

When you say "beneficiaries" I'm assuming you mean fans of the OF clubs, themselves?

Of course there would never be a display of self awareness from them.  In my New World fantasy however, their compliance would not be required.

We'd just need the fans and boards at the other clubs to unite in common purpose.  Now I know that ain't happening either. 

Think how ludicrous our current situation is though. The entire set up is geared to enshrine and enhance the already ludicrous financial advantages these clubs enjoy.  Meanwhile, down the years they've been threatening to leave and we all know they would if someone were to have them.  Why is it tolerated?

It's the most coercive and abusive of relationships.   If clubs could act collectively, they could press for a change in current conditions.  Right now, the OF couldn't threaten to leave, because we know they'd be homeless.  The only threats would be of an 'Armageddon', 'slow lingering death' variety, and we've already seen how hollow these are.

Clubs around the country need to recognise what they're for, and start acting accordingly.  

Edited August 14, 2022 by Monkey Tennis

[pozbaird]

It’s a pretty exciting tight league race even after only three games. Fair fcuks to Motherwell, they were a crisis club after Sligo Rovers.

 

[Dons_1988]

1 minute ago, Monkey Tennis said:

When you say "beneficiaries" I'm assuming you mean fans of the OF clubs, themselves?

Of course there would never be a display of self awareness from them.  In my New World fantasy however, their compliance would not be required.

We'd just need the fans and boards at the other clubs to unite in common purpose.  Now I know that ain't happening either. 

Think how ludicrous our current situation is though. The entire set up is geared to enshrine and enhance the already ludicrous financial advantages these clubs enjoy.  Meanwhile, down the years they've been threatening to leave and we all know they would it someone were to have them.  Why is it tolerated?

It's the most coercive and abusive of relationships.   If clubs could act collectively, they could press for a change in current conditions.  Right now, the OF couldn't threaten to leave, because we know they'd be homeless.  The only threats would be of an 'Armageddon', 'slow lingering death' variety, and we've already seen how hollow these are.

Clubs around the country need to recognise what they're for, and start acting accordingly.  

The problem is the other clubs have been entirely complicit in this. They’ve accepted the need to take a smaller slice of a bigger pie to cover their costs and/or satisfy shareholders. It wasn’t so long ago we had clubs crying about the fixture list because they had one less home fixture with one of the OF pre split. That’s the mentality. 

If the clubs turned round tomorrow and started a revolt over the state of the game the OF, with some vindication, would turn round and say ‘you endorsed all of this, guys’. 

We’re about to lock ourselves into a tv deal until 2029, a deal which is entirely predicated on marketing two clubs. It’s all thoroughly depressing. 

[Monkey Tennis]

Just now, Dons_1988 said:

The problem is the other clubs have been entirely complicit in this. They’ve accepted the need to take a smaller slice of a bigger pie to cover their costs and/or satisfy shareholders. It wasn’t so long ago we had clubs crying about the fixture list because they had one less home fixture with one of the OF pre split. That’s the mentality. 

If the clubs turned round tomorrow and started a revolt over the state of the game the OF, with some vindication, would turn round and say ‘you endorsed all of this, guys’. 

We’re about to lock ourselves into a tv deal until 2029, a deal which is entirely predicated on marketing two clubs. It’s all thoroughly depressing. 

You're absolutely right.

That's what I was meaning when I said "Distorted thinking from the victims of the imbalance, has helped to cement it".

There's an irony when we all shout down the idiots for saying the diddy sides just need to do better.  In a way they're right, but not in the way they just magically mean on the park.

Anyway, let the OF say that. So what?  Clubs can change their stances.

Of course it's going to stay this way for the foreseeable future.  The point is though that it doesn't absolutely have to.  

[EpicMike]

For a team other than the OF to win the league, one of the following would have to happen;

• The way money is distributed would have to be substantially overhauled in a way where large amounts of wealth are funnelled from Rangers and Celtic to the other sides.
• A banter years scenario for both Rangers and Celtic, not just one of them.
• Rangers and Celtic piss off to another league.

Neither of those things are going to happen anytime soon.

For the people who point to Leicester as an example of a smaller team at a financial disadvantage triumphing over the richer clubs, Leicester's average salary is about 50% of Man City's. Aberdeen and Hearts is about 15% of Celtic's. That gulf is not being bridged.

[Grangemouth Bairn]

4 hours ago, pozbaird said:

It’s a pretty exciting tight league race even after only three games. Fair fcuks to Motherwell, they were a crisis club after Sligo Rovers.

 

After week 1, Celtic, Rangers and Hearts occupied the top 3 positions and still do after week 3. The likelihood is they will occupy the top 3 slots at the end of the season. There cannot be any other league in the world where that happens. It’s boring, predictable pish.

 

[Forever_blueco]

What happened to the Celtic Kilmarnock thread ?

[Dons_1988]

7 minutes ago, Forever_blueco said:

What happened to the Celtic Kilmarnock thread ?

Not sure. I went to bed and clearly they couldn’t be trusted to keep it civil. 

[TheScarf]

When I last read it it was getting a bit religious-y.  Daft really give probably half of the Celtic fans at the game yesterday were there purely as they knew their team would win, not because of their religion.  

[ahemps]

On 14/08/2022 at 20:16, EpicMike said:

For a team other than the OF to win the league, one of the following would have to happen;

• The way money is distributed would have to be substantially overhauled in a way where large amounts of wealth are funnelled from Rangers and Celtic to the other sides.
• A banter years scenario for both Rangers and Celtic, not just one of them.
• Rangers and Celtic piss off to another league.

Neither of those things are going to happen anytime soon.

For the people who point to Leicester as an example of a smaller team at a financial disadvantage triumphing over the richer clubs, Leicester's average salary is about 50% of Man City's. Aberdeen and Hearts is about 15% of Celtic's. That gulf is not being bridged.

Hopefully one of these things will hopefully happen over the next 20years or so.

This scenario used to really only be an issue for Scotland, Portugal and Netherlands. Every other country had fairly competitive leagues but now they are all becoming closed shops like ours, in fact it is extremely rare to find a league where it is openly competitive with 2-4 genuine contenders and that they 2-4 teams vary from year to year. England probably being the most competitive and not coincidentally being the most marketable. 

The Bundesliga and Bayern are considering a playoff to decide the champions.

Belgium and Netherlands are considering a cross border league.

The super league has not went away and in my view a super league would solve more problems than it would cause as the UEFA competitions would become far less lucrative and the huge payments the teams from smaller countries receive would reduce which is totally distorting these leagues.

One thing for absolute certain is that Scotland will not be leaders in finding a way to make football more competitive. We will only see a  benefit from changes happening elsewhere.

Edited August 16, 2022 by ahemps

[TheScarf]

My mum, a The Caley fan but admits she doesn't know a great deal about football outwith that wonderful club, was even saying yesterday it's boring them gubbing teams every week and that they shouldn't be playing in Scottish football.

[wastecoatwilly]

Having a cull is the only answer.

[kennie makevin]

1 minute ago, wastecoatwilly said:

Having a cull is the only answer.

Precisely...we have two too many clubs in this country.